Question about Sage.properties

[pjpjpjpj]

I have an old "webcam"-type camera attached to my server via USB - I have never used it for anything but I got it free and figured, why not plug it in and see if it works... it did, and there it has sat (unused) ever since. It's a "Logitech QuickCam".

So I happened to be scrolling through Sage.properties and I noticed the following line:

mmc/ignore_encoders=Logitech QuickCam Express|NVIDIA DualTV YUV Capture|SoundMAX Digital Audio|NVIDIA DualTV YUV Capture 2|

So my question is, could I remove the camera name from this "ignore" line, and map it to a channel in Sage, similar to where I have seen people do home security cameras and such? If so, how would I do that? If I just delete that name from that line, would it "show up" somewhere else?

As a second, separate question - I got my server, as you can see in my sig, off eBay, as a reconditioned office PC (I bought it for other reasons, way before Sage was even on my radar). So I have no idea what was ever on it or in it before me. So.... what is the deal with "NVIDIA DualTV YUV Capture" (and "...Capture 2") showing up in this line? There is no separate video/tuner card in the PC now, so does this mean it likely used to have one before I bought it, and it still shows up in the system hardware list somehow? Or is this a line that comes in the Sage.properties text regardless? Or is there some other explanation? Coincidentally, when you search for that card online, several of the search results that it pulls up are threads from these very Sage forums (under "hardware"), from a few years ago.

[GKusnick]

I don't have a definitive answer, but it seems likely that devices in the ignore list are there for a reason. Either they're programmed that way in the default config because they're known by the Sage devs not to work, or else your Sage setup detected them, queried their capabilities, and decided they weren't suitable capture devices. So the chances of getting one to work by removing it from that list seem pretty slim.

Regarding your second question, if you bought a machine off Ebay and did not format the hard disk and do a clean OS install, you're way more trusting than I am.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Either they're programmed that way in the default config because they're known by the Sage devs not to work, or else your Sage setup detected them, queried their capabilities, and decided they weren't suitable capture devices.

As for the NVIDIA TV tuners, there's a thread here in the Sage forums indicating that people have used them, so that likely isn't the problem. No idea about the "webcam" though. I'm curious to hear if Andy has any thoughts...

Originally Posted by GKusnick

Regarding your second question, if you bought a machine off Ebay and did not format the hard disk and do a clean OS install, you're way more trusting than I am.

Yeah, yeah, make me feel guilty! I should have, but it was bought from an "online store" (so I trusted it "somewhat") and the originally-intended use for the machine was just for occasional web and email for my mother-in-law, so sporadically that I wouldn't have worried about her having any problems (it would be shut off 23.5 hours per day).... then, through a crazy sequence of events (and the fact that it sat unused for so long that I kinda forgot about the reformatting idea), it ended up becoming my Sage server, and was up and running, and it was too late. Of course, there's nothing on it that anyone would want anyway, and it's such an old machine that any use of it by someone remotely would probably max out the resources and I'd know about it instantly.