[Kdenlive-devel] kdenlive vs Sony Hi-8 HandyCam DCR-TRV460, with kino thrown in

[Dan Dennedy]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 1:55 PM, gene heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> Greetings;
>
> Your recent freshmeat announcement of 8.0 triggered my curiosity again, so
> I plugged in my camera, which did not seem to be properly discovered by the
> kernel, a 2.6.38.4-pae kernel built by my distro, pclos.  From the msgs
> log:

OK, I will bite. I was the Kino developer, still the dvgrab
maintainer, and now your Mlt lead developer - the engine for Kdenlive.

> Apr 27 13:44:46 coyote klogd: firewire_core: skipped bus generations,
> destroying all nodes
> Apr 27 13:44:46 coyote klogd: firewire_core: rediscovered device fw0
> Apr 27 13:44:46 coyote klogd: firewire_core: phy config: card 0, new
> root=ffc1, gap_count=5
> Apr 27 13:44:46 coyote klogd: firewire_core: skipped bus generations,
> destroying all nodes
> Apr 27 13:44:47 coyote klogd: firewire_core: rediscovered device fw0
> Apr 27 13:44:47 coyote klogd: firewire_core: created device fw1: GUID
> 08004601044684e4, S100
> Apr 27 13:44:49 coyote klogd: firewire_core: giving up on config rom for
> node id ffc0
>
> Which is repeated every time the cable is plugged into the camera.  It may
> switch to /dev/fw1 at times too.

I do not know new firewire subsystem as much as old linux1394, but I
am not convinced "giving up on config rom" is something to be
concerned about, and it is normal for messages to appear and device
nodes to change when plugging devices.

> kdenlive (mine is version 7.8) supposedly gained camera controls back in
> 2006 according to the ChangeLog on your web pages, but despite have them
> turned on, the buttons don't work, and despite trying both of the non-
> screenshot choices available in the menu's, no video from the camera can be
> found.

Kdenlive simply runs dvgrab piped to ffplay as a child and embeds the
ffplay window. dvgrab has a stdin slave mode for control (see -i
interactive switch). However, this apporach has degraded in stability
over the past couple of years as ffplay changed its method of a/v sync
and became loss tolerant of stream discontinuity that appears when
using transport controls. I am planning to add Firewire capture to Mlt
this summer to address this.

> Shut kdenlive down and fire up kino-1.3.4, and it all Just Works(TM).
> Flawlessly...

Strange since dvgrab's code is almost exactly the same as Kino's.
However, unlike Kino, dvgrab and Kdenlive also supports HDV. In
Kdenlive Settings, see if Firewire capture is set to HDV or DV. Like I
said, it is known that Firewire capture is no longer working well
within Kdenlive, so you might just stick with Kino for capture if that
works for you.

> Then I go back and run kdenlive, and go see if it can load and edit any of
> the several weddings and other movies I have made with kino over the years,
> and in only one case can it even see the filenames, but it cannot open
> them, and ANAICT doesn't even make the attempt.

Say what? Maybe you have a broken build. Please clarify what files you
are trying to open - DV or Kino XML project files. Both are supported,
but .kino files probably do not show up in the file dialog until you
clear the filter field at the bottom (make it empty and press Enter).
Do DV files (.dv or .avi) load? Those should load reliably. Another
way to load files is to drag and drop them from a file manager into
the Kdenlive Project Tree panel.

> The end result is that I have yet to see kdenlive actually play a video of
> any kind.  The pclos installed version is 7.8, and the running kernel is
> 2.6.38.4-pae. 32 bit.

That is a clue that there is something fundamentally wrong with your
build. You think all these people using Kdenlive as evidenced by the
forum traffic and YouTube postings are bluffing?

> Now, its been 3 or 4 years since I made the last dvd's of a wedding, so I
> need the recipe for importing the best, cleanest image from a 720x480 NTSC
> camera, and then from my edit final, make that into a dvd the parents and
> kids can both play.  They've been waiting patiently since last November
> 2010, I assume because I downloaded a copy to their vhs machine before I
> came home.  But I know I can make a dvd that is many times sharper and
> cleaner than that vhs can do even in the test laboratory.
>
> Was that ever committed to a kino "do this, in this order" recipe that
> makes us all look like we know what we are doing?  URL please if it exists.

http://www.kinodv.org/help/dvdauthor

As long as you get its dvdauthor working (which may have broken by now
due to lack of maintenance), it really is very simple. If it is broken
you can probably just run it from command line to see any messages and
fix it by editing the script in /usr/share/kino/scripts/dvdauthor/.

-- 
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