VBrick Capture Driver

VBrick's Capture Driver is a virtual video capture card for Windows 2000/XP.  The Capture Driver software is an optional component for VBrick StreamPlayer Plus.  To install the Capture Driver, simply install StreamPlayer Plus normally by running the StreamPlayer Plus setup.  After installation, run the setup program again and select "Modify" (you may not be able to successfully run modify via Windows Control Panel).  Check "Capture Driver" as shown below and let the program finish.

When installed, your live VBrick MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 video streams will appear as if you have a local "video capture card" to the Windows operating system. As a result, hundreds of existing software programs that capture or manipulate video and audio via a local video capture card may be used with your VBrick.

The Capture Driver is unique, and allows you to think of remote, network-attached VBricks as if they were "network-attached video capture cards". The Capture Driver decodes MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 and presents raw audio/video to the Windows system, just like any video capture card. As a result, you can use Capture Driver to transcode your live MPEG video into other formats, perform motion detection, conduct object recognition, capture the video in AVI or other formats, or do virtually anything your 3rd party software will allow. 

Advantages

• Video source may be anywhere -- they are no longer tethered to your computer via analog coax cable or short Firewire cable

• Any number of video sources may exist -- you are no longer limited to the number of physical audio/video inputs available on a computer

• All Digital -- no conversion loss

Applications

• Security & Monitoring -- motion detection, automatic email notification, logging, and more

• Capture -- capture video in your desired format, AVI, DV, etc. and your favorite editor 

• Edit -- use your editor's capture tool without modification, capture your video in AVI or other formats,  and edit your video directly.

• Transcode -- convert your high quality MPEG video to Real or Microsoft format "on the fly"

• DVD -- Capture your video using one of many popular DVD authoring tools and burn it to DVD

Example

Windows Media encoder is one of many programs that allow you to select a multimedia device. Simply select "VBrick Video Capture" for video, and "VBrick Audio Capture" for audio as shown below:

Select "Configure" video to reach the next screen:

Selecting "Video Source" will open the VBrick source interface:

You may simply type in the IP address of your source VBrick video, or click the the "..." button to launch an automatic Program Guide:

Double-click on any program to select it, and then close the configuration option windows.

Your live MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 video is now seen by the application is if the video were a local video capture card in the computer. You can now proceed to capture a file in WM format, stream in WM format, etc.

Real Producer works in a very similar way:

Other Applications

There are hundreds of applications that seek to do something with video on a Wiindows computer, and virtually all of these applications expect to use a Windows Multimedia device via the manufacturer's device driver.  The applications range from simple image capture tools to advanced motion detection and analysis (many are free or very low cost).  Suddenly, these applications are no longer bound to the computer's PCI bus or the short reach of USB or Firewire. With the VBrick Capture Driver, your live video sources may be on the other side of the world and connected to you via your LAN and via the public Internet. 

The VBrick Capture Driver, which has been shipping for years, simply eliminates the absurd notion that you need to decode live MPEG to analog video and and then re-encode it via a PC capture card.

Frankly, this is incredible technology for twenty bucks!