[pvrusb2] Frame grab / stills capture ?

[pvrusb2 at netspoon.co.uk]

Mike,

Thanks for you reply.  If you can put this feature request somewhere 
down the bottom of the list, I'd appreciate it.  I will look into 
extraction of frames from the stream as an alternative, I was really 
just trying to get existing bits of kit hooked up to a debian NSLU2 or 
my Linkstation to capture an external video source (x18 zoom old video 
camera) for a wildlife stills webcam.   (As an aside, can you recommend 
an alternative analogue USB frame capture device that is well supported 
with linux drivers?)

Regards,


Gareth.


Mike Isely wrote:
> On Mon, 11 Feb 2008, pvrusb2 at netspoon.co.uk wrote:
>
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> Somewhere back in the mail list I noticed a posting suggesting frame 
>> grabbing / stills capture might be possible with the hardware, perhaps 
>> awaiting the driver feature to make this possible?
>>
>> I realize features equate to development time, and this device is most 
>> likely chosen for it's mpeg2 streaming, but would frame capture to jpeg 
>> be possible directly from the device?
>>
>>     
>
> I interpret this to mean you're looking for a way to grab raw video 
> frames (as opposed to mpeg data).  If that's the case then I can tell 
> you that the hardware is theoretically capable of it, but the pvrusb2 
> driver doesn't currently support this at all.  There are some things I 
> can chase to figure this out (including the bit that Mike Krufky 
> mentioned in another reply), however I just haven't had a chance to 
> seriously look at it.  The reality is basically that people who use this 
> device want it for the hardware mpeg encoder - if one were instead 
> looking for simple frame buffer capture, there are other (cheaper) 
> devices which have support for that in Linux.
>
> With that said, I suppose there's no reason why one couldn't just use 
> some kind of utility to grab snapshots right out of the mpeg stream.  I 
> haven't tried anything like this, but surely there's a utility floating 
> around to do that.
>
>   -Mike
>
>
>