capture TV from firewire for DVD production?

[arnold layne]

i have a feeling that i am missing something simple and obvious, but i've looked through the help files and forums and can't seem to find how to do what i'm trying...

my setup:
i have my verizon FIOS TV box's analog NTSC output (R/L/V) connected (through my camcorder as a pass-through) to my PC's firewire input. in the past i used a different program to record that input to an AVI file. i then used another program to edit and transcode that AVI to an appropriately sized MPG which i could then author and burn to DVD.

along the way i upgraded windows (now using 10), and my old capture program is no longer compatible. i have used VLC for playing videos for many years, but never tried to capture with it. i did notice under the 'file' pull-down menu, there is an 'open capture device...' option, and when i select it and hit 'play' i can see the input from the TV.

the problem i am having is trying to make an AVI file from there. with my old setup i would just hit 'record' where i wanted to start, 'stop' when i was done, and then it would ask me for a filename to save it to. i can't seem to do this in VLC...when i hit record nothing seems to happen, and when i hit stop the video feed just goes away (but if i hit play, it comes back again.)

i tried searching VLC's help, but all i found were some complex command line options. i poked around through the forums a bit, but didn't seem to find anything relevant to my problem here either.

is there a simple way to do what i'm trying to accomplish in VLC?

and if there is, can you also please tell me what settings i should be using for the capture?

thanks in advance for any help!

[Ludrax]

when i hit record nothing seems to happen, and when i hit stop the video feed just goes away (but if i hit play, it comes back again.)

maybe default recording path should be visible in OSD on start of recording
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=106906
Tools >> Messages" and set the "Verbosity" level to 2

[arnold layne]

thanks!

apparently it had been recording...i just didn't know it because VLC doesn't seem to give any indication of whether it is recording or not.

my old program would both change the color of the record button and show a running time counter when you started recording, then when you stopped it the record button color would go back and the 'counter' would stop.

VLC seems to start the timer as soon as you open the capture device and doesn't reset or anything when you start recording (so you have no idea how long it has been recording, unless you remember the time you started and subtract), the record button also goes from grey to red when the device starts playing, and stays that way whether you are recording or not (until you stop the device and it goes back to grey).

once i found the record directory, i found the time-stamped files there and was able to rename and save them.

[Poldy]

Dear arnold layne,

it would be great if you open a new topic about the missing indication in our feature request forum!

Thank You
Poldy

[Ludrax]

the record button also goes from grey to red when the device starts playing, and stays that way whether you are recording or not

actually, the button has slightly different background when pressed

[arnold layne]

wow, so it does...
though the key word there is **slightly**...as in 'nearly imperceptibly'