[mdlug] Digital camcorders & Linux

[Mark Thuemmel]

R. Kannan wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am looking for a digital camcorder and I was wondering if anyone had any experience (good or bad) while using a camcorder with a linux box. Basically, I may want to download from the camcorder to the Linux box an burning the video to a DVD (using Myth?) etc. I am not planning to do any fancy video editing. Any issues with proprietary format etc that I should be aware of?
> 
> Thanks for any help

I bought a used Sony Camcorder with an i.LINK port for $100 on
Craigslist.  Added a $15 firewire card to my pc and cable.

This IEEE 1394 interface is also known by the brand names of FireWire
(Apple Inc.), i.LINK (Sony), and Lynx (Texas Instruments)

I do a "sudo chmod 777 /dev/raw1394" after plugging it in to talk to it
on my Ubuntu box, but after that Kino works well for capturing the video
off the camera and basic editing and then saving to mpeg.

Takes a lot of disk space.  Transcoding isn't too bad on my dual core cpu.

My kids make homemade videos and post them up to YouTube with it.