[wplug] USB video capture recommendations

James O'Kane jo2y at midnightlinux.com
Wed Jul 16 22:49:31 EDT 2008


2008/6/19 beer at cmu.edu <beer at cmu.edu>:
> I dont have a 950 but I have an internal from Hauppage that I absolutely
> love.  I also have the pinnacle stick.
>
> The pinnacle stick is obviously convenient in terms of portability being
> very small and compact.  This also has its downside because much like pen
> drives, its pretty easily dislodged from the port.  The antenna that came
> with this device is just a simple mag based rabbit ear antenna.  Lacks any
> power whatsoever and the tuner in the stick is not very good.  The stick
> works fairly well when connected to my giant roof antenna but still pales in
> comparison to the signal achieved by using the roof antenna with a post-1990
> TV.  I've also never gotten the antenna to work properly.  The software has
> a 'test' mode which easily works with the remote but it never works when I
> actually want to change the channel.  The stick seemed to perform reasonable
> when connected to cable and when I wasnt using the accompanying software.
>
> the problem with the sticks seems to be the tuner capability.  i have
> several different types of VR devices and the sticks always perform the
> worse.  I have one that is USB but not a stick....its a tabletop device with
> USB out.  This performs much better than the pinnacle stick but less so than
> the hauppage.  If I remember, I'll dig it up and get you the brand.

I don't need a tuner, so that's okay.  The tabletop device has the
problem that it usually requires external power.

I was intentionally vague in my initial email. Here are some more specifics.
This is for my car, so providing power is difficult. I'm avoiding
DC->AC->DC as much as possible, so that's why I have an aversion to
the external power adapter. Anything that has its own power adapter
requires that I build a replacement that converts 12V to the needed
input.

The case for the current computer doesn't have space for a expansion
cards, so PCI isn't an option.

Comcast doesn't provide service in to my car, so a cable drop isn't an
option. :) Nor is it needed since this isn't for TV. I have one of
these cameras, http://store.mp3car.com/CCD_Infrared_Camera_p/com-003.htm
and I want to capture pictures periodically, every N seconds. It has
composite out and no audio. It's water proof and I already own it,
which is why I want to use it instead of something else like a webcam.

> At any rate, my $.02 is to avoid the usb stick versions unless you have damn
> strong incoming signals, like from a cable drop.
>
> Also should point out the 950 is not HD compat.
>
> On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:42 PM, Vance Kochenderfer <vkochend at nyx.net>
> wrote:
>>
>> "James O'Kane" <jo2y at midnightlinux.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I'm looking for a USB video capture device. I can and have been doing
>> > searches, what I'm asking the list for is any personal experience.
>>
>> Not my personal experience, but someone else's...
>>
>> The July issue of Linux Journal looked at several HDTV devices.
>> The two USB ones they reviewed were the Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick
>> and the Hauppage WinTV-HVR-950.  Both are based on the Empiatech
>> EM2880 chipset which they got working with the development version
>> of the v4l-dvb drivers (don't know its status regarding mainline).
>>
>> They gave the Pinnacle slightly higher marks for coming with a
>> better antenna and a remote control.  Composite in was not
>> specifically reviewed.
>>
>> Sorry, but that's about as close to helpful as I can get on this.
>>
>> Vance Kochenderfer        |  "Get me out of these ropes and into a
>> vkochend at nyx.net          |   good belt of Scotch"    -Nick Danger
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