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 did something similar for digitizing old camcorder family videos. I hooked up a VCR through a cheap elgato RCA -> USB capture card to my home server, and did something similar to you with a preview feed available on my LAN.
I even built a (really ugly) web UI which lets me pick an audio and video source, start the preview stream and display it in the browser without actually starting the capture, then start/stop the capture, edit the ffmpeg flags, and set the output file name. I can share it with you if you are interested