DV capture

[Chicago]

Does anyone have any interest in a plugin to allow capture of DV from DV camcorder tapes?

Using the DVD ripper plugin source (and sharp develop), I changed the part where it invokes DVD decrypter, and replaced dvd decrypter with the program WinDV, which has command line switches. Now, from the GBPVR menu, I can invoke WinDV and capture digital video, and send it to whichever video directory I want.

One area that this could be enhanced (and I don't know how to do it) would be to add controls that change how much video to capture. I have the plugin set at 1 hour.

The DVD ripper plugin source seems pretty handy if all one wants to do is start a program using command line switches, especially for a novice like me.


GBPVR is great software. It prompted me to build an HTPC that we now use quite a bit for all those Barney and Sesame Street episodes out there!


DFI Infinity board (NF4)
AMD 64 3000
1 GB memory
250 gb SATA
120 GB IDE
80 GB IDE
Win 2k
GEforce 6600 with component video

[A_Brass]

Does anyone have any interest in a plugin to allow capture of DV from DV camcorder tapes?

I asked the plugin developers about this last year. I'm very interested in a "DV Viewer" All I wanted was a way to plugin my camera via 1394 and use the transport controls on my remote to control the camera. FF, RW, STOP, AND PLAY. I don't need to capture becasue I do my capture and conversion on a different machine with some more horsepower, but I do like to view my tapes on my PC in the living room.

If your going to continue/finish your DV plugin please include me on any lists of tester/users. I'm very interested.

[Pioneer4x4]

Does anyone have any interest in a plugin to allow capture of DV from DV camcorder tapes?

Using the DVD ripper plugin source (and sharp develop), I changed the part where it invokes DVD decrypter, and replaced dvd decrypter with the program WinDV, which has command line switches. Now, from the GBPVR menu, I can invoke WinDV and capture digital video, and send it to whichever video directory I want.

I am interested in this. I have a Sony Digital 8 Camcorder that I have captured via firewire. One thing I would almost require would be while capturing have it create a new file at each button press (Start/stop) of the recording. This makes it MUCH easier to edit/assemble what you want to keep. I am going to look up WinDV.

[Chicago]

This is a link for WinDV:

http://windv.mourek.cz/

Unique files are created for each start point on a DV tape. Each file gets a time and date stamp to make it unique - they are all avi files.

These get saved on my machine to a folder that is seen by the myvideos plugin, and then I can watch once done.

The command line for windv allows parameters that specify exit the program on completion, duration needed for capture (in minutes and hours), and a filename to be used.

I am not able to post the source code and plugin now, but can over the weekend.

[djdafreund]

I've been using WinDV for a while now, and i love it myself. Actually a shame it hasn't been updated for quite a while. I pretty much does what i need it to do, but then again, look how many things GBPVR has added that a lot of people wouldn't have thought of, until it was mentioned it was added, and it's like "Ah, cool!!! That's neat!!!".
But yeah, when you record, it automatically uses the timecode from the DV tape to know exactly when to start a new file (IE-Each original time you started and stopped each recording on the tape, it's digitally saved on the tape, and WinDV reads that info/tag and uses that to auto-start a new file, incrementing the number in the file each time automatically!!!) and it uses close to no system resources while recording. And also has a preview screen you can scale.
It would be a nice program to make a plugin to use. Just a plugin to control WinDV.exe would be needed. And some skinning to fit things. Would be nice!!! I'm sure a lot of people would love it. Think about it.

-Going home after shooting some footage, then walking into the living room, and turning on the screen of your GBPVR machine, switching to the 'Movie Clip Capture' plugin (or whatever name to give it.) and hit the 'Capture now' button, and it starts capturing. Then 'Stop Capture' to stop. Then flip to the MyVideo's 3 plugin to display the clips with the thumbnail picture to view them all. Very neat idea!!!!

[Pioneer4x4]

It would also be great, if someone found a way to use VLC to transcode on the fly to mpeg2 for MVP use!

[Chicago]

Well, enclosed is a plugin that works on my machine for DV Capture.

I would have WinDV on your machine, and working with your camcorder hooked up to firewire.

It is just like the DVD ripper plugin, except instead of the requirements for DVD decrypter, substitute WinDV - copy WinDV to a directory and specify that directory in the config program ( I copy folder WinDV to C:\Program Files\WinDV-1.2.3).

For me, I have my camcorder hooked up via firewire, on play, and turned on.
Then I hit "start" on the menu for the plugin, and off it goes.

WinDV uses command line switches, which are:
windv capture [-exit] [[HH:]MI:]SS[.ss] filename

The plugin is set to capture 1 hour of video from the camcorder, and the camcorder will run for one hour.

If anyone could think of how to create a menu item or control on the screen of the plugin that allows someone to pass a number to variables, the user could set the record time.

I also enclosed the source code.

The skin is basically the same as DVD ripper.

[Chicago]

One addendum -

Note that in the zipped plugin file, I have a folder for "DV Capture" under "skin" - this should be copied into the Blue skin folder and any other skin folders, manually.

[Chicago]

I just wanted to check in and see if anyone had tried this, and if it would be worthwile to post on the wiki as a plugin?

Or did anyone have any comments, additions?

[Pioneer4x4]

I'll try and give it a shot today.