Homemade Direct-to-Disc on the cheap

[Albert Schuurman]

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

[Albert Schuurman]

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

[David Suthers]

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.

[Albert Schuurman]

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

[David Suthers]

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/showth...er+Aspire+5670

[Albert Schuurman]

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

[Albert Schuurman]

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

[David Suthers]

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.

[Albert Schuurman]

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)

[Bob Howard]

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.

[David Suthers]

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.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

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

[David Suthers]

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

[Jeff Chandler]

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.

[Sharyn Ferrick]

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