David, I assume this tablet has a floppy... I have found floppy based boot disk that let you access either network or cdroms to install from... that would be one way to do the install... OR a DSL linux install those are VERY small (50mb) so you don't loose much on install.

Also you should be able to keep your system partition VERY small... though fedora is somewhat bloated (and hey, I use it and like it)... debian can get pretty minimium and still full featured.

I assume you have also toyed with the option of now being able to swap the two drives in the field to extend record time... though not super fast option it's a viable one.

I'm no linux guru either, you look to be probably as proficient if not more so than I am... but like you I like fumbling with this stuff!

The tablet does have an optional external floppy. Mine was included in the auction. I originally tried to use a CD to install Linux, but the problem was the tablet came with a BackPack parallel port CD-ROM. The BackPack was such a strange device, it was not surprising that FC3 (and FC4) failed to recognize it.

Also at the time my internet connection wasn't really good enough to attempt a download install. Besides, I didn't know how much messing around I'd have to do to get Linux running. It would have been a big hassle to have to online download an installation several times. For now, I can live with the loss of a couple gigs for the install. I may yet revisit this issue with an external USB CD-ROM or hard drive.

I did consider using debian to make the installation smaller, but I am more familiar with RedHat, so that's what I used. Another option would be to setup a local FTP or SMB server with the images on the server.

Swapping hard drives was not an option that I've look at. I currently have 40GB of video storage, which is over 3 hours... plenty for any filming I need. If I wanted to go this route, I could ghost a couple of extra drives and be able to power-off swap them in about 5 minutes. The big problem would be the hard drive cable, which is a ribbon cable and too fragile for many swaps.

Enjoy the "fumbling"... it's a lot of fun. :)

Yeah, I was mainly speaking of doing net installs on future upgrades/installs.

I was hoping that the hard drive slid into a slot and wasn't so finiky.... oh well.

Hell for the price you could really just get a 2nd unit whole nother back up system ready to go if something were to go wrong... you've done the hard part... you wouldn't need to re-buy any periphials unless you wanted to run a second cam... and you got the HD sitting around.

Wow you should set those things up and sell them on ebay. You would make a killing. The cheapest DTE is $650. Not to mention you can see video on yours and you could always get a faster unit for playing video in real time. I am in awe.

Hoi forummembers.
I'm a Dutch mail of 66 years en retired now and have read the whole discussion on this matter. I doe a lot of video shooting and also mounting on the computer.
I seems that David has make a goed device. However, I search a lot time to the internet to find the commando's send viceversa from camera to device, (Mediaplayer, Capture devices, recorder, etc) i.e. play,pause,rew, ff etc.
But find nothing sofar. I found this site well.
Mayby I used the wrong search strings. Can anybody gif me some clou where to look.
I will tray write directly to a HD from a different angle then david has done.
Thanks in advance and sorry for my english writing
Best regards
Ab Schuurman

Albert,

I've done quite a bit of homework on this subject, so maybe I can help. What are you looking to do? What camera do you have? How many hours of storage space needed? Battery run times? All of these questions are relevant in determining the best capture device (iPod, PDA, laptop, etc.). The main problems from a computing standpoint are handling the data rate of 25 megabits per second (8.3 megabytes per sec.) and the firewire interface.

David

Update: I'm currently starting version 3 of my tablet setup, this time using Xumbuntu Linux. I'm trying this linux because it is specifically designed for older, slower computers. It is also a very small distro that should also allow me to shrink the size of the installation partition.

David

Tanks for your reply.
Yes, your right. Handle a datastream of 25 Mb/s is not easy, but it can be done.
I'm familair with the technicals aspects. There is a lot info on the internet.

What I looking for is de commando code (or string) witch is be send by the camera when I push the Record/Stop button in de camera modus.
I use the Sony DCR-VX9000E (PAL) camera and make the film(s) with Adobe premiere 6.5.
I film small documentaries or films about a sportsclub that exist 110 jaar and ofcourse the holliday movie's.
For the holidays I use a the small Sony DCR-HC23E.

I'm able now to store the shots on a HD.
Picture it, I connect the camera trough the firewire cable on my laptop and start a program VIDAB.
(capture program running onder windows XP) The existing (VIDCAP) program is modifyed to do the job.

The progran look first, at the pointed externe 1,8" HD of 40 Gig connected true USB 2.0, to the lest file on that disk.
The name is SH(number). (SH=SHOT) Then de program wait for the start commando.
I point the camera to the scene I need to storage and press de spacebar.
The program store the data comming trough the firewire cable to the HD untill I press the spacebar again
The file wil be closed and the program wait untill I press the spacebar again.
The file counter opnumber the filename with 1.

This is the reasson that I wil find the commandstring from the start/stop button on the camera.
I d'nt need de spacebar anymore.

After I take all the needed shots (I go home). I take the HD off the laptop and connect it to my computer where I run Adobe on.
I read the files sh(1) to (x) files directly in Adobe and work the film totally on this HD.
Important time to win is that I do not have to capture the shots
After I finisd the movie I make a DVD of whatever.

In normal modus the laptop can function approx 2-2.5 hours.
I do not need the screen so I shut it down and win approx 1 - 1,5 hours extra batt power.
I do not use tapes so the recorder engine remain oke.

I hope I make it clear to you where I'm bussy with.

You can see that I have won a trofee with a 16 minut film , about a pour familie whit big deads(mony),what I have made with my companions from a small videoclub
In November our film wil be projected in a large communityhall and maybe we win again.
http://www.clubs.nl/community/default.asp?clubid=261300
scroll down and on they end I stand behind the trofee.

Greeting Ab

I'm not sure that dv video capture will work on current 1.8" drives.

Like most specifications anymore, the listed performance from the manufacturer is the HIGHEST possible transfer rate, under ideal conditions. If you go to www.tomshardware.com you can find real performance testing on hard drives. They tested several 1.8" drives and the performance drops are significant. The Toshiba MK8007GAH, 1.8", 80GB drive has a maximum write speed of 26 megabytes per second, but drops to 11.7 megabytes per second on the slower innermost cylinders. 11.7MB/s is approx. 93.6 megabits per second which is still plenty fast enough for video capture, but this is raw throughput. We have not added file system overhead, nor have we accounted for bad sector re-mapping, a feature of all current drives. The 1.8" drives also come with only 2MB cache, which would be less forgiving of performance "dropouts" than 8 or 16MB cache drives.

Using the data from the performance charts in the article, a 1.8" drive is about 33% slower than the equivalent capacity 2.5" drive. I had minor performance issues on my 40GB, 8MB cache drive in my tablet, and that was a big reason I upgraded to a 60GB 16MB cache drive. I don't know that any amount of tweaking could have overcome a 33% performance difference.

I don't like being the one who says that something can't be done, but I'm not sure the technology is there quite yet.

Article Link:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/04/28/small_is_beautiful/

David,

I read the mentioned articles and I agree that those drives are not good enough. Thanks for your effort.

I looked where a made my mistake in my posting.
I have look on a earlyer drawing from the first concept to make it so small as possible.

I use now a Toshiba 60Gb notebook drive 2,5", 5400 rpm. Its fit in a box with 1 usb 2.0 connection to the computer.
A second usb cable is in use for only the power for the drive.

I have taken a lot of video with my installation and de files are all oke. No dropped frames are discovered.
So I'm happy sofar. I see well that different improvements are possible.

I expected, in fact, more comment on my concept.

And can you, or anyone else, help my out with my first question about the used code strings?? for start/stop recording in the camera modus.
Where to look or wich string can give more result.
I found something on IEC 61883 (x) but they tell me a lot about making the connection IEEE 1394 and how to remain it and the the format of the data pakkets en the place of the commandostrings i.e.
but nothing about the commandoset self.
So I looking forward to hear something, If possible.

I wil now look how to strip the laptop and remove the not used parts.
First I make inquiry the possibility to run XP and my VIDAB program on a flascart.

Have all a nice weekend
Bue Ab

The dvgrab program that I use under Linux is supposed to be able to read the record commands from the camera. I haven't tried it. I found a thread on the dvgrab forum that you may want to look at:

http://www.kinodv.org/dcforum/dcforum?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=748

Thanks, David for your quick reply.
I yhink that I need this weekend to read the treadon this \.
I must read it carefully and try to translate it to my language to understand what they really mean.

have a nice weekend
bye Ab

David or other forum members,

After I read a lot information on the Kino forum I decide to install Fedora Core 4 into my laptop and go with DVgrab and Kino.

I think you can help my

I have, I thought, installed Fedora Core 4 as Desktop on my laptop, Acer aspire 5670.

After I boot again Grub give me the chose
Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4smp)
Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4)
other (is de xp)

Since I don’t know the difference between the 2 Fedora chooses I enter on the first chose.

The boot hangs by the "Starting PCMCIA card services".

I restart the laptop with XP.
I check the PCMCIA devices in the config-system-hardware
They work normally and no drive updates found.

Hardware:
Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Cardbus Controller
Texas Instruments PCIxx12 Integrated FlashMedia Controller.

I reboot and try the second options on the bootmenu.

The same results. He did not past the starting the PCMCIA card-services.

anyone that knows how to solve this?
Thanks in advance

Greetings Ab

Albert,

The "smp" on the end means that the boot image is for a multiprocessor computer. The Core Duo chips should qualify as smp but I'm not sure of their Linux support.

For Fedora Linux questions, I usually end up at www.fedoraforum.org as pretty much any problem you'll have has already been posted there, and maybe even fixed. I went to the "Laptop" subforum and searched for "Acer Aspire 5670". There is a post there about one person who had the same problem as you with pcmcia services. The fix for him was to disable pcmcia services. This is done by booting the rescue CD, then going to the /etc/rc.5 directory, then renaming the file "S09pcmcia" to "K09pcmcia". After doing this you will not have pcmcia services. Then reboot and see if everything else is working. If it is then update FC4 to get all of the patches. There will probably be a patch to the pcmcia services somewhere buried inside another update, probably the kernel update. Then you can change the file name back and see if it starts working.

I had a similar thing happen to me with the FC4 installation on my Fujitsu tablet. The xwindows chipset driver wasn't right so I couldn't GUI install. After I updated, everything was great.

David,

Again thanks for the quick reply, (I see your local time 05:00 AM( thats mean early in te morning ?)
Do you ever sleep?

However, You said I have posted on the fedoraforum but I have only make a post on you and the
http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/member.php?u=4759 forum and you are the first answer.

So I have not yet fixed. I go to follow your answer and let you know what happened.
Thanks
Bye Ab

It was actually 7:00AM in the morning when I posted that. The forum is located 2 time zones west of where I live. And no, I don't sleep (ha ha).

I think there was a slight communication problem when I said someone else had the same problem on fedoraforum. I did not imply that you had posted there. I meant that someone else has posted about the same issue, and that by searching there, you could find the answer. I think the problem is either the word "you" or "you'll" that is causing the confusion, that plus my sloppy grammer.

Here is the posting on Fedora Forum: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=97851&highlight=Acer+Aspire+5670

David,

I can sayethe same about my grammer as a Dutchman.

However
I have no rescue CD, only a recovery CD making from the start bij buying.
But, when I boot from de install CD by Fedora I had a chose fore “linux rescue”
So I deed. But in that mode I had not the rights to enter the RC5.D map.
I was a user en not the admin.
Buy a accidental LINUX reboot from GRUB I say the chose for Interactive boot.
Of course I was to late to enter that.
Reboot again and type early enough a capital I and I was able by the interactive boot to skip the pcmcia device.
Now I was in the GUI and deed the change in the map RC5.D S09pcmcia to K09pcmcia.
Later I set also the chkconfig pcmcia off.
So I can boot en go to setup the internet connection for downloading kina en dvgrab.
The system recognize my Ethernet cart en set the name eth0 for it.
But by the configuratie he says
Can netwercart eth0 not to activated. Tg3 netwerkcart eth0 is parently not installed.
Well, you can shoot me.
I look at the ACER site for any file for linux. Acer has nothing for linux, maybe the acer is not the right choose afterall.
I let you now when the steps are ready.
Bye Ab

Hoi David,

Installing FC4 on my laptop was already done, now I face up the problem that my internet cart did not work at all. Tray more different drivers for the broadcom giga Ethernet cart , but nothing words. I have the small 40G HD with the USB 2.0 interface. I set de needed files (from a separate PC on the HD (fat 32 partition) en connect de HD to the laptop and so I transfer to the linux section. First, I install the needed drivers. At least I attempt. The first error was that the NOKEY as wrong. I found a solution and I tray again. Well. Many warnings en errors by the rpm the packages. I need again to internet to download other packages and versions. Switching with the HD was also a lot time and work

Since my laptop works fine under Windows XP, I decide to install a virtual monitor.
A computer in a computer.
On the VM I install FC 4 and I was directly able to internet. I download dvgrab 2.0 and the needed files again. The same errors and now I go directly to a driver site and download all the files en YES, I installed anything include Dvgrab 2.0

In Dvgrab nothing happened. I install Kino to. Now I can see something.
Searching the net teach me that the VM was not able to do anything with the IEEE1394 connection.

I had al the necessary libs etc en put them on my HD
Back the de laptop en FC. All the libs etc installed (no problems) Dvgrab en kino installed (no problems). After tray to grab input from the 1394 I learn (trough internet) that I must tell the kernel that I had that (1394) device to.

It works. My camcorder was recognized and I say on the kino screen a picture.
The red start/stop button on the camcorder did start/stop the framecounter.
So, I download the Dvgrab handbook and finally I can go to work.

Greetings from a happy Ab

It sounds like you had almost as much trouble with internet under FC4 as I did with the touchscreen on my Fujitsu. :)

Sound like you've got it working though. Congratulations!

I find it interesting that kino recognizes the record button on the camera. Which camera did you try? My guess would be your DCR-VX9000E. Did you try the DCR-HC23E as well?

In about 2 weeks I'll be done with filming the high school football games. Then I'm going to setup a website with step-by-step instructions on building my tablet setup running Xubuntu Linux. I'll also be using the latest version of dvgrab and kino. I chose Xubuntu Linux this time because it is much smaller than Fedora and is designed to run on slower hardware. I should be able to cut the installation partition to under 1GB. Stay tuned.

David,

Thanks, but I was a little to fast. After Kino and Dvgrab works I find out that Dvgrab was designed for captured tape and there was no recognizing any key from the camera. Dan Kino came up and by capture he found my camera (there was a tape in) and show my the time code.
Pressing the start/stop button on the camera the time code came to run en stop after I press the button again.
That moment I thought oke now, I can to work further.
You say: I find it interesting that kino recognizes the record button on the camera.
Yaaa, this interesting but not trough. The next day and I removed the tape. We want tapeloss recording !!!) nothing happened by pressing the button.
Also Kino is mostly designed for capturing from tape.
I think, there is actually no need to send any commando trough the IEEE1394 cable when a start the tape to recording.
I must search for an other solution for what I want.
I used the Sony DCR 9000 and the Sony HC23E and an old JVC GR-DVL 167E, al camcorders are recognized by Kino and Dvgrab. I can see that in the preferences from Kino by there name.
From the old JVC camera, the tape unit does not work anymore. I found now that I can use this camera for digitising a lot off slides (approx. 10.000) from the Corrie ten Boom foundation.
They want to have books with thumbnails (30 per A4) with the number from the slide below the thumbnail. So it is easy to see what they have an than they pickup some slides and let a profi firm make enlarchments from it.
I have already done approx. 1000 slides (1 book) and that was a lot of work.
On my editing PC I have a DV Storm cart and it is more work for my. Now with Kino is easier to do.

I will follow your project for a smaller linux version because I do need that to for what I really want.
Suc6 en I will keep you informed.
Greet Ab (still happy)

Hi,

I may have missed it but the question is what/how much do I loose if I go direct (via svideo) to a dvd recorder? Putting one hour of material on 4.7 gig disk.

This question doesn't belong in this thread, but I'll answer it anyway. :)

Going from DV to S-video to a DVD recorder is possible, but there are some pretty big problems.

1. Difference in resolution: DV Video is 720 x 480 pixels in the data stream. The actual resolution of the image is much less (400 x 375 or so) but this does vary a bit from camcorder to camcorder. S-Video at its theoretical resolution is about the same, but I've seen many S-video implementations that are no better than composite. You can tell how good your camcorder's S-video implementation is by running the output of your camcorder to a good TV with both connections (S-vid & composite). There should be a big difference in picture quality. If there isn't much difference, then the camera probably has a cheap S-video implementation.

2. Digital-Analog-Digital Conversion: The camcorder is a digital device unless you are using a Hi-8 or older camera. The signal must be converted to analog to pass thru S-video. Then the DVD recorder has to convert back to digital before it can write to DVD. There will be some quality losses in this process. The better the camera and recorder, the better image quality will be at the end. Since many DVD recorders have firewire inputs, why not just use a firewire cable and skip the conversions?

3. Mpeg compression: DVD's use mpeg compression that will remove some details from the image. Since uncompressed AVI video weighs in at 13GB per hour, and you're going to smash that down to 4.7GB ON THE FLY, there will be noticable quality losses. The best DVD creation uses either very expensive dedicated hardware for realtime compression, or a computer and multiple passes to create the best possible image.

4. Editing? If you want to edit the video later, you will have to uncompress the DVD using DVD Decrypter or some other package before you can edit it. This will be a big addition to the time required to produce finished video. That plus you are starting with the already compressed video from the DVD, which is not as good as what is on tape.

Here is an alternate view.

IF the dv camcorder had the same compression as the dvd recorder, then IMO a direct digital to digital connection would be best. IN this case you have DV compression being transcoded to Mepg2 for your DVD. The 13 gig per hour Avi is NOT uncompressed, it is compressed in DV format

What I have found in some cases is that by using the Decompression in the camcorder to generate the analog signal, and then using the compression in the dvd recorder to compress the video to mpeg2 can actually result in as good as or actually better results

Here are a few point that MIGHT explain why

First, when you decompress in the camcorder, the camcorder does any error correction to create as good a picture as it can

Second is that during the recompression from DV to Mpeg2 you are in fact decompressing and re compressing

In one case where you are using the analog path, you have two processors doing the task, while in the other case you are relying on the single processor in the dvd recorder to to both tasks

On the Panasonic dvd recorders, in my experience using the analog s video in actually works better.

Again, just my experience
Sharyn

You are correct in saying that DV is a compressed format. I forget about that because each DV frame is compressed, and can be directly edited without a lengthy conversion step like mpeg requires. My bad.

I would think the decompression in the camcorder is not so much influenced by error correction than by the D-A decoding/processing matching the A-D encoding/processing. Who would know Panasonic's DV encoding better than Panasonic (the same can be said about Sony, Canon, etc.). But if you do the D-A inside the DVD recorder, there could be "rounding" (quantization) errors during conversion that would cause defects in the analog picture. This is nit-picking I know, and you may have meant quantization error correction, but it wasn't what came to my mind when I read it.

I can also see your point in that with a high quality dvd recorder, the results could be better using S-video rather than firewire. But, this may have more to do with the design of the recorder being optimized for A-D conversion than D-D (DV-mpeg) conversion. I still don't think that there is any way that the finished video will be as good as the original DV.

David

Maybe I'm missing something, but why not just use Windows and install Scenalyzer as the capture software? Seems a lot simpler than getting everything to work under Linux and I see these on eBay loaded with Windows 2K. Anyway, that's what I'm going to do and I'll report back how it works.

Hi David

Couple of points of clarification.

Based on the DV spec, all the special tricks etc are don on the encoding side and the decoding in theory should be the same. There is this little subtle point that it is during the d to a conversion that the error correction using the adjacent blocks comes into play. This is most noticable on the audio side of things where if the system does not mute a glitch, there is a pop. I saw this years ago when Fast was running some tests and decided not to impliment auto mute on the audio initially and there were these pops and clicks on occasion, that when you looked at the original data stream had errors. We tend to think of DV and digital transfer as a direct digital copy, but what is missed is that there is no error correction by retransmission, only by recreation.

My theory on the doing the dv decompression and the mpeg2 compression is that possibly the chip set has to make a trade off in doing both at the same time.

The problems with concatenation of codecs is pretty well know, so I agree, the original DV will be better than any conversion from DV to Mpeg2. What I have seen is that DV to Mpeg2 directly vs DV to analog to Mpeg2 can appear to be as good or in some cases have less errors .

Sharyn

Sharyn,

I did not know exactly how DV error correction works, so thanks for the info. Interesting stuff to be sure. Looks like we're talking the finer points of the same discussion. :)

Jeff,

The reason I went the Linux route is that the capture programs under Windows display a thumbnail view of the image during capture (at least the ones I could find). This display takes a lot more processing power than just re-routing the firewire stream to disc like dvgrab does. I went to the Scenalyzer site and the system requirements listed for Scenalyzer Live lists the processor at 800MHz minimum (1.5+GHz recommended). This is much higher than the 400MHz P3 in the Fujitsu Tablet.

Does the free version of Scenalyzer capture video? I downloaded it and at first glance it appears that it does not. Unless you can find software that captures without preview, I doubt you'll be able to get it to work... but I've been wrong before. Good luck.

David

Thanks, David. I didn't see the system requirements. I figured I must be missing something. I tried it on my laptop (Centrino 1.6) and CPU usage is rather high, and even with preview disabled (and Scenalyzer does allow preview disable) it is about the same. I may try Virtual Dub which also allows preview disable because it had much less CPU usage. But I'm thinking now that you are right and with that processor I will have to go Linux. Thanks for the detailed instructions!
The free version of Scenalyzer just does scene detection.

I thought I would give an update. I received my Stylistic 3400 loaded with Windows 2000. I installed a little free program called DVIO. It captures either AVI1 or AVI2 files. There is no preview but I don't really need one. I have captured over an hour with no dropped frames. I'm going to get a second one for my second camera. Scenalyzer Live does work but I like the simplicity of the freebie utility. At $200 this is a pretty cheap and portable capture solution. You could say that I am a happy camper!

I ordered a Fujitsu 3400 yesterday, along with a case, and 100G hd.
It's supposed to have Win 2000.
I already own Scenalyzer, and it does preview, but yes, the system requirements are too high for the 3400, but I'll try it anyway.
I normally use Puremotion EditStudio Pro for capture and editing.
The following is from there website-

http://www.puremotion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5464

EditStudio 5 needs the following:

- 500 MHz Pentium 2 processor, or above
- 256 MB RAM
- Windows XP
- Graphics card capable of 1024x768 resolution, full colour
- Sound card

QuickTime 6 is required in order to import and export QuickTime movies, as well as some graphics formats.

What I'm really interested in is using Linux for capture.
Art.

PS:
"Never use a funeral service video to advertise your video production skills for wedding video clients" - Someone wiser than I

I tried the demo, Art, and that is a nice little program for capture. And it installed without any problems on Windows 2000. I captured an hour of video, and even with preview not a single dropped frame. I may give this a try at my next event. I've decided I do like the ability to preview, and this program seems to make that happen. Even with the cost of it I will have about $280 invested. And without the hassles of setting up Linux. I will report back after I've done some more testing.

Is it possible to captor HDV with this setup.

Thank you

The Linux tablet is working like a charm. I used it this fall to record the local high school football games and used it Friday night recording a basketball game (testing out my new Panasonic PV-GS180). I'm currently working on a new version using Xubuntu Linux to try and reduce the size of the operating system and setup partition.

Rumi,

Dvgrab is designed to capture the SD video stream via the firewire cable. The DV stream is commonly known as DV25 because it is 25Mbps (about 13GB per hour). There may be programs available to capture HD video under Linux, but I have no experience with them. Also, the slow tablet I used would not lend itself to capture formats much faster than 25Mbps. This only eliminates DV50 as an option. The new MPEG-2 and AVCHD camcorders, in theory anyway, should be very capturable via USB2. The big issue is that a lot of the new cameras are not tape based, so this capture rig isn't really necessary anymore.

Hallo,
fist of all i want say iam sorry for my bad english ...

I want to ask if somebody find or try a way to record (DD-recording) DVCPRO-HD format (panasonic ag-HVX200) under Linux using IEEE1394.

i find on internet 2 way to import HDV but notting about DVCPRO-HD:
http://www.braindead.nu/wordpress/?page_id=32
http://kdenlive.sourceforge.net/hdv.php
http://www.kinodv.org/dcforum/dcforum?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=543&mesg_id=543&page=

some one have any idear?
maybe using: libiec61883 - Linux IEEE 1394 streaming media library
http://www.linux1394.org/index.php

and 2 more question:
some body know if some program like DV rack 2 exist under linux (vectoroscope spectograph etc).

Somo one know if a DVCPRO codec exist for linux ?

thx

Seems like it wouldnt be a problem to capture hdv with this setup or a similar one. I just tested capturing hdv directly to my laptop in windows xp using capdvhs and it worked (although i had to start the program while the camera was in playback mode and then switch to record mode for it to be detected correctly) anyway, while recording my CPU usage didnt break 10%, in fact it was even less. techincally pulling raw 25mbps data stream from firewire is no different between hdv and dv since no actual decoding is done, just dumping the data to file. I'm thinking of building myself one of these for hdv.

With firestores and citidisks at ~$1000 it would be a far better deal to buy a nice new UMPC for less than that that could double as an HDV capture device and a full featured computer that fits in your pocket. $1000 for a device that only streams data through firewire to a $80 hard drive is ridiculous.

Is running Linux on the Stylistic a prerequisite of this project? I'm curious if it can be done with the preloaded Win2K. Has anyone successfully done this? I'm really not a Linux guy - I've used windows for everything. I do have a copy of Lindows that I tried for a week, could that be used here?

Also, with regard to HD content, there are basically two different types. The Panasonic method that normally records to P2 cards - this has a stream somewhere around 100 MB per second - there is no way this would work. The other common HD format is seen with JVC, Sony, Canon - mpg compression takes place on the camera, and with my JVC at least, it outputs 19.2 MB per second (somewhat smaller throughput than the standard definition 25 MB per second).

As long as the computer is okay with the file format, in this case an MPEG file with the .m2t suffix, it should be easier than SD. Can anyone confirm my hypothesis? Alternately, can anyone tell me what I'm missing and why it wouldn't work?

Ted,

I chose Linux because, in my experience, it was pretty easy to make a special purpose computer this way. Windows tends to carries a lot of extra baggage with many programs running in the background, and interwoven applications. Also, the programs that I tried to use to capture video required a faster computer than the Stylistic 3400. That being said, Jeff Chandler posted where he is using Windows 2000 on a Stylistic and captures video with a program called DVIO. I don't have any experience with that program so I'll have to say that Jeff would be the expert there. If you wanted to try Linux I would suggest getting a copy of Ubuntu. I recently tried setting up my system with Ubuntu 6.06 and it went pretty easily... much better than Fedora. And it was much prettier than Windows

As far as HD goes, I haven't done anything with that as I don't have an HD camera. In theory what you say is correct, you should be able to capture the video stream with this tablet. The big problem would be the capture software. The only Linux capture programs I know of are dvgrab for capturing SD, DV video on firewire; and test-mpeg2 for SD, mpeg capture also on firewire. I know there is work being done in Linux for "HD Tivo" style boxes. However most of these setups rely on dedicated video capture cards that fit into desktop PCs. I don't know how much of this work will apply to capturing video from HD camcorders. Another problem is it looks like many of the newer camcorders are dropping the firewire interface for USB 2.0 connections.

Great stuff David! I have a question for you - were you able to get the "touchscreen" aspect of the tablet pc working with linux? I'm trying to come up with a home-brewed direct-to-disk solution for HDV. There is a patch out there for dvgrab to enable HDV capture, so I might go the linux route, and having the ability to use the touchscreen would be fantastic.

As an alternative, I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to capture on a WinCE/XScale device (400MHz, 128MB RAM). Drivers will probably be an issue here.

These touchscreen tablets/UMPCs are definitely the way to go, although those loaded with XP are still a bit expensive (we're talking used/refurbished). I'm looking to put something together by the end of summer - any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Just to follow up - there are two freeware apps available for live HDV capture in WinXP: HDVSplit and CapDVHS. Both dump the stream directly to disk and don't require much horsepower if you don't use preview. Either one of these running on an "old" WinXP laptop will provide for live HDV capture direct-to-disk. Personally, I'm trying to shrink the "footprint" by finding a touchscreen tablet solution, but for those of you who don't mind bringing along a laptop, HDV direct-to-disk is easily achievable without having to purchase any software.

Yes I did get the touchscreen working with Linux. On the version I originally used the driver was broken but as soon as I inquired about it the author fixed it. If you use a newer Linux like Ubuntu 6 the driver works, but you still have to change a couple config files - one to recognize the serial port and the other to setup the touchscreen in xWindows (if I remember correctly).

I don't know about using a WinCE device. The processor should be fast enough but I suspect it will not work because of the limited ports and storage options on these devices. It is definitely worth a shot if you have a way to attach the camera and a hard disk.

You could probably get up to 50Mbit/sec out of the tablet I have. There are slightly faster models that are in the same price range. For $200 it would be worth trying. The Stylistic LT P-600 and ST4120 would be is slightly higher ($300-$400) but may suit your needs better. I did see a UMPC on woot.com ONCE and it didn't sell very well. So if you are patient they'll be on ebay for the right price soon. :)

Did some interesting tests today and I thought I'd share the results here. First a little background: I shoot (mostly as a hobby) dance recitals and competitions. I use two Sony HDV cameras. Since these events can run quite a bit longer than 2 hours, I'm looking for a direct-to-disk solution. I've used a laptop before (for one camera) and that works just fine, but I'm looking to reduce the "footprint". Obviously, I'm not interested in shelling out $3000 for the available "off the shelf" products. For my purposes, I always shoot indoors from fixed positions, so batteries and "ultra" mobility aren't high on my list of priorities. I'm looking into tablet PC/UMPC solutions, and I'm hoping to come up with a solution by the end of summer.

There are a few freeware apps out there for Windows XP that can capture HDV live direct-to-disk: HDVSplit, CapDVHS, VLC. I was curious about the possibility of capturing from both cameras at the same time on a single PC. Unfortunately, none of these apps are capable of even recognizing two cameras. Since these apps are based on the DirectShow implementation in Windows, and since I'm a software guy, I decided to play around with the interface. Long story short: I've succesfully tested the simultaneous capture of HDV streams from two cameras on one PC. There were no apparent dropped frames. The resulting files are the "raw" transport stream files directly from the camera and they were accepted by Sony Vegas without issue and playable on any number of software video players.

I did use a pretty beefy cpu for this test (Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM), but CPU usage hovered around only 10% and memory usage never exceeded 256MB. Next up: package up a simple interface and do some testing on some "slower" laptops. Ideally, if I can make this work, I envision using one tablet PC loaded w/ WinXP to capture from two cameras. If anyone is interested in this "investigation", I'll post my progress in this thread (or perhaps start another?).

Ron

I did use a pretty beefy cpu for this test (Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM), but CPU usage hovered around only 10% and memory usage never exceeded 256MB.
...
If anyone is interested in this "investigation", I'll post my progress in this thread (or perhaps start another?).


Ron,

I would definately be interested in your findings and anything you may develop along the way. When you did the dual capture, were you previewing either of the streams? If not then I can understand the low CPU usage -- a simple transfer of data from one interface to another shouldn't be too tough on it. I would be curious what the usage would be if there was a scaled-down (25% maybe?) preview of both streams displayed on the screen.

-Sean

Ron,

I would definately be interested in your findings and anything you may develop along the way. When you did the dual capture, were you previewing either of the streams? If not then I can understand the low CPU usage -- a simple transfer of data from one interface to another shouldn't be too tough on it. I would be curious what the usage would be if there was a scaled-down (25% maybe?) preview of both streams displayed on the screen.

-Sean
I agree - for simple capture the limitation shouldn't be the CPU. Bus speed and hard drive speed maybe. Which is why I was thinking it should be possible to capture using a handheld WindowsCE device (no preview of course). I think drivers may be an issue on WinCE though, so I'm going to work the WinXP dual capture angle first. I'll see what I can do about adding preview for both streams.

Ron,

That's very interesting information - good work. After playing around with a stylistic 3500 (which was quite impressive for older hardware), I decided to back off - I'd still like a smaller capture device than that. So, instead, I've decided to sell mine on eBay.

I'll keep checking up on the great work you guys are doing over here, it sure sounds cool.

Thanks,

I am trying to do something similar but to make a portable 4:2:2 colorspce and 3:1 compression MJPEG recorder. DV gives us 4:1:1 with 5:1 compression so 4:2:2 would be a step up.
There is a Linux MJPEG page
mjpeg.sourceforge.net

Initially I am planning to get Y/C S-video input and then later use SDI/HDMI for a HD recorder.
Any ideas for the initial SD version ??

Here's an update for anyone thinking about building your own portable capture rig running Linux....

dvgrab has been updated to version 3.0

The new version allows capture of HDV video and also allows DV capture via USB.

Since I don't have an HDV camera, I can't attest to how well the new features work. But for standard def I just keep plugging away with mine without any problems. Since August I've captured over 700GB of video directly to my tablet. The only dropped frames happened one night when I used a retractable firewire cable (no shielding) too close to some two-way radios.

David

FYI to anybody who visits this thread...

While I don't visit the boards very often, I still use my Fujitsu tablet for capturing video. I used it filming 88 sporting events during the 2007-2008 school year and have already filmed over 30 events this year. All without lost frames or other issues. That's over 1.7 TERABYTES of video files in the past 15 months.

The proof is obviously in the results and I have been nothing but pleased with how the system works. If I had it to do over, would I? Absolutely!

- David

David- thank you for posting this. It was quite a long read and I am happy to have learned so much. I actually was looking for Direct to DVD articles (and I may seek your advice when I find the right thread) when i came across this jem of an article. Thanks for sharing!

Hi David and everyone,
You inspired me to stop dreaming and build my setup of a direct to disk system.
I'm running 2 FX-1s and 1 Z1u, via firewire to a 3 firewire PCI card inserted in an Intel
D510 atom mini-itx mb. It's housed in a Rosewill mini-itx htpc case, with a 2.5" 160
Gb 7200rpm notebook disk, a WD Blue 500 Gb 3.5" drive (handy), and one 1GB DDR
800 memory stick. H/W cost of around $300. Using left over keyboard, trackball,
15" LCD.

I installed Fedora Core 14, then followed the instructions for adding dvgrab 3.2, samba,
and setting up security and samba to share the 500GB where I put the video streams.

I tested it for a day, including recording one 3hr continuous take from the 3 cameras.
Yesterday was the first real test, I recorded 2 shows, for a total of around 120 GB.
No tape, no tape swaps during the show (which is a real headache),
no rewinding of 10 or 11 tapes and reading them into the computer, just a regular
file move from one computer to another (though I need to get a Gigabit switch now).

Another nice thing was being able to do a quick check during intermission and
between shows, we could see what each camera was doing for each scene and
talk about adjustments. That was really nice.

Next up is a 24 or 32 track recording setup with another computer using FC14.

thanks
jim cowan

Jim,
That set-up sounds nice. One thing you might consider for transferring the data, assuming you are going from the HTPC to a desktop and assuming both have a full-size 5.25 external slot available for a drive is installing a HDD swap bay. I have two on my primary system and one on my secondary. It is awesome for taking back-ups off-site, transferring huge chunks of data between different systems or expanding storage on a system. I use the Kingwin SATA Black Alum Mobile Rack w/ Triple Fans from TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1648625&CatId=285). This would be a quick way to take a data drive directly from your DTD machine to an editing machine for immediate work or full-speed sata dump to a drive on your desktop and would probably be less expensive than a gigabit switch. Thanks for sharing info about your build. If you get time, post a few pics so we can see what it looks like in action.

Hi Bryan,
I put up a album with some picts from yesterday. Here is the final in theater setup:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/members/jim-cowan-albums-video-computer-3-picture609-setup-show-firewire-connects-3-cameras-computer-near-middle-camera-floor.jpg

I've already ordered the gigabyte switch, I've been out of room on my wireless router for
a while. With the switch I'll be able to put all of my computers on it and work on a new
backup scheme. Now that I'm not recording the shows to tape I have to think about how
to backup the raw data and I may rebuild one of the computers into a storage facility.
But thanks for the heads up on the kingwin.

Right now I'm running a notebook 2.5" for the system. I'd bought 2 with the intention of using
both, but ended up using a 3.5" 500Gb that I'd used with my 1st try that had parts of a show
on it. It was already formatted and I needed to if I had some usable video on it. The Rosewill
case has plenty (too much) room. If I rebuild I'll be looking for a smaller case and 2 2.5" drives
will used.

thanks
jim cowan