What type of Capture Card do I need to capture raw data?

[veso266]

Hi I would realy love to capture some of my VHS Tapes and extraxt teletext from them but I don't have Hauppauge WinTV PCI card but I have Gigabyte GT-U8000-RH: so I wonder can I use that to capture raw vbi data?

Thanks for Anwsering and Best Regards

[ali1234]

You need any analog capture card with a Bt878 chipset supported by the Linux bttv driver. The most common were made by Hauppauge under the WinTV name, however there are many different models and not all are compatible. The Bt878 was originally made by Brooktree but later rebranded Connexant. The best thing to do on Ebay is look at the photos. If the main capture chip says "878" on it it should be compatible, whether it is a Brooktree or Connexant. It is a PCI chipset so it won't be on any PCI-E cards. The 878A also supports DVB so may appear on hybid analog/digital cards. It does not matter whether the tuner is marked PAL, NTSC or SECAM as the composite input supports all formats on all cards. The cards might have a phono or mini-din connector for composite input - either is fine. Some cards don't have either though, and that's no good.

There is also a list of cards supported by the BTTV driver here:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.bttv

However, it doesn't list whether the card actually has composite inputs or not, and might not be entirely accurate.

[moonhouse]

That link on kernel.org gives me a 404. Is it possibly the same as BTTV cards list in Video4Linux (V4L) driver-specific documentation?

[ali1234]

Sorry I copy pasted that answer from another one I wrote previously. Yes that link looks the same.

[veso266]

I also have LifeView LR138 which you can see here:

Do you think this would work (some Flyview card seems supported here: http://web.archive.org/web/20150917023146/https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/video4linux/CARDLIST.bttv but I don't know which card that is)

[SimonHertoge]

So do you really need composite? Can't it work with S-video or RF? I have a Hauppauge Bt878 card, but without composite input.

[ali1234]

@drdentz Sorry for late reply. Yes it should work with RF or S-Video. Just switch to the desired input before capturing. Note that the Bt878 cards usually accept composite on the S-Video input. You may or may not know, but S-Video has two signals, luma and chroma. Those cards also have two logical composite inputs which map to the chroma and luma pins on the S-Video connector. So you don't need a separate composite input. Also, even if the card really only has S-Video it should still be possible to feed the composite signal to the luma line, since teletext does not use chroma to store data.

[Vamptonius]

Thoughts? Would this work on my vast videotape collection?

http://www.hauppauge.com/pages/products/data_hvr1950.html

[ali1234]

No, that device does not seem capable of VBI capture.

[ali1234]

In addition to all of the above, you can now use Domesday Decoder as a capture device. This is still experimental - the training really needs to be re-done with it for best results.