Topic - mplayer/mencoder, Hauppauge HVR 900 and linux



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Topic Starter denisvh - Posted on Monday, August 31 2015 07:03:42 AM
I use mencoder for capturing videos on a Hauppauge HVR 900 device on linux.
The command line is slightly complicated but it works.
For viewing videos, the command line is :
mplayer -fps 25 -tv driver=v4l2:width=720:height=570:device=/dev/video1:input=1:audiorate=48000:immediatemode=0:forceaudio:alsa:amode=1:forcechan=2:adevice=hw.1,0 tv:// -aspect 16:9 -ao sdl -vf crop=720:566:0:0,pp=lb
for recording videos, the mencoder command simply adds what is necessary for defining the output file.
I use Linux Mint. Recently Mint published a new version (17.2). I started testing it. Quite everything works. Only mplayer/mencoder fails.
With the command above mplayer shows a perfect image, but the sound is completely distorded and unusable. The problem is the same with mencoder, the recorded sound is distorded in the same way.
The fact that the sound is distorded in capture as well as in direct play seem to show that the problem is in the capturing part.
I tested the same thing with a recent version of Ubuntu, precisely Kubuntu 14.04.3, with the same problem.
Something changed in the kernel or in the Ubuntu environment (Mint derives form Ubuntu) making mplayer/mencoder fail. But what ? Any workaround ?
For now I keep the version 17.1 of Mint just for staying able to vapture videos, but I'm worrying about the future if something changed in Linux which makes video capture fail on it.
I tested as well several video capture devices on linux. They are all designed for windows, and all fail on linux. The only working combination I found was the HVR 900 + mencoder (never been able to capture with vlc for example).