Video Disk Recorder (VDR) Tooling
2020-05-30
Over a decade ago, I have used the Video Disk Recorder (VDR) software to view and record TV streams from my DVB-S tuner card (Hauppauge WinTV-NOVA-S-Plus). Since the setup is outdated, I will just list the tools that I used rather than detailing instructions that probably won't work anymore.
Here are the tools that I ran on a Linux distribution to view, record, and edit TV streams:
- VDR: The main software package for recording the streams
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VDR plugins:
- Remote plugin: Plugin for the infrared remote control that comes with the tuner card
- Xine plugin: Plugin for On-Screen-Display (OSD) support for the xine video player
- Femon plugin: Plugin to display signal information on the OSD
- The plugins can be loaded by passing the parameters -P 'remote -i autodetect' -P 'xine -r' -P femon to the vdr command
- ProjectX: Software for demultiplexing MPEG transport streams used in DVB-S and cutting the material
- DVDStyler: A DVD authoring tool that supports the individual audio and video streams produced by ProjectX, such that the recorded material can be played back on standalone DVD players. DVDStyler allows for designing onscreen menus for DVDs.
- NVRAM WakeUp: Software that writes computer wake up times to the BIOS, so that the computer can automatically turn on ahead of the recording time scheduled in VDR
For alternatives to VDR, check out this comparison of Digital Video Recorder (DVR) packages.