[plug] Video camera newbie

[Rob Davies]

On 12 Sep 2004, at 12:51pm, Carl Gherardi wrote:

> Hey Guys,
>
> I managed to get my brother running linux - and hes been happy with it 
> for 6 months now, but he now wants to grab and edit video from a 
> digital video camera. "i've got this (windows) software here, how do i 
> install it?"
>
> What is the general process for getting digital video via usb?
>

USB or USB2 is totally useless for video capture it will drop frames 
even if you manage to get it to work. This means finding a camera with 
a USB port which for video I doubt you will find, still capture is USB 
even from a video camera, but video is definitely FIREWIRE / IEEE1394.


> Most of the stuff i'm finding on the web is - get firewire working, 
> use dvgrab, open kino/cinelerra. I'm using usb so i'm a little lost.
>

I would recommend cinelerra for which Slackware has ports that are 
native, but if you are a relative newbie to video or linux it could be 
a severe learning curve. On the bright side their is a large video 
community whom use linux hence, information scattered over WWW and 
newsgroups / mailing lists. Remember google is your friend!

> I've used usb mass storage devices previously, but the camera doesn't 
> appear to act like one.
>

And you won't, see above!

> If I need to get a firewire card I will, but i'd like to avoid it if 
> possible.
>

As suggested by Skribe, spend the money, not sure of which one to 
recommend, but I am sure their are others on the list whom would know.

Cheers!
Rob Davies
rob at rjdarts.com

"It is the world which makes known to us our belonging to a 
subject-communtiy, especially the existence in the world of the 
manufactured objects." Sartre.