Screenshot is of me tunneling into my headless analog video capture server I put together out of an old Thinkserver and a Magewell 1080p capture card, both of which were ebay gambles.
Here’s the flow:
- VCR and Hi8 decks -->
- Kramer VPC-23 AV Switcher -->
- RetroTINK 4k, upscaled to 1080p HDMI -->
- Magewell Pro Capture card -->
- Thinkserver RS140
AntiX headless install on the server. I ssh in to kick off the capture script I wrote, which also publishes a preview video stream to my LAN. I then just kick back and tune in via mpv.
I went as far as setting up an nfs share on the server, so after a capture I can pull it onto my workstation, to trim, edit, etc.
A VCR…wow! I haven’t seen one of those even at a yard sale in decades. Friend of mine and his family went out to a yard sale way back in the day, found a box of Disney videos, thought ‘A nice entertainment value watching Disney movies on movie night.’ Well, most of them had been taped over with some of that boomer porn of the 70’s. Somebody wanted a bit more spicy Disney experience. Luckily they had the presence of mind to review said box of VHS tapes before deploying them on movie night.
You must do a lot of VHS digitizing for a set up like that. Or was this just a ‘Wonder how hard it would be to…’? kind of project.
I do a lot of Hi8 digitizing, because I like to film in it, so this is first and foremost for that usecase. But I also want to get set up to digitize VHS found footage and lost media.