Video capture in WMC

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jachin99

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Video capture in WMC

#1

Post by jachin99 » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:15 pm

I might have found a way to view a video capture source from RCA cables but this doesn't look pretty. I'm not sure if this utilizes the AV1 tuner device but I might investigate later. See here https://www.google.com/amp/s/garvis.ca/ ... evice/amp/

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Crash2009

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#2

Post by Crash2009 » Wed Feb 21, 2018 4:30 pm

Recording video into Windows from your analog device
JUNE 20, 2008 / MITCH GARVIS
…So my brother-in-law, like most people I know, assumes that when it comes to computers I will know the answer. This led to my learning something new this week.

The question: ‘I have an analog camcorder with which we have documented our lives over the past eight years. We recently purchased a Media Center PC (HP Media Center PC, m8200n) and we would like to use that to record our video tapes into digital format so that we can share them and keep them longer. How do we do this?’

Of course it sounds simple, and when I looked at the PC and the camera they both had all of the right connectors, so this should be another five minutes and done solution. I forget that my brother-in-law actually is a rocket scientist, and if it were that simple he probably would have figured it out without my feeble help.

Let’s skip what I tried that did NOT work and move onto what did. What you will need is simple:

A PC with a Composite Video connector
The proper cable to connect the Audio/Video jack on the camera to the Composite Video Connector. (For bonus points you will need an audio in connector on the computer)
An Infrared remote control receiver with the IR wire plugged in
Windows Vista Home Premium (or Windows Vista Ultimate… either will have the Windows Media Center).
**PLEASE NOTE** If like me you use Windows Media Center to control your television the following procedures will wipe out your settings. Make sure you can recover from that before going forward.

Out of the box WMC does not allow you to record from an analog device, and you really do have to fool it into working. What I have done for Grant and his family, who use their Media Center PC as a desktop and not as a TV, is to configure Media Center to receive the TV feed (or so it thinks) from the Composite Video (the yellow RCA jack). Of course this is not entirely normal behaviour for Media Center, so you do have to fool it into doing what you want.

In Windows Media Center navigate to Tasks -> Settings -> Set Up TV Signal
When asked assure it that you do have a set top box.
Connect your camcorder (VHS/other analog device) to the computer. Remember that Composite Video will not transmit audio, and you will have to connect that separately (usually a white or red RCA jack or, for bonus STEREO, both).
Select the input that shows your video (for us it was Composite 2)… these procedures should work for SVGA as well, or if you are connecting your VCR to the cable jack)
Tell it you do not have a remote for your set-top box.
Select Two Digits, and that you just enter the channel number.
Since you do not have a set top box the brand is irrelevant… I chose 3M.
Select C0033
Using your keyboard enter a two-digit channel (say 05) and press Enter. When asked confirm that the channel changed correctly.
Confirm that there is no digital antenna connected.
Return to the Media Center Main Menu
**PLEASE NOTE** You must have your remote control receiver plugged in and the IR wire connected to both configure Media Center's TV settings and any time you use the procedures to record or watch video from your analog device. <note to the dev team at Microsoft: this is an unnecessary pain!>

**SUGGESTION** Media Center allows you to select the recording quality of your video, selecting from BEST to GOOD, and depending on your selection the bit rate and file size will be affected. Since most of your VHS or Super-8 tapes would fit in the FAIR to LOUSY quality range there is no benefit to recording them in the BEST or VERY GOOD qualities… select the lowest possible to save a lot of hard disk space (80 Meg on a 3 minute file… nearly two gigabytes on an hour of video)

The box is now configured, and you should be able to go ahead and watch/record from your analog device. However Media Center THINKS that your analog device is actually live television, so that is what you are going to watch. (It will not matter what channel it thinks it is watching… ignore that)

To Watch: From the main menu navigate to TV -> Live TV. The screen will be black until you press Play on your device (there will be channel information at the bottom… it is irrelevant).

To Record: before pressing play on your analog device press the Record button in the Media Center controls. The Record Screen will come up asking you time and date to record… ignore that, but you should take this opportunity to change the title of the video from 'Untitled Recording' to 'Elise's Confirmation Video'. Once you have named your video (and ensured the video quality) press Record on the Media Center, and then Play on your analog device.

Remember that unlike digital video you actually have to let it run, so recording a one hour video will take you one hour, and so on. Unless you want to get into editing these videos later on you should make sure you are ready to press Stop when the video ends.

Saving your videos for all time

We all know that analog video tape degrades over time, and that digital does not. Windows Media Center allows you to natively burn your videos (they will be stored under Recorded TV) to DVD. This will convert them to DVD format, which will allow you to watch them in any regular DVD player. However if you want to edit them in the future it would be worth your while to save the digital file, a .dvr-ms file, which is natively readable by Windows Movie Maker which can then be used to convert it to the file format of your choice.

Have fun and remember… any of those embarrassing videos <Mitch being discrete> of you or your kids will be on the hard drive when you either sell your computer, or take it into the shop for service. If you don't want anyone to see them, either encrypt them or better yet wipe them off that drive after moving them to an external hard drive or DVD!

Nice Find Jachin99

dkrom

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#3

Post by dkrom » Wed Feb 21, 2018 7:37 pm

That summed up what I did to record my old videos except that I never lost my TV setup in WMC. I had a set top box (Dish) so all I did was add a channel that wasn't in the lineup, setup a future recording on that "channel" a few minutes ahead of when I wanted to start recording, set the END TIME so I didn't have to babysit the setup to stop the recording, changed the title and waited with the computer clock open and hit play on my tape player a few seconds before the time I set. I did occasionally change inputs for the set top box (rca or svideo) but I never had to reset the system, just had to set the number of digits to press (2 or 3 I believe are the options) for the set top remote and how fast to change the channel.

jachin99

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#4

Post by jachin99 » Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:13 pm

For the it receiver part, I suspect that it checks for ehome it receiver drivers. I'm not sure if it makes sure a receiver is plugged in or not though. I tried this on a Sony vgx which has onboard IR and it didn't recognize it so I couldn't finish. It did look like it might configure video capture along side my hdhrs though. I'm skeptical that will work right next to them but we will see. I'm using my Wii for the tests. If it works I won't have to change video inputs to use the WII. Hopefully I can add a guide channel for WII.

jachin99

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#5

Post by jachin99 » Thu Feb 22, 2018 1:19 am

@dkroom, what IR reciever did you use? I have tried the internal reciever, and a USB reciever but I can't get WMC to detect it. I have the ehome driver installed as well. The only problem I can potentially see is an eventghost plugin that installs an alternate ir service but I stopped the alternate ir service, and closed eventghost while testing. I'm wondering how WMC detects iR hardware. The only ways I can think of are checking for the drivers, or sending itself an IR blast. I wonder what would happen if I sent a random IR press during setup.

dkrom

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#6

Post by dkrom » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:04 am

jachin99 wrote:@dkroom, what IR reciever did you use? I have tried the internal reciever, and a USB reciever but I can't get WMC to detect it. I have the ehome driver installed as well. The only problem I can potentially see is an eventghost plugin that installs an alternate ir service but I stopped the alternate ir service, and closed eventghost while testing. I'm wondering how WMC detects iR hardware. The only ways I can think of are checking for the drivers, or sending itself an IR blast. I wonder what would happen if I sent a random IR press during setup.
I have a setup from my original XP media center, and from a TV card I purchased. The HP one I have is similar to this one https://m.ebay.com/itm/HP-Media-Center- ... SwGeBXPkrJ

jachin99

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#7

Post by jachin99 » Tue Feb 27, 2018 6:01 pm

I use Event ghost to send it commands to my TV . Because of how I have EG setup wmc doesn't see my or blasts ( it runs a service that intercepts them) BUT my remote program can also learn remote codes. If things work out how I would like them to then the next time I try to set this up, I'll have EG setup to learn an IR codeand run through tv setup in the hope that EG will capture any remote codes sent during setup. I can retrieve the hex code and share it.

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