Help: Tips for building a video capture device?

[Paul Chvostek]

On Tue, Feb 08, 2005 at 12:56:55AM +0100, Ola Theander wrote:
> 
> My idea is to use one of these ITX-motherboards to build a video capture 
> computer with a simple touch screen interface but I haven't managed to find 
> a motherboard that supports video-in as well as it's able to run FreeBSD or
...
> This construction is a first draft idea so if any of you hackers out there 
> have some alternative idea how this can be done I'll be glad to hear.

I too think that a firewire interface connected to a DV-capable
camcorder would be a reasonable alternative.  ffmpeg has good support
for DV; you could easily transcode into something more compact for
storage, and give the user options for managing the tradeoff between
quality and duration.

If not with a laptop, you could almost certainly find motherboards with 
firewire interfaces onboard.  Google has lots more suggestions:
http://www.google.com/search?q=itx+motherboard+1394

If you really really need composite in, I'm sure Google can advise on
that too.  I see some at http://www.lex.com.tw/, but their site insane,
and gives my browser cringe.  YMMV.

-- 
  Paul Chvostek                                             <paul at it.ca>
  Operations / Abuse / Whatever
  it.canada, hosting and development                   http://www.it.ca/