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last edited 2 years ago

by Christian Einfeldt March 2, 2006

dvgrab is an outstanding GNU/Linux command-line tool for capturing video and audio from mini-DV tapes. Right now, we are using dvgrab to capture footage off of mini-dv tapes through a Canon NTSC ZR100 camera. We are having some problems with the grab, which I will document below. First, though, I want to document our successful efforts at grabbing footage of a short interview that I did with Rufus Laggren, one of the guys who has been kind enough to pitch in and help us with this portion of the journey to completing the Digital Tipping Point film. Please excuse the weird bold lettering below; I am still trying to figure out how to use this wiki software. If someone will give me a clue as to how to correct this problem, I will fix it. You can email me at einfel at yahoo dot com. Again, sorry for the mess.

The first step is to get dvgrab from the Internet, which I will describe for newbies in a separate section on a separate page. Newbies should keep reading, skim over this section, and then come back to it again after getting dvgrab and installing it. In the meantime, here is the hardware that I used for this exercise:

Here's the basic command for grabbing footage from your camera:

$ dvgrab --format raw testmovie

Here's how to use the command. Connect your camera to your 1394 cable and the other end to your 1394 card on your computer. Turn your camera on. With the Canon ZR100, I set the control to "play (vcr)". Insert your mini-DV tape into your camera. IMPORTANT: cue up your tape to the point where you want to start capturing video, because dvgrab will start capturing exactly at the point where the tape is set. Not before, and not after.

Before grabbing video, I recommend that you create a new directory to receive your video capture, simply because I don't like to have my video files floating around higher in my directory tree. I like to have it tucked away nicely in a clearly labeled directory. Open a shell prompt, and cd to your home directory. In my case, the path would read /home/christian . Now create a new directory by typing:

mkdir christian

Then type ls to see that your directory has been created. Do a cd command to get into that directory:

cd christian

Now type the command to grab the video,

$ dvgrab --format raw testmovie

dvgrab will immediately start to capture video at the point where you had set your tape. Put one finger on the cntrl button of your keyboard and depress cntrl, and poise another finger above the "c" key. Monitor the tape at your camera's screen, and as the tape approaches the end of your capture session, get ready to hit that "c" key. The "cntrl c" combo is the stop button for the command line.

dvgrab will create a new file called testmovie001 and will thereafter continue to add sequentially to that series each time you name a file "testmovie" or "testfootage" etc. Christian Einfeldt einfel at yahoo dot com