For devices you get c==character (bytes) or b==block (hdd, etc).

That is a root.root user.group & you will need to use sudo if you wish it to be changed.

That is academic. ffmpeg is near miraculous; it will change a video from any format to any other format. My script has the wrong fps AND pixel dimensions for your supply (the script is using "-s 720x576 -r 25" which was correct for my VHS signal, but not yours) but ffmpeg would happily make that change.

The issue for you is hardware & region (as best as I can tell).

v4l2-ctl --all is giving a full, error-free readout of the input video device.
arecord -l is accurately recording the audio hardware as 'hw:2,0' ("card: 2, subdevice: 0")

Only region remains (for me, the picture only appeared in the V4L2 screen when I changed the region from the default NTSC to PAL; ymmv).

If you cannot find a combo that works then the answer may be that zero signal is arriving at the input. Do you have a broken wire?

I've made the ffmpeg-recommended fix (search for "vsync is deprecated") to the bash-file & uploaded it. No checks, but the change is most modest & should work.

I was hoping to find options that you used, results of tests, error messages, ...

Only OUTPUT_NAME is required.

Defaults for other options are:

• VIDEO_DEVICE = '/dev/video0'

• AUDIO_DEVICE = 'hw:2,0'

• REGION = 'PAL'

• PIX_FMT = 'yuv420p'

If those defaults do not match your system, and particularly video or audio hardware, then do not be surprised if it throws an error.

But ok I can tell that you are not bothered, so let's forget it.

See:

• V4L-Capture (Mirror of the v4l Utilities Written by Andrew Sayers)

• Encode-Stream (BASH Script to encode VHS / Camera / Cassette Streams)

My copy on desktop machine of encode_stream script is dated Dec 21  2021, and I have not used it recently, but I know of zero reason why it should not work today.

…and that is why I used the words 'skew-whiff'. It was NOT intended as a comment on you personally, the comment was aimed at your situation.

I've personally been in the classic Linux situation of dependency-hell. I was running an internet server at the time (CentOS, which was derived from RHEL). My guts therefore squirm in sympathy with anyone finding themselves in a similar situation.

Anyone that has been in that state will also know the classic response from the Distribution maintainers / long-term users to such a problem (the image is of a set of people all placing their arms in front of their chests into the sign of the cross & mumbling the words "all your own fault, nothing to do with me, guv").

1. Credit to Debian for attempting to escape from Dependency Hell with a well-maintained & documented Repository system that, by majority, keeps everyone's system clean & responsive.

2. Credit to Devuan for attempting to escape from the brand-new SystemD Hell, a process of escape that echoes many of the characteristics of ridding a forest of Japanese Knotweed, and a virus that promises a level of software Hell lower & more pernicious than any previously known in human experience.

In the face of your situation I tried to help by reporting on my system's (also Daedalus) response to searches on your problematic binaries.

Please stop full-post quoting almost *every* reply, that is just childish nonsense. If you wish to indicate what you are replying to, then edit the text down to the minimum. These forums are noisy enough as they are without scores & scores of full-text quotes.

If you are using the "xfce4-terminal" (see menu:Help | About) then the command to copy highlighted-text is shown at menu:Edit | Copy (key-command is Shift+Ctrl+C).

There are a number of what seems from my desktop to be useful answers to your specific use-case here (stackoverflow).

Thanks for that, swanson (I was so close yet so far away!).

A very good link for the whole process:
Using UUID to Update FSTAB

I'm *very* surprised that, after all this time, there isn't a programmable way to do the whole thing. That manual step puts a big block in uptake.

Here is blkid on my system. sda1 is a usb-connected hdd and one of the main reasons for the modern use of UUIDs:

$ sudo blkid
[sudo] password for alexk: 
/dev/sdc1: LABEL="SG-2TB" BLOCK_SIZE="512" UUID="5DB88E2B4D416357" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="82de246a-01"
/dev/sda2: UUID="689f9e16-2d78-4635-b9c1-d68a8994e668" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="924dc2aa-fbd2-4747-b356-3cf070a966df"
/dev/sda3: UUID="f10d59d3-426b-499e-afa1-8715920318c3" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="54a5a38e-ae7f-41e7-8c88-f0014e7cefe0"
/dev/sda1: UUID="4CD1-6816" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="75179c70-b3b4-4c5e-9684-21cf493e8438"

Use the command terminal to discover the state of your firefox install (or whichever of the 200 different browsers you want to use).

• the following piece of code is issued from a Terminal

• it is likely that you will need to type sudo before issuing the command
  the apt command requires that you are the root user before you issue it
  sudo is a "do as root" command.

• If you do not yet have sudo installed then follow the instructions in this link (one-time only);

• the '$' prefix indicates that you are working in the command window as an ordinary user;
  a '#' prefix would indicate that you are the root user (only ever do that for administration; always work as an ordinary user);
  you do NOT have to enter either char to get the prefix

$ apt search firefox-esr | head

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.

Sorting...
Full Text Search...
firefox-esr/stable-security,stable-proposed-updates,now 102.14.0esr-1~deb12u1 amd64 [installed]
  Mozilla Firefox web browser - Extended Support Release (ESR)

firefox-esr-l10n-ach/stable-security,stable-proposed-updates 102.14.0esr-1~deb12u1 all
  Acoli language package for Firefox ESR

firefox-esr-l10n-af/stable-security,stable-proposed-updates 102.14.0esr-1~deb12u1 all
  Afrikaans language package for Firefox ESR

The important part of the result is the word "[installed]". If that does not exist then do a apt install firefox-esr or use synaptic to install it. Once you have done that you will get a menu-link under the "Internet" sub-link for Firefox. Once you get used to your Desktop you can place logos as links for your most-common utilities within the Panel.

Some small notes to try to quickly key you in to the way Devuan works cf Windows.

The original Windows was a text-based OS that later (1995) got a graphical desktop added to it. They then later tried to convince the world that Windows was a graphical masterpiece and oh, there was a sort-of command window added to it.

Devuan is a software kernel (common to all versions of 'Linux', which is the Operating System (OS)) which has options for a terrifyingly-large number of user-shells. The shells - only one of which is required - are the means for a human to interface with the underlying OS to 'get stuff done'.

Software writers tend to be used to dealing with text, and therefore are used to working within a command-terminal, which is a text-terminal. Confusingly, these are often called "Terminal Emulators". There are a great many of them available (Linux's problem is usually "too much stuff" rather than "too little stuff"). The most common OS for the terminal is BASH, known as the "GNU Bourne-Again SHell" (first was the 'Bourne Shell", known as 'BSH'). There are also lots & lots of different shells that can be used in a Terminal.

The great advantage of text-terminals is that they require far less resources than graphical shells, and that makes them inherently far, far faster.

The next option to operate your computer is via a Graphical shell which, for Linux, is normally a version of the X Window System. Linux *always* starts in text-mode, then at a point during startup it will launch startx (or maybe the local-shell's version of that command), and the X-Session will begin showing you a GUI ("Graphical User Interface") rather than a TUI ("Text User Interface").

The default GUI for Devuan is XFCE which is renowned as a stable, lightweight Desktop. There are scores of others that can be used.

The final point to make is that, with Devuan, both GUI & TUI are on an equal footing. BASH is extremely stable & useful as an interface, as is XFCE.

That's a heck of a lot of 'small notes'. HTH.

Thanks for the advice, Ralph.

I've been through the process before (just the once), but since golinux said that s/he was going to choose the ones s/he wanted I was leaving it in h/er/is hands. I'm a bit busy with other stuff (it's Thursday & the bins are emptied today & I've missed them yet again as I'm preoccupied with other stuff).