GNU/Linux Desktop Survival Guide by Graham Williams
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Recording from VCR

An EasyCap cable provides three RCA sockets (L/R Audio and Video) and an S-Video socket into which we can plug the cables from an old VCR so that we can transfer our old VHS video collection to digital. Such a cable can be bought for $10 on eBay.

Connect the VCR up to the EasyCap. If the VCR has only a single audio output then connect it to the Right channel (red) RCA socket. The yellow one is for the video signal.

Connect the USB device to the computer. THe extension USB cable comes in handy for this.

The commands lsusb and dmesg will come in handy to confirm the USB is connected:

19 Jan 08:31:28 kayon@theano:~ubuntu/packages$ lsusb
[...]
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 1c88:0007 Somagic, Inc. SMI Grabber (EasyCAP DC60+ clone) (no firmware) [SMI-2021CBE]
[...]

19 Jan 10:05:02 gjw@theano:~ubuntu/packages$ dmesg
[...]
[297815.710843] usb 3-2: new high-speed USB device number 3 using xhci_hcd
[297815.727833] usb 3-2: New USB device found, idVendor=1c88, idProduct=0007
[297815.727844] usb 3-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[297815.727850] usb 3-2: Product: SM-USB 007
[297815.727855] usb 3-2: Manufacturer: Somagic, Inc.
[297815.727859] usb 3-2: SerialNumber: SMBL007
[...]

The required pacakges can be downloaded:

$ wget http://easycap-somagic-linux.googlecode.com/files/somagic-easycap-tools_1.1_amd64.deb
$ wget http://easycap-somagic-linux.googlecode.com/files/somagic-easycap_1.1_amd64.deb
$ wajig install somagic-easycap-tools_1.1_amd64.deb somagic-easycap_1.1_amd64.deb

Also install some requisite pacakges:

$ wajig install wine

The driver for the USB device must now be obtained and installed. This is a proprietary driver, and may be accessible on the Internet, otherwise we need to extract it from the CD supplied with the EasyCap USB/cable.

$ wine /media/kayon/EasyCAP_2021/Drivers/Setup.exe

Resources

• http://code.google.com/p/easycap-somagic-linux/wiki/GettingStarted