Half a Page of Scribbled Linux

One thing you’ll definitely need is lots of disk space. That’s where QTParted comes in. It is the Linux equivalent of Partition Magic. It lets you create and resize partions non-destructively.

As a rule of thumb, you’ll need 5GB per 15 minutes of video if you keep all the artifacts. In my case, the first video was a little more than 14 minutes long. The 16 AVI capture files totaled 2.9G. The converted DVD format file created by Kino was 663 MB. From this the DVD directory structure and control files were created (also 663MB) and an ISO file of the same size with the DVD file system was created and used to burn the disk. All these and miscellaneous other files took 4.8GB. You can get by with less if you delete the files from the prior step as you complete the next one.

To transfer video from the camcorder into the computer USB 2.0 or Firewire are OK, but USB 1.x is too slow. I set up my Firewire card using the instructions from Linux1394.

Note the current kernel for Red Hat 9 is 2.4.20-27.9, so no patches need to be applied. The stock kernel also has all the required modules, so no kernel configuration was necessary.

Once dvgrab was working, Kino worked also. In Kino, select the Capture tab on the right, enter a file name and path you want to give the video (it’ll split the video into multiple files named, e.g., capture001.avi, capture002.avi and so on) and select the Capture button.

Once video is captured, choose the Export tab on the right, and the MPEG tab on top (you’ll have to scroll the tabs to the right). Change file format to DVD and enter a file name to export to. Select Export and w-a-i-t. On my machine, it takes about an hour per 15 minutes of video.