I do a lot of Hi8 digitizing, because I like to film in it, so this is first and foremost for that usecase. But I also want to get set up to digitize VHS found footage and lost media.
The script is nothing to write home about at the moment, with most of my time being spent just dialing it in for performance given the age of the Thinkserver. I feel that's pretty squared away, so the next step is updating it to accept args for things like fps, resolution, etc.
I settled on the Magewell card because I found one super cheap, their Linux drivers seem pretty well supported and maintained, and I wanted a bolted-in solution since everything is rackmount.
I paid $50 on ebay for the Magewell, because the seller had a huge lot of them to liquidate.
The TINK 4k is indeed expensive, but it was one I had laying around collecting dust. I have a museum of gaming consoles and for a while was upscaling them with the TINK, before moving on to a different solution.
The 16:9@60 is simply my not yet having implemented conditions in my script for variable capture settings. I am fortunate to have an 8TB HDD in the server, and an additional 140TB data server, so file size footprint isn't currently high on my priorities.
I've started my own foray into push-to-talk and speech-to-text recently. I opted for faster-whisper since I wanted a lighter, local approach. It might be more DIY than what you're looking for, but I just wanted to chime in since it's fresh on my mind.
Taking a step back, I don't understand why it matters. Hobbies and skill-sets regularly cross over. If you're finding personal enrichment learning how, I don't think it really matters.
If the answer is that you're just curious how to classify it, then I'd say it's a culinary skill, which is also a hobby.
I tried to start one in 2007, with a couple of weird people from an occult forum. It was based on the H.P. Lovecraft mythos. We got bored of it within about 6 months, and I didn't keep in touch with those folks for long after.
I do a lot of Hi8 digitizing, because I like to film in it, so this is first and foremost for that usecase. But I also want to get set up to digitize VHS found footage and lost media.