firewire

When I bought a digital camcorder, it wasn't long until I started wanting to be able to edit video I'd taken and burn it to VCD for my parents. The only hitch? I use Linux exclusively - I don't use the Windows OS anywhere, anyhow, or in any way. So, without going Mac, there was only one solution: find out what it takes to get video into my Linux system. The simple solution was to buy a firewire (ieee1394) interface card, plug it into my camcorder, and be happy - and that's just what I did.

At the time, this card was the only one explicitly named by the Linux1394 project (which does the official development for the ieee1394 module) available at the store I was in at the time. So, I chose it, took it home, and installed it. Using this for video is pretty straightforward - just compile your kernel with ieee1394 and video4linux support, plug in the card, and things work fine. I hear that Redhat 8.0 actually handles this without manual kernel tweaks, and includes DV capture software. If you're on an older version of the kernel however, be aware that you may encounter frozen firewire subsystems (requiring reboot) or, at worst, kernel panics when using the ieee1394 subsystem - particularly if the camcorder that's plugged in gets turned off or loses power (even if it's not recording at the time). To be fair, I doubt this was the card's fault, because so far the 2.4.20 kernel hasn't exhibited these symptoms.

Later on, in order to import analog video into my system, I also purchased a Dazzle DV Bridge, which works just fine in combination with this card.