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OS/2 - Technical => Multimedia => Topic started by: Terry on 2008.05.01, 21:59:11

Title: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Terry on 2008.05.01, 21:59:11
Scenario:  I just purchased and am assembling a new barebones computer with eCS-compatible hardware including a GeForce 5500 256k memory series video card.  I do have a USB 2.0 (AV Grabber => w/S-Video input - Composite Video input - Audio L/R input) but have never used it, so, am an AV-capture novice under any operating system platform whether it be eCS, M$ Win, or Linux.

Question #1:  Looking ahead, how does one best capture audio into eComStation from a turntable, to transfer the music from LP 33 1/3 to a digital format such as MP3?

Question #2:  Now onto to video capture from VCRs, DVD Players, TVs, etc. with the same concerns for future reference into eComStation.

Question #3:  What are the best hardware additions and/or software for AV-capture under eComStation, or alternative solutions if necessary?

This query has not really been addressed thoroughly in this forum, and should benefit many individuals.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.01, 23:59:02
AFAIK, eCS is the wrong platform to try this on. It will be worlds easier under Windows and Linux.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.05.02, 00:15:29
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.01, 23:59:02
AFAIK, eCS is the wrong platform to try this on. It will be worlds easier under Windows and Linux.

Actually, OS/2 does a wonderful job at all of the above - if you have the "right" (ie: supported) hardware. As a matter of fact, in some respects, it does better than Windows as it consumes less resources and remains more responsive. Never compared it to Linux.

#1 Any good sound card (by good, I am referring to how much noise the card records from it's input - some are "great" at picking up the electronics noise of the computer or of the power line - which you dont want), and any of the numerous sound recording utilities located on Hobbes - or Ceres Sound Studio. You may have to play with the sound card's gain (for those that support it being changed) or the levels coming from your audio playing device.

#2 The appropriate Hauppauge WinTV card and software (check the links and info elsewhere in the forums - not all models support video capture under OS/2). You can capture TV through it, or any other sort of video for any device that can be plugged into the TV Card's AV input (IIRC).

#3 See #2.

If you need more details, let us know... maybe me (or hopefully someone else - or you will be waiting till next week) can give a more thorough answer. I skipped this thread the first time because I would rather give a more thorough answer and detailed instructions, but dont have the time till next week.


Robert
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.02, 01:37:38
Right, but why be limited by only having like, 2 supported chipsets and maybe 2 decent pieces of software? It'd be much easier to accomplish under Windows or Linux, or hell, even Zeta. Zeta was meant to be a multimedia OS :\

What if his turntable isnt Analogue to Analogue but rather Analogue to Digital (USB) like some are? How is eCS going to be able to handle it? It wont :\
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.05.02, 01:52:08
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.02, 01:37:38
Right, but why be limited by only having like, 2 supported chipsets and maybe 2 decent pieces of software? It'd be much easier to accomplish under Windows or Linux, or hell, even Zeta. Zeta was meant to be a multimedia OS :\

What if his turntable isnt Analogue to Analogue but rather Analogue to Digital (USB) like some are? How is eCS going to be able to handle it? It wont :\

Because he expressed an intent to make it an eCS machine - not a Linux or Windows machine. and if the turntable is analog to digital, it most likely has a digital out (as opposed to just USB) - which there are sound cards that support under eCS.

Besides, though there is more of a limited hardware choice under eCS (at least for video recording - as sound support should be near equal thanks to UniAudio), the limited choices for eCS are at least very good ones... it isn't like the choices are a few crappy cards... they are actually very good cards.


As for the rest of potential issues, I'd choose eCS or Linux as the audio/video tools under them seem to support many more formats (via ffMPEG and related tools such as mEncoder, DVDrDAO, etc) over Windows. I've got TWO DOZEN tools under Windows to do such work for Star Trek New Voyages, and have been reverting to my OS/2 machine to do it instead. I had originally decided to do it under Windows because I thought all the neat GUI interfaces would save me time... perhaps - if the tools worked with the plethora of formats I need to encode - but they dont. So... it was off to ffMPEG and mEncoder world on OS/2 for me. Of course, my choice is based off the very large variety of video and audio formats I need to use - so my reasons probably wouldnt apply to many people.

Oddly, those same tools (ffMPEG, mEncoder) seem to work rather quirkily under Windows and produced horrendous results (unsynched audio, screwed up video, or both) - but that was with using their GUI interfaces. Even playing many of the formats (or DVDs for that matter) resulted in unsynced audio or other issues. Oddly, VLC under Windows plays the stuff ok - but cant seem to re-encode the stuff properly. And many of the other tools have problems even noticing that there is an AC-3 audio stream - much less trying to use or convert it. While others dont seem to support various of the video formats properly.

Heck, QuickTime wont play the DiVX files and tells me I have to install the codec (already done and working everywhere else). WMP gets confused on various combinations of audio and video codecs and reports one or the other is not installed... the "neat" odd thing is, lets say it says the video codec isnt installed (at which time it will either say it needs to exit - but of course doesnt - or it will happily play the audio and display a visualization)... if I change the audio format to something different, it no longer has problems with the video format and plays both. WMP also oddly is claiming it doesnt have DVD support installed (truth is, it just have very very limited DVD support - and doesnt offer any way to upgrade that as it occassionally, when it wants to, offers to do when trying to play video files).




Eventually, I need to write a GUI for mEncoder. In the meantime, I just saved the correct parameters to a REXX script (basically a 5 line script that takes the input info, creates an output file name, and selects the correct parameters and calls mEncoder... nothing fancy - but it does require writing a new script or revising the old one if I need different options... so a GUI it shall be one day soon).

I'd be happy to move everything to the OS/2 machine... but without a GUI, the timeline editing (and adding chapters to DVD) are much easier with a GUI under Windows... just means, off to the OS/2 machine for the bulk of the work, transfer 5-10GB files to the Windows machine, and assemble them and create DVD chapters there.

Robert
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.05.02, 02:01:56
It's funny... I never thought I would see the day when I had far less problems playing videos or audio under OS/2 than I do in Windows...  ;D
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.02, 05:36:14
Whatever, I have premiere Pro and all the Directshow filters I need. I havn't ever had an issue. If all else fails, I use VLC. If you think eCS is great for video editing, thats okay. I however, have found it less than useful for anything remotely multimedia related. Or internet related. Or damn near anything. But thats getting OT for this. I'm done.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Fahrvenugen on 2008.05.02, 06:32:02
For capturing Audio, it is quite simple, and I've found that OS/2 does this quite well.

Find yourself a well supported sound card.  One computer that I have running 24/7 capturing audio has a Soundblaster Live 5.1 card, but as long as you make sure the sound card you have is well supported for both recording and playback, you'll be in good shape.

To dump the input from your sound card to an MP3 directly, your best option is to use a combination of something like drecord and lame.  You can find drecord in the dtape archive at:

http://home.clara.net/orac/os2.htm

You can find the latest version of Lame on Hobbes.

The command you'll want to run is (you can further customize this, but these are the basic switches you'll need):

drecord /CON | lame -r -x - filename.mp3

If you want you can set it up to run on its own with a REXX file.

As I mentioned earlier, I have one machine that I maintain which is capturing audio 24x7 using this method with a REXX file generating a new MP3 each hour.  That machine runs quite well, so far the main difficulties we've had with it were due to a failing hard disk (which has now been replaced).  Otherwise it just works, and I've heard from some users that the sound quality since I switched it to OS/2 is actually better then it previously was when the system was running on a Linux box.

Now on the other hand, if you're looking to *edit* the sound files generated, this is one area where in my opinion we're lacking in the OS/2 world.  While we used to have some decent audio editors, I havn't found any which offer the type of editing that I really need.  The only application which comes close is Ceres SoundStudio, and it has been abandoned for a  long time (I think the company went  out of business)
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.05.02, 07:19:29
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.02, 05:36:14
Whatever, I have premiere Pro and all the Directshow filters I need. I havn't ever had an issue. If all else fails, I use VLC. If you think eCS is great for video editing, thats okay. I however, have found it less than useful for anything remotely multimedia related. Or internet related. Or damn near anything. But thats getting OT for this. I'm done.

Sorry, I think either you misunderstood my post, or I was not very clear in stating what I was trying to... for transcoding, I prefer OS/2. For editing, I almost always prefer Windows and GUI tools. My transcoding needs are well above and beyond the norm though, as I work with many formats that no one else will ever see - and that is where mPlayer and ffMPEG excel.

R
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Terry on 2008.05.02, 08:41:33
This is beginning to generate creative discussion as I thought it would.  It is a given that more multimedia apps are written for Windows and Linux.  The USB-capture device I purchased a few years ago will certainly work under Windows, but I'm sure will not have drivers for eCS.  My hunch is that if AV-capture can be done under eComStatiom then it can also be done under the other two platforms.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Terry on 2008.05.07, 00:53:54
Would you believe this detailed audio/video resource is already at OS/2 World by Chris Wohlgemuth?

http://www.os2world.com/cdwriting/ (http://www.os2world.com/cdwriting/)
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.05.07, 00:57:48
Mostly terry, but it still does not answer anything about Video capture from live sources (Firewire, RCA, Component, S-Video, USB) nor Audio capture and editing. It does however, answer most things about post-production means of distributing via CDs or DVDs or VCDs.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: melf on 2008.05.07, 09:57:01
Some relevant links:
http://www.juergen-ulbts.de/content/projects/video_mpeg/projectx.en.html

Project x is ported to eCS by Juergen Ulbts. I really don't quite understand what it does, but it could handle media streams and is capable of limited editing (cuttting) of mpeg-files.

http://www.s-t.de/emperoar/

Listening, watching, recording radio, tv, also on laptops using an USB receiver.

Coming to videoediting we surely miss it. Maybee it would be possible to port programs like Avidemux, http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/  ?

Update:
I asked Paul Smedley about portability of Avidemux and got a fast answer. Porting Avidemux seems impossible for now. Here is his answer:
"From the compilation instructions:
Mandatory packages

    * SpiderMonkey: Needed for scripting (only for versions up to 2.3).
    * GTK+: Avidemux 2.1-2.3 needs GTK+ 2.6 or newer. That includes also pkg-config, that might be a separate package. Avidemux 2.4 or newer can be built with GTK+, Qt 4 or commandline user interface. The GTK+ version needs GTK+ 2.8 or newer, including Cairo. Some older Linux distributions (e.g. Fedora Core 4) include older GTK+ versions, without Cairo.
    * libxml2: XML library, version 2. Used for filter descriptions and ~/.avidemux/config.
    * GCC: Source code compiler for Avidemux to be created with.

Possibly the command line version could be built - we don't have GTK+ or Qt 4 so the gui is out of the question. "
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: magog on 2008.05.07, 18:14:31
Quote from: melf on 2008.05.07, 09:57:01
Some relevant links:
http://www.juergen-ulbts.de/content/projects/video_mpeg/projectx.en.html

Project x is ported to eCS by Juergen Ulbts. I really don't quite understand what it does, but it could handle media streams and is capable of limited editing (cuttting) of mpeg-files.

You can use it to cut out commercial breaks and you can also use it to convert MPEG2-TS (Transport Streams) to compliant MPEG2 that you can use in your DVD-Player (not every player likes Transport Streams).
The Flash-Demo on my website shows you how to cut commercial breaks out of your video file.

Project X can also be used with Emperoar:
http://www.s-t.de/emperoar/

Roland Brill ("rbri" on the Emperoar Forum) has an updated version of Project X on his website, so you might look there as well:
http://www.rbri.de/projectx/projectx.html

Roland is posting informations about his Project X builds on the Emperoar Forum:
http://www.shspvr.com/smf/index.php?board=48.0
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: CDRWSel on 2008.09.02, 06:11:45
Why not use ffmpeg !
it is very nice and many many options.
sound syncro problem easy to correct using -async etc...
I do a lot of video/audio cut to remove unwanted part, append new video/audio and more...       
   
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Ben on 2008.09.02, 16:28:47
Quote from: CDRWSel on 2008.09.02, 06:11:45
Why not use ffmpeg !
it is very nice and many many options.
sound syncro problem easy to correct using -async etc...
I do a lot of video/audio cut to remove unwanted part, append new video/audio and more... 
Wow.

I didn't know that FFMPEG could do all of that.

I'll have to give the docs a good going over.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.02, 20:32:44
Because it's a pain in the ass to use a CLI only app to do something like edit and capture video. A GUI simplifies the process greatly.
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.09.02, 22:14:58
RE: ffMPEG
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.02, 20:32:44
Because it's a pain in the ass to use a CLI only app to do something like edit and capture video. A GUI simplifies the process greatly.

I played with a very simple looking GUI tool for ffMPEG called Avanti. It does an amazing job of making many of ffMPEG's features very usable. I don't see any reason why a GUI app or even a "menu driven" CLI app couldn't be whipped up to utilize those same features more easily under OS/2.

Especially with the plethora of examples for ffMPEG that are all over the Internet...




As for the results, I've been very impressed. I've used various tools - from very expensive to freeware and everything inbetween for my video transcoding stuff, but hands down, ffMPEG has beaten all of them when it comes to size/quality considerations.

Here's an example:
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/forum/index.php?topic=5779.0

Each format was transcoded from a source DVD using ffMPEG. The sizes are rather small compared to everything else I managed to create using the same final resolution and the same or similar output formats (and the quality is just as good). The other programs I tried had sizes in excess of 100MB a file.

This time I used Windows to do it simply because I was on a time constraint and needed medium resolution output for web (all the ffMPEG scripts I have set up on OS/2 are set for high quality streaming at HD size, or DVD video output).

I'd love to say "one day I will write a little interface for this" but I doubt I will have the time...

Rob
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Sander on 2008.09.02, 23:16:42
Unfortunately (and it's a damn shame), anything even approaching modern audio editing is a futile endeavor with the tools currently available for OS/2.  I wish we at least had a port of (opensource/freeware) Audacity. 

As far as video editing goes, I have tried the OS/2 CLI tools, and although they are very much appreciated, by comparison, I have to agree with the GUI crowd.  I can work MUCH faster, more comfortably, and better with the GUI tools available on other OS's. 

IMO, OS/2 multimedia is VERY sorely in need of modern (hopefully opensource) tools.  Full state of the art home theater seems a distant dream.     
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Ben on 2008.09.02, 23:40:40
Quote from: Sander on 2008.09.02, 23:16:42
I wish we had a port of (opensource/freeware) Audacity. 

As far as video editing goes, I have tried the OS/2 CLI tools, but by comparison, I have to agree with the GUI crowd.  I can work MUCH faster, more comfortably, and better with the GUI tools available on other OS's. 

IMO, OS/2 multimedia is VERY sorely in need of modern (hopefully opensource) tools.
Here, here!

I agree to all of that and I certainly could use any reasonably interfaced form of audio editing, and video editing, separately, or in one package.

Right now I'm sort of glad that if I can get anything, CLI or GUI, that will do the job under OS/2.

This "hole" has been here ever since IBM kicked OS/2 out on the street.  >:(
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.03, 00:18:57
I'm mostly worried about having a full suite of IOPROCS for MMOS2 that can handle all the various image/video/audio compression and decompression schemes we encounter in the A/V world. If OS/2 has these first, it will become X times more attractive for even general use. Now, if we have nice GUI applications that expand on the new found capabilities OS/2 has provided by MMOS2 we will have a quite attractive platform. This is my dream however..
Title: Re: Capturing Audio and/or Video
Post by: RobertM on 2008.09.03, 01:35:28
Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.03, 00:18:57
I'm mostly worried about having a full suite of IOPROCS for MMOS2 that can handle all the various image/video/audio compression and decompression schemes we encounter in the A/V world.

Which brings up something interesting... I can no longer find any of the codecs KO Myung-hun uploaded to Hobbes. Some I think were actually OS/2 IOPROCS (though I never got a chance to check).

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.09.03, 00:18:57
If OS/2 has these first, it will become X times more attractive for even general use. Now, if we have nice GUI applications that expand on the new found capabilities OS/2 has provided by MMOS2 we will have a quite attractive platform. This is my dream however..

Agreed. And the beauty of the stuff being true OS/2 IOPROCS, or good IOPROC wrappers to make them operate the same as OS/2's built in ones. That was one of the things I loved about OS/2 back in the day... working with media was so seamless regardless of format or desired action... a moot point without updated native OS/2'd codecs.