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Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

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shabbythought
Posts: 91
Joined: 2006-11-30 07:54

Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#1 Post by shabbythought »

In a previous post I mentioned I planned to buy a Canopus ADVC 55 VHS to DV capture card (http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=48224).

Now I have done that. And, it works like a charm using my 64-bit Debian Sid and Kdenlive! All my VHS will be saved for the future!!!

A short HowTo:

Plug in a SCART to composite adapter into the "TV out" on the VHS player.

Plug in the three red/white/yellow composite RCA cables into the adapter and into Canopus ADVC 55.

Plug in a Firewire cable into the Canopus ADVC 55 and your Firewire card on your computer.

Start the computer, start Kdenlive and click the connect button.

Start the VHS player and click Play.

In Kdenlive and click the Record button, as fast as you can.

Wait until tape is finished. Now you have a dv-file which is about 13GB per hour, so make sure you have the space on the hard drive.

The dv file should then be stored as such, as the master backup. But, it is now easily converted to any other format.

I have too many home made movies to let them rot away as VHS.

My previous attempt with the USB dongle only produces precompressed MPEG2 files which would have sucked.

These DV files are uncompressed, take up a huge space, cannot be played as such, but! They are the raw material for any other format. If I'd like, can using Kdenlive readily make it FullHD with a few clicks.

Oh, and it works with vinyl records too!!! Then just use Audacity to edit them later.

Don't buy a cheap USB dongle, buy a Canopus ADVC 55 or something similar. The quality is crisp!!!
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stevepusser
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Re: Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#2 Post by stevepusser »

Can't be played as such? I thought a recent mplayer could play darn near anything. I can even play back SN40 security cam avi files in it now.

Edit: Whoops, seems that mplayer support is under development...
MX Linux packager and developer

shabbythought
Posts: 91
Joined: 2006-11-30 07:54

Re: Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#3 Post by shabbythought »

stevepusser wrote:Can't be played as such? I thought a recent mplayer could play darn near anything. I can even play back SN40 security cam avi files in it now.

Edit: Whoops, seems that mplayer support is under development...
Well, on a computer you are right, but I am not sure many dedicated home digital video players can manage it.

Anyhow, it feels really good to be on my way here, after years of waiting to get started.


.
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jhawkins
Posts: 2
Joined: 2014-12-23 17:44

Re: Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#4 Post by jhawkins »

Hi, I am bumping this topic because I can't get my ADVC-55 to work. The problem seems to be quite low level.

Here is my testlibraw output:

Code: Select all

$ testlibraw
successfully got handle
current generation number: 0
1 card found

card 0, name: /dev/fw1
2 nodes on bus, local ID is 1, IRM is 1

  - doing transactions with custom tag handler
    read from node 0... completed with value 0x32600404
    read from node 1... failed: Resource temporarily unavailable

  - using standard tag handler and synchronous calls
    read from node 0... completed with value 0x32600404
    read from node 1... failed with error: Resource temporarily unavailable

  - testing FCP monitoring on local node

  - topology map: raw1394_read failed with error: Resource temporarily unavailable

  - testing config rom
    get_config_rom returned -1, romsize -530284288, rom_version 49
    here are the first 10 quadlets:
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    0x00000000
    update_config_rom returned -1

  - cycle timer: 71 seconds, 2130 cycles, 338 sub-cycles
    local time: 1419357895613311 us = Tue Dec 23 18:04:55 2014

  - posting 0xdeadbeef as an echo request
    polling for leftover messages
    raw1394_loop_iterate() returned 0xdeadbeef
I'm guessing that the "Resource temporarily unavailable" is a problem.

Here is the lspci line for the FireWire card:

Code: Select all

02:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6315 Series Firewire Controller (rev 01)
Here is the uname output:

Code: Select all

$ uname -a
Linux denkent 3.2.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.2.63-2+deb7u2 x86_64 GNU/Linux
My ADVC-55 is plugged in but the status light is always red. Could the above issues be due to low power? I have ordered an external power supply for the ADVC-55 but it hasn't arrived yet.

In case the resource unavailability didn't matter, I tried a couple of "end user" programs. Neither dvgrab nor kedenlive are able to get input from the ADVC-55.

Cheers, Jim

andre@home
Posts: 398
Joined: 2011-10-02 08:00

Re: Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#5 Post by andre@home »

When I get 1 hr video high quality from my Panasonic camera (tape), that's 13 GB (!) ... ... so I agree a lot of simple players will not paly that fluently....
I need to compress it with a factor of ~4 to get it on a normal DVD....
Maybe a good Blue Ray player will do the job, but I never tested it.

jhawkins
Posts: 2
Joined: 2014-12-23 17:44

Re: Success story - VHS tapes to digital video using Debian

#6 Post by jhawkins »

I did some things and it seems to be fixed yay:
  • Added the external power supply.
  • Checked the SCART to video adaptor. The one I had been using seemed to be input only, meaning that the adaptor could only be fitted at the input end. I found an adaptor with a switch for input or output.
  • Ran sudo testlibraw instead of just testlibraw.
I have now been able to run dvgrab as a normal user and captured some .dv output that I was able to play with totem.

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