VCR(R) VCR(R) NAME VCR - a text-console video recorder SYNOPSIS vcr [options] filename DESCRIPTION VCR is a program which enables you to record a program using a video grabber card that's supported by the video4linux drivers. It doesn't require a graphical envi- ronment, and you can use all popupular windows codecs (like DivX, Indeo Video 5, etc) because VCR is built around the avifile library. Now, you can finally record your favourite program from a remote place, because Mur- phy's law dictates that you remember to record it when you're as far away from your home as possible... In the current early implementation, you can get an overview of all command line options by executing it with option '--help' If you want to exit vcr before the recording time is fin- ished, type 'q' and press enter. After a short while, VCR will exit gracefully. OPTIONS Command-line options always override options specified in the config file. If you choose a different video codec, the codec's attributes in the config file will be ignored. --codec-attribute, -a <attribute>=<value> Sets a codec attribute. To get a list of attributes for your selected codec, give 'list=1' as argument. You can set more than one attribute by using this option multiple times. Config-file directive: attributes --audiobitrate, -b <rate> If an audiobitrate is specified, audio will be com- pressed to mp3 format. Valid bitrates will be listed if you specify an illegal value (e.g. 1). For 44Khz, 16 bits stereo recording, 128 kbps is an average quality. For mono, 96 is. Config-file directive: audiobitrate --codec, -c <codec> Sets the codec to be used for video compression. Currently, only the DivX ;-) codecs work well for encoding. The default codec is 'DivX ;-) low- motion' with no attributes set (the defaults depend on your installed codec). To get a list of avail- able codecs, use 'list' as codecname. Config-file directive: codec --debug, -d [filename] Turn on debug info. If you don't specify a file- name, debug info will be logged to ~/.vcrdebug. --framerate, -F <rate> Sets the framerate of the captured video. The default value is 25. If you capture in NTSC mode, you can set it to 29.97. Config-file directive: framerate --config-file, -f Which file to use as configuration file (default= ~/.vcrrc) See section CONFIGFILE for the syntax. --help, -h Shows an overview of all command line options and quits. --keyframes, -k <keyframes> Number of frames between keyframes (default=15) Config-file directive: keyframes --audiomode, -m <mode> Sets audio recording mode. Can be either 'stereo' or 'mono'. Config-file directive: audiomode --codec-preset, -P <codec preset> Which codec preset to use. A codec preset is simi- lar to a tuner preset; it's convenient when you want to define several qualities of recordings (archival, something you view just once, etc). A codec preset requires at least a codec (this dis- tincts codec presets from tuner presets in the con- fig file). Other supported configuration directives are: attributes, quality, keyframes, audiobitrate, audiomode, audiofrequency, audiosamplesize, framer- ate, resolution, splitsize, window. It's not possible (nor necessary) to set a default codec preset in the config file. When no codec pre- set is given on the command line, the values from the Defaults section will be used. --preset, -p <tuner preset> Which tuner preset to use. Tuner presets are read from the config file, and have the same syn- tax/setup as xawtv's presets (which is explained in the CONFIGFILE section). Config-file directive: channel (sets default pre- set) --quality, -q <quality> Quality for codec (1..100, 100 being best, default = 95) Config-file directive: quality --resolution, -r <resolution> Sets the size of the capture window. To get a list of possible values, supply an invalid number (e.g. 10). Default = 384x288. Config-file directive: resolution --splitsize, -s <size> Split the output in files of <size> megabytes. Use- ful for recording long captures to files the size of a CD-ROM. Default = -1, unlimited size. Some filesystems have a 2GB filesize barrier. Config-file directive: splitsize --source, -s <source> Input source (use 'list' to get a list of available sources). Default input source is 'Tele- vision', if available on your hardware. Config-file directive: source --rectime, -t <time> Length of time this program will record (notation: <number>h/m/s, where number can have decimals, e.g. '1.5h' = 90 minutes)). If you omit h/m/s, then min- utes are assumed. Use -1 for unlimited recording time. --window, -w <x>,<y>,<width>,<height> Crops each video frame to a window of width x height pixels, starting at offset (x,y). Offset is relative to the upper left corner (0,0). Without specifying a window, the captured video size is the size of your chosen resolution. Config-file directive: window CONFIGFILE VCR expects to find the default config file in ~/.vcrrc. With '-f', you can supply a different config file. The syntax of VCR's config file is the same as xawtv's syntax. The file is split into sections, which are denomi- nated by a keyword in square brackets on a single line. Every line up to the next denominator belongs to this sec- tion. All section names represent the name of a tuner preset, except for 3 specific names: defaults, global and launch. Of these 3 special sections, VCR only uses defaults. Each line in a section contains a keyword/value pair, unless the line begins with a '#', which means it's ignored (you can use it to put comments on). Empty lines are also ignored. A keyword/value pair is formatted like this: keyword = value These keywords are recognized in the defaults section: attributes Attributes specific to the codec used for encoding. Syntax: attribute1=value1,attribute2=value2 audiofrequency Sets audio frequency. Possible values are 44, 22 and 11. (kHz) audiomode Same as --audiomode parameter. audiosamplesize Sets audio sample size. Can be 16 (default) or 8. codec Same as --codec parameter channel Default tuner preset to record from (same as --pre- set) framerate Same as --framerate parameter. freqtab Sets the frequency table for your region. If you omit this keyword, you will get a list of available frequency tables. init-sound [mixer:][device:]volume Sets up the sound recording device. The default mixer is /dev/mixer, the default mixer device is 'Line'. A sane volume level is likely in the range of 70..100. Without the init-sound keyword, you will have to initialize the sound-device yourself before starting vcr. keyframes Same as --keyframes parameter norm TV norm in your country (currently one of PAL,NTSC,SECAM,AUTO). quality Same as --quality parameter rectime Same as --rectime parameter. resolution Same as --resolution parameter. The bigger the window, the faster your CPU must be. source Same as --source parameter splitsize Same as --splitsize parameter window Same as --window parameter. All other sections are considered tuner- or codec presets. You should supply the name of the preset (between the square brackets) to vcr using the --preset (tuner) or --codec-preset (codec) parameter. The difference between tuner- and codecpresets is deter- mined by the presence of the keyword 'codec': If it's pre- sent, it's a codec preset, otherwise a tuner preset. VCR recognizes these 2 keywords in each tuner preset: channel Channel (see xawtv manual) fine Fine-tuning (see xawtv manual) EXAMPLE CONFIG An example configuration file with 3 tuner presets: l l. [defaults] quality = 100 keyframes = 15 codec = DivX ;-) low-motion attributes = BitRate=1600,Crispness=100 source = Television norm = pal verbose = 1 [Nederland 1] channel = E11 fine = -26 [Nederland 2] channel = E6 fine = +20 [Nederland 3] channel = E7 fine = +36 BUGS If you find bugs, please send reports to bram@avon- tuur.org. AUTHOR VCR has been written by Bram Avontuur <bram@avontuur.org> <http://www.stack.nl/~brama/> Much code has been taken from avifile (http://divx.euro.ru/). Config file parsing code is taken from xawtv (http://www.strusel007.de/linux/xawtv/) Please send comments, suggestions, complaints, bug fixes, coffee and porting experiences to me, including the ver- sion number of VCR in your mail. VCR(R)