Linux and DV cams?

Stephen Ryan stephen.ryan at dartmouth.edu
Tue Dec 7 02:47:00 EST 2004


On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 15:43 -0500, Mark Komarinski wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 03:19:07PM -0500, Paul Lussier wrote:
> > 
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > Does anyone have any opinions on digital video cameras and use with
> > Linux?  Any thoughts on what to get or not to get?  What to stay away
> > from and what to look for?  Also, what's the best media to record on
> > with these (I assume there are a variety of tape formats, and some that
> > record directly to CD or DVD?)
> > 
> > I haven't really begun my research yet and was hoping someone here would
> > provide some good starting points.
> 
> I bought a Canon ZR50(?) two years ago and went through your dilema then.
> It's a nice camera, and spouse-friendly.

> If you want real digital, go with MiniDV as the tape format and find
> one with ieee1394 (aka firewire/ilink).  You can then dump your tape to 
> Linux in real time and then edit it with apps like kino:
> http://kino.schirmacher.de/
> 
> From there, you can go back to MiniDV for archival, or convert to (S)VCD,
> DVD, or AVI/MPG.  Be warned that MiniDV is LARGE, so have plenty of disk
> space available.
> 
> Things to look for:
> 
> Battery life (mine lasts 60 minutes, same as the tape)
> Any built-in photo capabilities stink - use a real digital camera instead
> Mine has a remote, which is handy when you go to dump to the VCR
> "Power shoe" for connecting external mics or lights without any extra wires
> The one problem with my camera is the mic is too close to the tape mechanism,
>  so there's always a bit of a tape whine to the audio.  An external mic would
>  make that a lot easier to deal with.

A few more:

* Digital zoom is a waste of time.  The images look blurry under the
best of conditions.

* Lens quality matters; GI-GO.   

* Some kind of image stabilization helps a lot (Sony calls it Super
Steady Shot on mine), especially if you use the zoom and aren't using a
tripod.

* Make sure that any reviews you read are for the *exact* model; a
friend of mine got a Canon about the same time Mark did, and recommended
it to me, but in the 6 months between when he bought and when I bought,
Canon had cut the size of their photo-sensors in half, with a
corresponding drop in low-light image quality.  Thankfully, I saw that
in the reviews before I bought.  This isn't to say that you shouldn't
consider Canon, because I know they've taken the reviews to heart and
fixed their still cameras, some of which had a similar problem at the
time.

* I'd strongly second the recommendation to go for IEEE-1394; my
IEEE-1394 interface card cost around $20, with an extra $10 for a
front-panel bay with USB, IEEE-1394 and audio connectors.  IEEE-1394
camcorders generally only need the generic drivers included in the
kernel, which means that Kino works quite well with them out of the box,
though Kino itself has a bit of a learning curve.

For software, Kino is good for the initial import; I've heard some good
things about Cinelerra for more capable editing, but I really haven't
needed to get into that yet.  For me, the last link was DVDstyler, which
let me easily take video exported from Kino and make a DVD from it.




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