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.
I’ve been kind of shifting towards use of USB devices over internal cards.
All of the USB devices that I have still can be connected to computers. Ditto for DE-9 serial ports, though I might need a USB adapter.
But I’ve seen ISA->PCI/AGP->PCIe obsolete a lot of old hardware that I’ve had sitting around, and that’s just on the PC. That includes my video capture hardware.
I settled on the Magewell card because I found one super cheap, their Linux drivers seem pretty well supported and maintained, and I wanted a bolted-in solution since everything is rackmount.
Also includes my also includes my M-Audio Delta1010… Which I kept in an older PC up until the day the motherboard died.
Agreed on USB, but I sometimes get hardware provided to me, so I definitely still make use of those regardless 😀