I am trying to record 5-8 RCA A/V inputs on an Ubuntu machine.
This is the research I've managed so far:
Easycap RCA to USB is a good device at a dirt cheap price. Except if your give it an HD video, it chops it up into a square, not sure why. Please let me know if there is a way around this? (I am yet to test if this is compatible with Linux+MythTV)
DVRs/NVRs are made for security purposes and while they are great for video capture, getting video files off them, using a cron job, is incredibly hard, even if you include a NAS. Unless someone knows of a manufacturer that makes this super easy? (The manufacturers want you to use their software, not your own code).
Sensoray Model 1012 is an 8 channel frame grabber which captures raw uncompressed footage, and they say that to save mp4 videos, I am going to have to encode the videos in real time (like a DVR). Also this is incredibly computationally expensive, and according to them I would only be able to do this for 2 channels and not all 8. I thought perhaps I could run ffmpeg on Nvidia to get this done, but I'm not sure this would work. (slightly expensive). If anyone can point me in a better direction I would appreciate it. Other devices, manufactures who can give me un-programmed DVRs, etc etc.
A few more details, the video needs to record uninterrupted for a few days, and so I cannot have the capture process break in the middle. Therefore, continuous capture plus continuous saving of video+audio. The video files can be broken up into 1-2GB files for ease of storage and moved off the capture device, as long as the capturing is not affected.
