[GLLUG] Digital Video Cameras & Linux

[Marr]

On Friday 18 January 2008 9:30am, Clay Dowling wrote:
> I'm running the latest stable Ubuntu on this machine.

I fired up my laptop with Ubuntu 7.10 (installed from the CD that you gave me, 
incidentally). Ubuntu is definitely not my usual or favorite distro, but 
let's keep "apples to apples", you know?

Tried to compile dvgrab-3.1 (latest). Ubuntu reports this on './configure' 
step:

   configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

What?!?!? I've been compiling things under Linux for a long time and never 
encountered that before. A 'gcc --version' command reports 4.1.3. Long story 
short... seems like Ubuntu 7.10 "out of the box" is not really ready for any 
compilation, despite the presence of 'gcc'. Bummer! That really stinks for an 
old Slackware guy like me!

I grabbed an older (2.1) version of 'dvgrab' from a PC where it was already 
compiled and installed and ran that under Ubuntu 7.10.

> All the required 
> libraries are loaded, and I have modraw1394 loaded.  The special file has
> the correct permissions, because that was absolutely the first thing that
> I suspected.  

Switched my camcorder to 'VCR' mode. Ubuntu sees it and auto-loads 'raw1394' 
module. Device is present, but requires permission change to avoid 'raw1394 - 
failed to get handle: Permission denied.' error when running 'dvgrab'. I'm 
left wondering why you didn't encounter this problem too, unless you've 
tweaked your 'udev' rules.

For fun, I switched camcorder off and re-ran 'dvgrab'. Got the expected reply 
("Error: no camera exists").

Switched camcorder back to 'VCR' mode. Run 'dvgrab' and it works perfectly 
(creates 'dvgrab-001.avi' video file).

FYI: 'lsmod | grep 1394' shows these modules loaded:

   dv1394, raw1394, ohci1394, and ieee1394

Note that the 'sbp2' module is also needed.

> There's a utility called librawtest that performs a similar 
> function to gscanbus, and that's the one that tells me that the card is
> working fine, but there's no nodes attached.

Please let us know where this 'librawtest' comes from. I cannot find it 
anywhere on my Ubuntu partition, anywhere in the 'libraw1394' TGZ extraction, 
or on any other machines of mine. Furthermore, a Google search for it returns 
null. Where did you get this mystery utility?

> I bought this thing from Amazon, and the very first review says that he's
> using this camera with Linux and Kino.  So it isn't a fundamental
> incompatibility, there's something wrong in my setup.

Sounds logical. Please let us know if/when/how you get this resolved. And 
holler if there's anything you'd like me to try. Good luck!

Bill Marr