Can I capture from analog camcorder direct to DVD burn?

gctaylor · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 40

Are there GUI Linux tools that will allow me to capture from an analog
camcorder (probably using an Hauppauge PVR-350 or PVR-500 card) and burn
directly to DVD while automatically adding chapters either at regular intervals
or by sensing a new recording session from the tape?

I've got an old analog camcorder with ~30 or so tapes that I want to convert to
DVD. My CPU hardware is old (Pentium III - 1 Ghz) so I'll probably be
purchasing one of the aforementioned Hauppauage cards to convert to digital
format but I don't want to edit any of the video, I just want to get it to DVD
with minimal fuss and a shallow learning curve.

I was wondering if MythTV could do this or some other tool? I -think- I'd
rather spend my time setting up a MythTV box than trying to figure out the ins
and outs of all the translation of video formats. I've seen the forum topic
"Howto author AVI->DVD with menus using Linux only !" and it looks a bit
complicated for my simple needs.

If necessary I could save it to hard disk and then burn it. Is there a GUI
tool that I can do this easily with? I'm not sure that's a good idea either
because I'm using ReiserFS v3 and according to the MythTV docs ReiserFS doesn't
do as well with large files like a two hour tape I'll be capturing from would create.

I'm not even sure which capture card to get but I think the Hauppauge cards
will do the conversion with hardware on the card instead of my slow CPU.

FWIW I don't mind using command line, but for things which I'm clueless, like this, it seems a GUI would be easier.

I'm pretty confused with what/how to do all this.

Thanks,
Gary

My_World · Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 8:05 pm Post subject:

I use Kino for all my camcorder authoring needs. It is not as powerfull as all the other offerings but it is simple and straight-forward.

It can do all the things you want done.

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"Ubuntu" - an African word meaning "Gentoo is too hard for me".

gctaylor · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 40

Thanks for the reply.

I was looking at Kino, but it seemed like it could only capture from firewire. I still have to figure out how to get the video from my camcorder with (what I think is called) RCA/Composite connectors to the PC.

Gary

yabbadabbadont · Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2006 2:01 am Post subject:

If you use the RCA/composite connectors, then they will need to be fed into a tv tuner card, just like you would do when hooking it up to a VCR or TV. Then you would have to use an application to record the signal from the tuner card. I think kino can do that too.
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