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Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
How to digitize analog video sources for storage and manipulation on a computer.
Once I had digital video on my computer, editing it was the next step. Broadcast 2000 (MandrakeSoft produces an RPM called bcast-2000c) is a GPLed nonlinear video editor [see “Movie Making on a Linux Box?”, LJ January 2001 and “NLE Video Editors”, LJ February 2002]. With it, one can manipulate audio and video tracks. A screenshot of Broadcast 2000 may be seen in Figure 1. SuSE has a pretty good guide to Broadcast 2000. Cinelerra, best for users competent in compiling development-quality code, can be found on SourceForge and is the up and coming successor to Broadcast 2000. Both of these tools work with the QuickTime output from xawtv.
Figure 1. Broadcast 2000 Screenshot
Now that I was able to digitize and edit my VHS tapes, it was time to encode them as VCDs. A little research revealed that VCDs contain MPEG-1 video streams and MPEG-1 layer 2 audio streams. This data, along with some simple directory information, is encoded onto a CD. More information about the VCD format, also known as the White Book specification, can be found at www.cdpage.com/Compact_Disc_Books/whitebook.html.
A package named mjpegtools does a good job of transcoding an MJPEG encoded QuickTime file into an MPEG-1 stream. Using vcdimager, a VCD image can be created from the resulting MPEG-1 stream. Finally, the VCD image can be burned to CD-R media using cdrdao. Here is how I use these tools to create a VCD on my system:
streamer -r 23.976024 -s 640x480 -f jpeg -F stereo
-i Composite1 -n ntsc -c /dev/v4l/video0
-b 64 -o foo.mov -p 2 -t 00:45:00
You may need to use a different argument with -c, which specifies the video capture device to use. Often it is /dev/video0. The -t parameter specifies how long the program should continue capturing:
lav2yuv +n -n 2 -d 3 foo.mov | yuvscaler -n n
-O VCD | mpeg2enc -n n -f 1 -r 16
-o foo_video.mpg
lav2wav +n foo.mov | mp2enc -V -o foo_audio.mp2
mplex -f 1 foo_audio.mp2 foo_video.mpg -o foo.mpg
vcdimager foo.mpg
cdrdao write --driver generic-mmc --device 0,4,0
--speed 1 videocd.cue
Replace 0,4,0 with the numbers that reference the CD writing drive on your system.
I have simplified this process with a package called qtutils, which includes a script named vcdize.
Many DVD players can play VCDs in addition to DVDs. However, some DVD players have trouble playing CD-R discs. My Phillips Magnavox DVD 825 DVD player plays the VCDs that I have burned to CD-R media fine.
Some relatively storage-space friendly alternatives other than the VCD format exist, including MPEG-2 and QuickTime using the OpenDivX and Ogg Vorbis codecs. These formats may be played with a computer using video players that use the QuickTime for Linux library such as X-Movie.
So there you have it. You should now be able to convert VHS tapes to a more convenient format using free software exclusively. The VCDs you produce will play in DVD players that support the VCD format and CD-R media. For more information on this subject, visit the home pages of the software projects I mentioned. Two very relevant mailing lists also exist: the video4linux and mjpegtools mailing lists, hosted by Red Hat and SourceForge respectively. Enjoy!
Mike Petullo is a platoon leader in the US Army, stationed in Germany. He fights C code bugs by night, has been tinkering with Linux since early in 1997 and welcomes your comments.
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KARI
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Anyone here that can help me with transcoding a pal divx to an ntsc vcd? I am using mjpegtools and transcode but there's no way I can synchronize the sound and video..
All replies greately appreciated!
George
Re: transcode pal to ntsc
Sorry it took nearly a year to reply :^}
... am having a similar problem myself. Pulled down a TeleSync of a theatrical release that was posted as a set of AVI files. This is leading me into the learning curve of transcode. Google may be your friend but transcode will get the work done for you on a linux machine. I have been referring to a number of websites and will likely finally learn the ins and outs of telecine, 3:2 pulldown, and likely a few other topics b4 the nite is out. Check out AUTHORING PC MEDIA TO DVD USING THE LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM Not my site, turned it up in a google search. Purports to be a kickstart guide to authoring DVD-R using only linux open-source tools. The stuff concerning transcode and mjpegtool's mplex applies liberally to authoring VCD. And there is some specific advice about transcoding from PAL to NTSC. Transcode has some command line options specifically geared to changing PAL content into NTSC compliant content. The Doom9 site though geared toward 32bit Windows users has lots of sound advice concerning general knowledge one needs to take into account when authoring DVD and/or VCD discs.
From the first site I mention: Encoding the movies
Know or find out what TV format you will be using.
For most of Europe & Australia, use PAL.
For America (and others?), use NTSC.
[the following command line will output NTSC regardless of the input --ed note ]
For NTSC:
transcode -i matrix.mpg -V -y mpeg -F d -Z 352x240 --export_fps 29.970 --export_asr 2 -E 48000 -b 224 -o matrix
================================================
the first option "-i matrix.mpg" defines the input ==> the file we want to make VCD compliant
the next option "-V" from the manpage ==>
apparently this sets up a condition that transcode knows about internally and w/o setting this option it is off by default
the "-y mpeg" tells transcode to use the Mpeg 1/2 export module and the immediately following "-F d" tells it to make the file DVD compliant. We'll change this to "-F v" for VCD compliant content
Now for setting up the NTSC parts
"-Z 352x240" sets up the proper size -- PAL is 352x288 for VCDs
"--export_fps 29.970" so the intermediate files we are writing have the proper frame rate for NTSC
and now let's set the aspect ratio (4/3 for US tv) with "--export_asr 2" would be "1" for 1 to 1, commonly used for stuff that will only be viewed on (S)VGA PC screens 3 for 16:9 aka widescreen format, those DVD movies with black bars top and bottom of the screen on your "typical" television
Last but certainly not least, set the audio
first we'll change "-E 48000" to "-E 44100" VCD spec expects 44.1kHz sampling. You can successfully author VCD at 48k but I think a lot of standalone players won't play them.
"-b 224" tells transcode to ensure the audio is carried in a stream with a bitrate of 224kb/s the specification standard for VCD 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0Once again, you can author outside of this but your standalone player probably won't play well.
Hope that gets somebody started in the right direction,
masked frog
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
In the examples:
lav2yuv +n -n 2 -d 3 foo.mov
lav2yuv does not have a -n or -d OPTIONS.
it does not complain about the +n but it is not in the OPTIONS either.
And where do you find out if you have divice 0,4,0 or what you have?
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
cdrdao scanbus
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
to find the device use cdrecord:
cdrecord --scanbus
Find your CD writer in the output
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Hi,
I see that many people miss a lot about software around and what you can do with digital video.
For those who are interesting in standards, just look to
vcdhelp.com
For instance PAL VCD:
Video: 1150 kbit/sec, MPEG-1 352 x 288 pixels, 25 frames/second
Audio: 224 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2
NTSC VCD:
Video: 1150 kbit/sec MPEG-1, 352 x 240 pixels, 29,97 frames/second
or 23,976 frames/second NTSC Film
Audio: 224 kbit/sec MPEG-1 Layer2
For those who want grab video for instance from digital camcoder
there is an excellent dvgrab project
http://www.schirmacher.de/arne/dvgrab/index_e.html
For those who need to convert from one digital format to another (mpeg1,2 avi, divx, xvid, QuickTime etc.) there is transcode
http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/
Welcome to free digital world,
V.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
This is not a direct reply to the aboce mail, but more a problme with using streamer to capture video
Here my problem, expres in a mail sent to the xawtv author as well:
Hello,
I read the article from http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5817 about capturing video, I did install all the required packages, but I cannot get any valuable video file from xawtv streamer program. However, I did get good video from my camescope composite output in the xawtv Xwindow, but I cannot stream it to a file :-(, audio works fine apparently .
Here I use a command partly modified from the article mentioned above (I use PAL, and default /dev/video0)
[root@localhost /usr/local/jehan/xawtv/bin]
$ ./streamer -t 0:10 -s 352x240 -r 24 -f jpeg -F stereo -b 64 -o foo.mov -p 2
neither audio nor video format specified/found
why this messge ?
$ streamer -t 0:30 -o movie.mov -f jpeg -F mono16
neither audio nor video format specified/found
again an other example from man streamer . I did use correct option though !, Am I missing something ?
Now a command that seems to do something, I get the audio but only one video Image, not a film ! :-(
[root@localhost /usr/local/jehan/xawtv/bin]
$ ./streamer -t 0:10 -s 352x240 -r 24 -o movie.avi -f mjpeg -F stereo
avi / video: MJPEG (AVI) / audio: 16bit stereo (LE)
oss: warning: got sample rate 44101 (asked for 44100)
rate: queueing frame twice (3)], a/v: -0.02s [0]
rate: queueing frame twice (2)], a/v: -0.03s [0]
v4l: waiting for a free buffer], a/v: -0.02s [0]
rate: queueing frame twice (4)
v4l: waiting for a free buffer], a/v: -0.06s [-1]
rate: queueing frame twice (4)
v4l: waiting for a free buffer], a/v: -0.06s [-1]
rate: queueing frame twice (4)
v4l: waiting for a free buffer], a/v: -0.06s [-1]
rate: queueing frame twice (3)
v4l: waiting for a free buffer], a/v: -0.03s [0]
rate: queueing frame twice (3)
....
....
$ file movie.avi
movie.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI
$ ./pia movie.avi
plays me just one image !? not a film !?. gmplayer does the same :-(.
At the same time of that lattest capture I get this in /var/log/messages:
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: V4L: Requested IOCTL (0x80585600) not
implemented
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 0
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: V4L: Requested IOCTL (0x80685600) not
implemented
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 0
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCAP
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCHAN
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCHAN
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCSCHAN: 0
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_INPUT: video channel input 1
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_NORM: PAL
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 9
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_GET_STATUS = 0x083 -> GOOD INTERLACED NLPF:312 50Hz PAL
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCSCHAN: 0
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_INPUT: video channel input 1
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_NORM: NTSC
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 9
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_GET_STATUS = 0x0aa -> BAD INTERLACED NLPF:312 50Hz NTSC
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCSCHAN: 0
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_INPUT: video channel input 1
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_NORM: SECAM
Jan 3 14:49:43 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 9
Jan 3 14:49:44 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_GET_STATUS = 0x0a2 -> BAD INTERLACED NLPF:312 50Hz SECAM
Jan 3 14:49:44 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCSCHAN: 0
Jan 3 14:49:46 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_INPUT: video channel input 1
Jan 3 14:49:46 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_NORM: AUTO 50Hz 083 PAL-B 0a3 0ab
Jan 3 14:49:47 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 9
Jan 3 14:49:47 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_GET_STATUS = 0x083 -> GOOD INTERLACED NLPF:312 50Hz PAL
Jan 3 14:49:48 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCSCHAN: 0
Jan 3 14:49:48 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_INPUT: video channel input 1
Jan 3 14:49:49 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_SET_NORM: AUTO 50Hz 083 PAL-B 0a3 0ab
Jan 3 14:49:49 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 9
Jan 3 14:49:50 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_GET_STATUS = 0x083 -> GOOD INTERLACED NLPF:312 50Hz PAL
Jan 3 14:49:50 localhost kernel: rivatv: V4L: Requested IOCTL (0x800476C6) not
implemented
Jan 3 14:49:50 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGFBUF: 0x0 (0 bits, 0 bpl) @ 0xD6000000
Jan 3 14:49:50 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGPICT
Jan 3 14:49:50 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGMBUF
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: MMAP buffer available in user space (3240 kb)
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCAP
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCAP
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: capture resolution changed: 352x240 -> 64x32
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: configured port: 64x32 -> 88x32 (88x32)
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: starting video capture
Jan 3 14:49:51 localhost kernel: rivatv: VIDIOCGCAP
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: rivatv: capture resolution changed: 64x32 -> 352x240
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: rivatv: stopping video capture
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: rivatv: configured port: 352x240 -> 360x240 (352x240)
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: rivatv: starting video capture
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: VPX32XX: DECODER_ENABLE_OUTPUT: 0
Jan 3 14:49:52 localhost kernel: rivatv: stopping video capture
There might be something wrong, but where ?
I use rivaTV module to capture
$ cat /proc/driver/rivatv
RIVA-TNT2
Model: Elsa Erazor III Pro Video
Architecture: NV4 (NV5)
Access: Control [0xd4000000-0xd4ffffff]
FB [0xd6000000-0xd7ffffff]
Interrupts: 488 out of 64822 (DMA: 0, Overlay: 1, Missing: 64333)
Device: available
VideoDecoder: vpx32xx
Tuner: unavailable
AudioDecoder: unavailable
AudioProcessor: unavailable
$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.4.18-17.8.0custom #1 Sun Dec 22 23:50:23 CET 2002
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
$ cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Linux release 8.0 (Psyche)
RPMS:
mjpegtools-1.6.0-1
xawtv-3.74-4 ( or latest xawtv-3.82 when using ./streamer ...)
$ lspci
00:0f.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 08)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV5 [Riva TnT2] (rev 15)
Thanks for your help.
BTW, is there a mailing list, forum somewhere about all this ?
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
hello,
I had problems (previous mail) with capturing video, but since I moved from v4l to V4l2, my rivaTV driver (http://rivatv.sourceforge.net/) works fine.
Now here's what happens
$ ../xawtv/bin/streamer -b 64 -t 20:00 -s 352x240 -n pal -r 25 -j 80 -o
test2.avi -f mjpeg -F stereo
then I create the video.mpg and audio.mp2 as describe in your aticle and finaly:
$ mplex -f 1 test2_audio.mp2 test2_video.mpg -V -o test2.mpg
++ WARN: [mplex] Stream e0: data will arrive too late sent(SCR)=228082800 required(DTS)=227722500
++ WARN: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 44799 frame=060710 sector=00157677
++ WARN: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 4096 frame=096836 sector=00031079
++ WARN: [mplex] Padding : sector=00001281
**ERROR: [mplex] Too many frame drops -exiting
Only after running few seconds it crashes :-( with the above error message.
Have an idea of what is wrong ? I don't know where to search , streamer,lav2yuv, yuvscaler, mpeg2enc, lav2wav, or mplex ?
I check about streamer, because in streamer -h they showed examples with -s 352x240, but for me PAL in 352x288 !? so I used the following command , and here I get :
$ ../xawtv/bin/streamer -b 64 -t 0:10 -s 352x288 -n pal -r 25 -j 80 -o
test2.avi -f mjpeg -F stereo
rate: queueing frame twice (3)], a/v: -0.07s [-1]
rate: queueing frame twice (2)], a/v: -0.06s [-1]
rate: queueing frame twice (3)], a/v: -0.05s [-1]
...
I don't know where to start to debug this .
Thanks
PS: could you also recommend me a forum/mailing list regarding these subjects.
im wondering why 640x480?
Im just wondering why you capture at 640x480? The optimal NTSC setting is 720x486 and PAL setting 720x576. And the fps should be around 25 for PAL and around 30 for NTSC. Otherwise nice article, im a "to become video editor" thats been wondering about the tools for linux, now i got some answers. Keep up the good work!
Re: im wondering why 640x480?
640x480 is a good resolution to capture a frame, assuming square pixels. Computers have square pixels.
NTSC only has 720 pixels per line if you are not assuming square pixels.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
I wonder, what software did he use for recording the video and compressing it into MJPEG in realtime ?
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
You can do that with B2000 or even xawtv
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
look @ Mainactor
http://www.mainactor.com
no for amateurs ;)
Bas
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Very interesiting article!
I have not tested streamer, but I have tested several
other grabber programs like dvr and I even tried grabbing
with Cinelerra. I compiled the source at sourceforge and
it works. I have a Nvidia based card and I use the RivaTV video4linux driver. The (1) CPU is a 1.4 Athlon. UDMA100 disks.
Still I have problems getting good size and high framerate from the card. 320x240 25 fps is good, but going to 400x300 I can only get around 12 fps. This are numbers that has been reported by people on internet haveing slower computers than mine (ok, not using rivatv, could be the bottleneck?).
I will continue to look for the bottleneck and understand the
process of grabbing in more detail. Any hints are welcomed.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
If you are using an older distribution of linux (say Redhat 6.2 or older) you may need to set certain parameters using hdparm for your system to take advantage of your ATA100 harddisk.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
I totally appreciate the clarity of your article: to the point, with relevant details on hardware and software, and with potential pitfalls.
Thanks!
I bought a Mac b/c I "got lazy" (had no time to experiment) and needed to do this kind of stuff (and it works like a charm on the Mac!). I might have continued on Linux (on this one particular project) had I read more articles like this. It might be time go back and experiment...
Joaquin
joaquintrigueros@yahoo.com
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Interesting device: http://www.dazzle.com/products/hw_bridge.html
It takes in analog video+audio and turns it into a DV stream on firewire, just as you'd get from a DV camcorder. It also goes the other way, from DV/firewire to analog out. I've not seen or used this device, but it's probably worth a look.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Dazzle DV bridge works great under linux, however, you do need dvgrab or Kino
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Were you able to get your dazzle to work on Linux?
When I first purchased mine, it came with drivers and software for microsoft but nothing for Linux. it seemed to work fine until the usb port blew out on my microsoft box.
Since then I've been checking out information on it to see how it worked on Linux.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Has someone picked up broadcast 2000? It's so far a dead product, and I've seen a lot of oddish codec issues when rendering effects.
Besides, it fails to compile under 3.1 gcc now.=(
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
AFAIK, development halted at Broadcast 2000c.
However, as the article mentions, its successor Cinelerra is very much under active development, and is shaping up rather nicely. I've used it quite a bit for audio editing.
It's a bit of a bugger to compile for dopes like me, but with a little effort, I got her up and running.
Check it out!
garethw
If I remember correctly...
NTSC is 25 frames per sec and PAL is 29.97 fps with resolution of 352x240, not 640x480.
Recording at 640x480 seems to be an overkill. The 352x240 resolution play just fine on TV. If you want better quality, which (you don't get from analogue TV, let alone VHS tape), you can use the Super VCD format which use MPEG2 compression (same as DVD) but a different resolution than DVD. DVD or VCD players will play SVCD just fine.
Re: If I remember correctly...
Sorry, but you don't remember correctly.
NTSC is 29.97 frames per second, where a frame is 640x480.
PAL is 25 frames per second, where a frame is 768x576.
Note that PAL frames are bigger, giving you more pixels, but the tradeoff is a much lower frame rate.
Note also that it is really more complicated than this. Really both standards have two interlaced "fields" per frame, and they are analog waveforms that don't really have pixels as such. And the number of pixels per line will be different if you include the whole scan line, not just the visible part, and different again if you are not using square pixels.
But if you are capturing video, grabbing two fields at a time to make a complete frame, and capturing just the visible part and using square pixels, the above numbers are correct.
I do agree that if you are just planning to make VCDs and delete the captured video files afterward, there is no need to capture at the full 640x480. But perhaps he figured that he will get better quality encoding from 640x480 input files, than he would get from his capture program's quick-and-dirty downsampling done in realtime during capture. Unless there is hardware doing the downsampling, this may be true.
Re: If I remember correctly...
Nop! pal is 25fps. Actually 50 interlaced half pictures (50hz electricity). NTSC is used in usa (60hz ~ 2*29.97) Movies should be shot with 24fps, but are actually 23.97, because it's easier to convert them to 29.97fps (3:2 telecine). Movies are played back 4% faster in europe 23.97 -> 25fps.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
I'll cut some slack - since you say up front you're not a video technician. But, to set the record straight, you mention in a few places of NTSC video being 23.976 frames/second.
This is wrong. I assume you mean 29.976 frames/second. This is NTSC 'drop-frame'. Even though NTSC video is often just called 30 frames/second (non-drop frame) - or 60 fields/sec.
Having said that - a good article! I look forward to decent video (and film) editing and effects tools on linux. The main worry is the hardware driver support (audio and video).
Cheers,
Alastair
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
actually 23fps is right , as it is 29 both are aceptable for ntcs.. 23 is mainly used in vhs (film), where 29 is mainly for broadcasting..
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
I am not a video technician either, but the way I understand it, 29.976 is NTSC from a digital source, and 23.976 is "NTSC Film".
As to how "drop frame" works into this, I have no idea, but it appears to be some sort of NTSC standard. It plays on my DVD player fine.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
23.976 is technically a 'valid' NTSC framerate, but only because it can be properly converted to 29.97 by applying 3:2 pulldown. 29.97 is what your TV shows. Your TV cannot show anything other than 29.97. 23.976 is considered 'film' framerate (movies are shot at 24fps. 23.976 is close enough, and is better suited for NTSC conversion, which is why DVD's use 23.976).
Because of this, capturing NTSC at 23.976 is not really a good idea. Not even if the source is a movie (which was shot on film at 24fps) because the NTSC source (the VHS) will always be 29.97 and you're therefore skipping frames.
The proper way to do this, would be to capture at 29.97 and then if the source was a 24fps film, you can perform IVTC (inverse telecine) which removes the 3:2 pulldown and restores the 24 frames (at a 23.976 framerate). This, you can in turn encode into a VCD using 23.976. Otherwise, stick with 29.97.
I've had great success converting VHS's to VCD and even to SVCD. Granted, the SVCD process takes a lot longer, because you'll have to apply a ton of filters on the source to get a half way decent looking image. But for VHS, VCD is good enough.
Also, using 640x480 for something destined for VCD is overkill. Since NTSC VCD is only 352x240, why capture anything more than that? Besides, you'd save a ton of diskspace this way. A one hour show using mjpeg shouldn't be more than 3-4 GB at 352x240, while the same show at 640x480 and same compression would require approx 12GB.
Still... good article. I myself have been stuck in 'Windows'-land because of a desperate shortage of usable video software for Linux. I use VirtualDub to capture, and TMPGEnc to encode. Both are available for free at www.doom9.org and VirtualDub is Open Source to boot.
Great but how do I use bc2000 with dv?
When I read the title I thought wow, cool I have a dv camcorder and run linux and have been having a tough time getting going with digital video.
I can extract video fine with dvgrab, but kino doesn't let you add soundtracks and bc2000 seems to crash with avi files.
So the second half of the article seems good, but for video production I was thinking it would explain editing video on your computer.
Has anyone got bc2000 working with dv?
Any hints on how to proceed? (maybe convert dv to quicktime???)
thanks
Re: Great but how do I use bc2000 with dv?
I have been look for ways to use my sony dv camera with linux,
I currently have ~100GB of avi onDVDRAM waiting to be edited and then converted to VCD or DVD's.
An interesting place to start is:
http://www.theorie.physik.uni-goettingen.de/~ostreich/transcode/html/dv....
(It's in english)
I haven't used it yet (only found it 5 minutes ago) but I intend to this weekend.
Re: Great but how do I use bc2000 with dv?
bc2000 and DV AFAICT is a pain - I have been unable to make it work. If you have the DV utils, you should be able to convert your DV avi stream into DV QuickTime, but I have not been able. Alternatively the mjpegtools should be able to do, again, no succes here.
Cinelerra _should_ work, but I think it requires a rather special edition of the libdv files. It is a pain too, IMHO. (Made it compile though).
You may want to test MainActor, although it is not OSS and not ideal.
Kino cvs have a project called "dvscript" that actually can do simple changes to the DV file, but it is a pain to compile, and currently does not work with the libdv cvs. (I have made and submitted a patch to fix this though).
Mads Bondo Dydensborg
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Could this technique be used to convert images from
PAL to NTSC? I am an Englishman who has moved to
NY and have a reasonable number (read 300+) videos.
Could I use this technique to play the PAL video (via
a PAL player, naturally) but record it at 23.976024 frames
and would the resulting VCD play happily as NTSC format?
Your thoughts, please!
Rgds
Stephen
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
first you'll need a PAL VCR and a power converter so you can plug it into the 110V outlet in your house, then you'll probably find that your current TV will display them fine or with some small distortion (flicker due to low refresh rate, some occasional colous shifts from hiccups in the synch of the colour burst signal, standing dot pattern from the spline fliter), if not, then yes, capturing and burning them to CD is another option. If you have a composite video out (read: NTSC) then you can just play them and tape the output too... note that you will probably lose about 16% of the height of the image, since PAL uses about 560 scanlines and NTSC uses about 480, which means the images may seem stretched, if you burn them you can of course change the aspect ratio... ;-)
Yes
I have done just the opposite for a friend this weekend. He has relatives in Thailand, which uses PAL, and had some videos he had taken using an NTSC camcorder. I played his tapes into a capture card using an NTSC vcr and then converted the captured files to PAL format MPEGs and burned VCDs from them. Surprisingly, a PAL VCD will play on my DVD player outputting to an NTSC television and will look fine. (I did not see the distortion mentioned in the article).
I use TMPGenc, a Windows program, for MPEG conversion. I capture to Huffyuv codec using Virtual Dub. None of these programs are available on Linux, so though I prefer Linux I use a dedicated Windows ME computer for video work. I'd love to see a comparison of my Windows programs to their Linux equivalents. One thing I fear I would have to give up is Huffyuv. I creates high quality lossless captures, something MJPEG does not do. Taking MJPEG and compressing it again to MPEG or something else creates a noisy picture.
Re: Amateur Video Production Using Free Software and Linux
Hmm. maybe you can, but I think you're better off with a tv
that accepts ntsc and pal (and possibly secam, and while
you're at it, hdtv).
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