Recording analog video (with USB frame grabber device)

[Christian Jaeger]

Hi

We're trying to record analog video using a device bought from LIDL [1],
using the instructions from the referenced page made it work without
problems in the sense that mplayer can show the video, VLC can show video
and sound, and some other programs also can show video and/or sound.
(There's quite a horrible 50Hz hum on the audio, though, depending on how
the cables are laid out. Well, quality.)

[1]
http://linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/SilverCrest_USB_2.0_Video_Grabber_SVG_2.0_A2

But the big question now is how to actually get the video usefully
captured. VLC is the only program that I managed to get both video and
audio through, and does have a menu entry to select interlacing but
sometimes this entry is greyed out, sometimes it can be selected but just
prints an error message to stderr and does nothing else. mplayer can show
the video and allows to deinterlace it, but I haven't managed to point it
to the correct audio input device. ffmpeg as shown at [2] does record both
video and sound, *but* at about 2 seconds into the recorded video, the
video skips, and from thereon video and sound are not in sync anymore.
Also, I'd prefer some video format that allows me to view the recorded file
from the beginning even if recording isn't finished yet, which is not the
case with that mp4 one. I've also tried almost a dozen GUI/command line
programs but haven't managed to get both video and audio working or there
were other issues. (For example luvcview exits with an error message that
it cannot set the resolution, which makes sense as the device is hard coded
to the VGA(?) resolution of video, of course (well, lines are predefined;
there's no hard reason to fix dots/line but whatever). Also, alsamixer
reveals that the audio part doesn't allow to set the volume, this also
makes sense.)

[2] http://pastie.org/8441479 (ffmpeg -threads 2 -f alsa -i hw:1,0 -f
video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 myvid.mp4)

I've asked on IRC #ffmpeg but was told that this version of ffmpeg was
forked and not supported by the inhabitants of #ffmpeg.

What programs are you using for recording, and subsequent cutting of analog
video? It would be nice to do both in the same program, but using separate
programs is ok, too.

Thanks,
Christian.
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