My computer setup is unusual, so if you’re thinking of setting up a capture setup like mine, you may want to rethink yourself.
For starters: I run Linux (Manjaro) as my OS, and that is where I do all my capturing and filtering. The capture hardware I use is a Canopus AVDC-300, which is a Firewire DV device. Canopus no longer exists, and the company that bought them out, Grass Valley, doesn’t make the ADVC-300 anymore.
I capture using a program called Kino. Kino’s website points out that Kino is long-dead, unmaintained since 2009, and recommends alternatives – none of which fucking work for capturing with my device, I have tried all of them, and more. So Kino it is. It just works.
Filtering is performed using AVISynth via Virtualdub via WINE. I am fully aware of Vapoursynth, which is greatly modernized and runs natively in Linux. However, the filters I use simply don’t exist in Vapoursynth, and until they do I cannot consider switching. This means I am restricted to saving my files in the somewhat deprecated AVI format, but it works, and they are easily converted to more modern containers, like MKV, after the fact.
If I need to run Windows, I do so through a VFIO setup. What that means is that I run Windows in a virtual machine, but with certain pieces of physical hardware passed through to the VM. Specifically, I am passing through a video card, a sound card, a USB controller, and half of my system’s RAM. This hardware is exclusively for the VM and is not available for use by the primary OS. If I need to perform an operation in Windows for some reason, I move the files I need to work with onto my file server, fire up the VM, and then copy the files from the file server into the VM. But really, I mostly use it for MUH GAYMES.
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