[lug] digital camcorders

[Ted Logan]

On 6/22/07, Steve Sullivan <sullivan at mathcom.com> wrote:
> Can you recommend a digital camcorder and capture card that work
> well with linux?  After much hassle with my old analog camcorder
> I've decided it's time to go digital.

Three years ago I gave a talk on the topic at BLUG. I haven't done
much with digital video lately (the downsides of real jobs), but it
might be worth looking over:

Slides: http://festing.org/video/blug-2004-04-08/

Handout, with links: http://festing.org/video/blug-2004-04-08/handout.html

> If you have successful experiences importing digital video/audio
> from a camcorder into linux ...
>
> What model camcorder did you use?

Two different Sony Digital8 models. If you have a large number of
legacy 8mm tapes, you may want to consider a a Digital8 camcorder
(instead of a smaller, mini-DV camera), which is backwards-compatible
with analog 8mm tapes. (The camcorders I used could also be used to
capture video from other sources, which is useful for digitizing old
VHS tapes.)

> What model capture card did you use?

An off-the-shelf IEEE 1394 (also known as Firewire and occasionally
"iLink") card; once the video is recorded digitally onto the tape the
capture step is entirely digital; no capture card or multiple cables
are required.

Make sure you have plenty of disk space -- an hour of raw,
slightly-compressed video straight from the camcorder ("DV") is about
13 gigs.

> What software did you use?

dvgrab and Kino; see the "handout" link above.

> Were there any problems?  In particular, were there any quality
> or synchronization issues?

The quality will depend on the source video. It doesn't look fantastic
-- it's not high-definition -- but it looks fine on a normal TV.

> Did you capture the audio via the capture card or via the sound card?

The audio is captured digitally along side the video. I only needed
one 1394 cable with the appropriate form factor.

-- 
Ted Logan
Software Engineer
ted.logan at gmail.com
http://jaeger.festing.org/