# Linux AV capture / streaming?



## MannDude (Nov 26, 2014)

I've got a USB to AV converter that allows me to capture / view video and sound from any AV device, and the software that came with it is Windows specific however I am sure there is a good Linux alternative and don't want to fuss around with Wine.

Basically, I just need something that will allow me to play video on my laptop from an external source using my USB to AV convertor. DVR/recording abilities preferred, but not required. Anyone have any suggestions or have used anything personally that would allow this?

For those curious, this will be used as part of a FPV setup for a quadcopter build. I've got a Sony CCD camera onboard connected to a 5.8ghz transmitter and the ground station consists of the receiver that outputs the video via AV cables. This is a temporary setup until I build some video goggles, but live-streaming back to the laptop is working pretty well now, though I don't want to have to boot into Windows just to do this.


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## nunim (Nov 26, 2014)

If you just want to view the stream, you can always use VLC.

For something with DVR like features you could probably look at MythTV:

https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/MythTV-HOWTO_-_0.27#Video_Capture_Device

Checkout LinuxTV as well, these are mostly focused on recording TV/OTA but there's no reason you can use it for your own video stream:

http://linuxtv.org/

http://linuxtv.org/vdrwiki/index.php/Introduction

http://www.zoneminder.com/ <-- Focused on Security Camera recording


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## MannDude (Nov 26, 2014)

nunim said:


> If you just want to view the stream, you can always use VLC.
> 
> For something with DVR like features you could probably look at MythTV:
> 
> ...


Thanks! I'll check this out later. I didn't know VLC could be used to receive a stream... that's neat. I'll hook everything up later and see what happens.


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## bizzard (Nov 27, 2014)

Try the ffmpeg library too. VLC works with most detected devices, but for some, you might need to compile it yourself.


I used to play with an easycap device for a while, before I purchased a blackmagic pci card.


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## MannDude (Dec 21, 2014)

Update:



TVTime works _great_.

VLC works as well but there is about a 0.5 second delay which is no good for my application. I'll be using this to navigate a quadcopter and instant feedback is required.

Next project is testing my usable range for video, I've already gone a couple city blocks with the video still coming in without too much static of interference, but I do believe for Christmas I am receiving a better directional antenna setup which will be nice.


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