[NCLUG] V4L Snapshot help

[Grant Johnson]

Rob Bayerl wrote:
> What card is the v4l device?  If unknown what v4l driver does it use?
> I would suspect it is RTJPEG, maybe image magick can convert it.
> Sorry I forgot mplayer doesn't do snapshots..
>   
I do not know what the format is when I do the cat.   When I use 
mencoder to grab it, it it OK, though.  I told mencoder to grab a few 
frames (when I told it only one frame, it wigged out, and got nothing, 
so I told it 3, and it seems pretty good.)  Then I told ffmpeg to make 
png out of it.  It seems to work.  The only thing (and this doesn't 
really matter for what I am doing) is that I have not yet figured out 
how to capture sound with it.  If I really need the sound, I will 
probably just route it through my sound card.

I am planning of capturing a shot of the prairie.  It should be kinda 
cool this winter when things are ugly.  I will pass out the URL if 
anyone cares once I get it up and running.

I have an outdoor camera (small and cheap at Harbor Freight, and does 
infrared so it works in low light) and a Pinnacle PCTV HD 800i video 
capture/tuner card I got from Woot! for $20.  Years ago I had the 
prairie dog camera.   Now we have no rodents, but we will have snow, 
wind, neighbor's horses, etc. to look at.