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Real Time Video Stream over Firewire?

Posted by Cliff on from the high-quality-webcams dept.

videomotion asks: "Digital camcorders from Sony and others are very handy gadgets. It is easy to capture or download on to the PC what you have previously recorded on the camcorder's digital tape. It would be wonderful if the same Firewire interface could be used to stream real time video to your PC for cool machine vision applications or for direct capturing of video onto the hard drive. Is it possible get the real time video stream from the Sony digital camcorder (DCR-PC100) through the Firewire cable and display the video picture on your computer screen?"

63 comments

  1. Apple Mac G4 Cube by pfraser · · Score: 1

    I saw one of the old Mac G4 Cubes (Or maybe it was a G3?) do this. I doubt it was the same brand of camera, but it was firewire and it was _very_ cool.

    1. Re:Apple Mac G4 Cube by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 1

      Yes, Macs do this VERY easely. Step by step:

      0)Connect the camera to the firewire port

      01)Open iMovie

      10)click the import tab

      11)Click import/play and watch your disk space meter turn from green to red. About every 9 minutes 48 seconds of continuous video, the computer will automatically split the video into a new clip.

      You can then edit and do other stuff, like add weird titles and export to DVD. If you are asking whether you can compress movies on the fly...Well, plan on spending 20-40K on an Avid suite. Raw DV formatted video takes up a LOT of space. If you end up buying an external hard drive, get a PCI based firewire card, because one 1394 bus can't handle video and disk streaming at the same time.

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      Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
    2. Re:Apple Mac G4 Cube by kommakazi · · Score: 1

      I've done this with my original dual-usb iBook as well...in short, buy a Mac.

  2. Most automatically show up as attached cameras by FrenZon · · Score: 1

    Most firewire video cameras, and some USB ones just automatically show up as attached video devices, and so can be accessed through VFW or WDM, in the exact same way you grab an image/stream off a webcam. It makes no difference that it's Firewire, or that it's a DV cam as opposed to a webcam.

    For example, many of my users use Sony, Canon and JVC DV cameras in my machine-vision application, Freelook.

  3. The only solution. by skinfitz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...dude, buy a Mac. Now. Don't ask, just do it. If you like stuff like this you won't regret it.

    Step 1. Connect firewire cam into Mac.

    Thats it - iMovie will open up and you can watch the video live or record it and start editing.

    If you want to watch TV, at work for media aquisition I've just got an Elgato eyeTV box which will receive TV and work as a PVR. The bit I like most is you get a years subscription to a website that has all the TV schedules, and you can decide what you want the PVR to record. i.e. I can sit here at home, browse a website for a TV program, click one button, and it will be recorded by the PVR at work. The eyeTV software checks into the site every hour and updates it's list of what you want to record. The video is stored as standard MPEG-2, however even though I have the Pro version of Quicktime 6.5 and the MPEG2 component, I can watch the exported movies but I can't export them with sound so be wary of that.

    Yes I know PC's can do similar things, but having worked with digital video for around 8 years now, I have to say that the Mac kicks the arse of everything when it comes to video editing. The reason? Standard hardware and good software. One person's Powerbook 1Ghz is exactly the same as anothers meaning that the software authors have less disparate hardware to worry about.

    1. Re:The only solution. by jhoger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      A) The guy doesn't have a Mac. He's a PC user. He wants advice on how to do something that's completely possible with a PC. That it can be done on a different platform is, well, totally irrelevant.

      B) PC users have perfectly good reasons to preferring the open architecture of the PC over the closed Mac monoculture. No vendor lock-in, ability to repair things yourself, less $$$'s, more friends in same boat, more software, etc.

      C) Mac is a whole different universe. I'm a CS grad, and every time I have sat down at a Mac keyboard I have very little luck getting it to do anything I want it to do. PC users happen to be familiar with PCs. Using a Mac has some learning curve after getting used to the Redmondish guis (I include KDE and Gnome in there....)

      There's nothing inherently wrong with Macs. It's a nice platform for DTP, multimedia, and general computing. However, these days Mac doesn't have a monopoly on much of any applications, and "Just Buy A Mac" gets more than a little tiresome.

    2. Re:The only solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you're a CS grad and you can't figure out a mac, I'm guaranteed you got a mail order degree. My parents, while not technophobes, aren't exactly hacking windows drivers and compiling the latest linux kernel. I gave them my old Powerbook and their PC (and they've been using PCs for 12 years now) has gone unused for a month now. So clearly the fact is simply you're set in your ways, you're a stubborn techie who can't use it because it's too drastic of a change (I would die to see you use a DVORAK keyboard...) and that's not Apple's fault. That's yours for not learning the thought processes of CS, you just learned to regurgitate facts on computers. Woopie.

    3. Re:The only solution. by pineapples10 · · Score: 1

      "Step 1. Connect firewire cam into Mac. Thats it - iMovie will open up and you can watch the video live or record it and start editing. " I have to say that the Mac kicks the arse of everything when it comes to video editing. The reason? Standard hardware and good software. " Hmm...odd...I worked at my town's TV studio for two years, and under the guidance of people like you (and I mean Mac/Multimedia zealots) Bought a set of three IMacs for video editing. It was weird, because despite their "standard hardware" and "good software", IMovie would usually freeze halfway through a simple editing session, corrupt the project file and some video files, and force us to reboot. It was hard to nail down the problem (we never did) as it was a CLOSED SYSTEM. Now you may argue that an IMac isn't appropriate for video editing? Well doesn't that just throw your notion of standard hardware out the window then?

    4. Re:The only solution. by dave420 · · Score: 1
      "The only solution" - right. Windows can do all of that, and the hardware is much cheaper.

      Standard hardware? There's only 1 or 2 Firewire chipsets out there (funnily enough, the same ones Macs use). Windows provides cross-hardware support (via DirectX drivers and DirectShow filters), so you don't have to worry about your graphics card, sound card or even codecs. The old "standard hardware" argument is years old now, and holds no water.

      Premiere Pro on XP is just as good as any video editing software on any platform, period. Anyone who says else hasn't used it - it's that simple.

      I'm not big into zeal - I'm just fed up of people banging out the same old rubbish about different OSs.

    5. Re:The only solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A) The guy doesn't have a Mac.

      Yes, and we're saying that's his problem. His problem can be solved with one simple purchase.

      B) PC users have perfectly good reasons to preferring the open architecture of the PC over the closed Mac monoculture.

      Evidently, being able to do really kewl stuff like "real time video stream over firewire" isn't one of them.

      C) Mac is a whole different universe.

      Nonsense. The Mac is UNIX with a few extra bits and pieces. It can be learned in a matter or minutes by those who are willing to learn.

    6. Re:The only solution. by clifyt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Monoculture?

      And you are comparing this to Wind'rs.

      Apple requires you to buy the Case, the Motherboard and the Harddrives. Past that, it is as open as anything else. You can swap out the case with something else (not easily) and hard drives are dead simple.

      Past that, one doesn't need 'more software' -- the software that is there works. No need for 100 solutions that don't do shit, when the free one that came with the box is better than 99% of what you find on the PC -- and by that I mean Windows. Want to run Linux / BSD stuff...go to Darwinports. Want to build device drivers -- Darwin in open source and you can get a better picture of how its going to work with the system than with something like Windows.

      Yeah, the initial hardware costs...but past that, its nothing closed like Windows.

      There are no monopoly on applications for a Mac user, but there is a culture of getting things done right. I wish Windows was this way -- Linux is getting there, unfortunately, for the end user, they get there from the back end.

      I'll happily tweak a linux app until I get it right...my mom won't. My dad is clueless about computers and I've had to set up every one that he's bought -- I bought my G4 a few years for music and video and was off for a gig just before my father stopped by unannounced and said he was going to be in town for a few days. My Mac showed up the same day (which was the only reason I went home before heading to the show).

      My dad, curious about the Mac, asked about it and I told him to pull it out of the box and hook it up and check it out.

      I got back several hours later to find that he had plugged everything in, was on the network (I had wireless for my laptops) and had pulled his video recorder out of his car because he had heard that it hooked into Macs -- and found the one firewire cable that was included and hooked it up to his video camera and it automatically pulled up iMovie...he was learning how to edit concert footage 7 hours after I left him with the machine in unopened boxes and he knew nothing about computers.

      When the grandparent of this post says Get A Mac, You Will Be Happier, he means it. Its a bit snappish and its a bit condescending, but those of us that use computers solely to get our work done and not to be computer geeks want to do something, we use our Macs...it allows for computer illiterates to use them knowledgeable within their given field as much as someone that has used computers for years. It also allows geeks that want to get all unixy like me to do that too...

      As for not having a monopoly, if they did have a monopoly, maybe you'd see more crappier half done applications on their platform. As its not a monopoly, everything HAS to work right. Again, Linux / BSD is also in this boat -- as they aren't the standard, things have to work right or we will just switch back to the standard, which at this time is Windows.

      This is offtopic and will be modded accordingly, but I'm not going to post this anonymously to fear for my precious karma :-)

      Having said that, I have gotten Firewire Video to work on the PC, but it was a long sorted process involving buying 2 different FW cards -- one of which seemed to be incompatible with all my devices, and a few different software packages to edit this stuff and stream it.

      Having said that, I've heard that that VLC (Video Lan Client) can do Firewire Streaming, but I haven't looked at it in this capacity yet. I have used it as a way to import DVDs that were nearly dead due to friends misuage so that I at least had backups of the crap :-) VLC is free for Mac, Windows, Linux and probably a few other OSes that I don't know about...check it out and see if this is a possibility.

    7. Re:The only solution. by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      A) The guy doesn't have a Mac. He's a PC user. He wants advice on how to do something that's completely possible with a PC. That it can be done on a different platform is, well, totally irrelevant.

      Not totally. If it can be done with a Mac, it should be possible with a PC. All you should need is the right application that will display an incoming DV stream without saving it to disk. If another platform does it, it at least says it is possible.

      There are Firewire webcams sold that aren't restricted to just use with Macintoshes. I know one that has a stand in the shape of a bare foot and streams 640x480 square pixel video. Find out what software they're bundled with, whether it is free, and download it.

      I don't have one of those webcams because I want one that outputs 720x480 in non-square pixels. I'd rather feed an analog camcorder through my Dazzle* Hollywood DV Bridge than have to resample the DV files to the needed aspect ratio, doubling the needed disk space.

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    8. Re:The only solution. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      capturing video under XP

      1.) plug dv camera into firewire card and turn on
      2.) pop up asks me if I want to capture/edit video, select edit with moviemaker and it launches
      3.) select start capture and the video camera starts

      streaming video under xp
      1.) download and installthe free (as in beer) windows media series 9 encoder.
      2.) plug in dv camera and when pop up comes up, close it
      3.) run media encoder
      4.) configure the specifics of how you want to stream, codecs, bandwidth etc
      5.) select dv camera as source
      6.) hit start
      7.) go to any other PC that has media player and hit ctrl-U and point to the maching running WME and it plays

      yes, the streaming part may be a bit more complicated, but that is because, windows does not install the streaming server by default (If it did you would complain, you know you would).

      No, you do not get software to master a DVD right out of the box, but you can get pinacles software or Ulead's for under $100, which you saved by buying a PC instead of a mac.

      Come on folks, the mac is a fine computer, but it offers no real advantage in this case. In fact, I have seen that the mac advantage in digital publishing and multimedia has slipped a whole lot in recent years, and is really now a non-factor.

    9. Re:The only solution. by macemoneta · · Score: 1

      I agree. I have three PCs with Firewire (all running Linux -- Fedora Core). Three different chipsets. I can't get any of them to work (at least not reliably). Sometimes they'll work continuously for several days before failing. Yes, I've reported the problems to the Linux IEEE1394 project; the problems remain even two years later. Yes, I even tried with the 2.6 kernel.

      You may find a specific chipset/platform combination that works reliably on the PC, but that may mean buying a new PC and/or Firewire card if the one you have doesn't work the way you want. This isn't just limited to Linux; my brother's two new Dells (different models) with Windows XP will lockup periodically when using the Firewire.

      I also have an Apple PowerBook (also running Linux - YellowDog). The Firewire ports work 24x7, flawlessly.

      I'm sure that the Linux IEEE1394 implementation will become equally flawless in a couple more years, as will the XP implementation. At least for the more common chipsets. But if you want something today that's Firewire-based and *production stable*, use a Mac (Linux or OSX).

      --

      Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

    10. Re:The only solution. by log0n · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but Premiere Pro is still a toy nle. It's more advanced than it used to be, but it's still really only acceptable for hobbyist/student level work.

    11. Re:The only solution. by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 1

      Premiere is not an Avid Symphony (used by national geographic) or a FCP (used everywhere. Recently : Cold Mountain), but it IS capable of quite a bit. A lot of ad agencies use it, and a lot of independent film makers use it before onlining and layback. True, the other systems are better, but Adobe did OK with Premiere.

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
    12. Re:The only solution. by skinfitz · · Score: 1

      You say for two years - was this using Jaguar / Panther or OS9?

      OS9 is completely unstable and useless. It freezes a lot, especially when connected a network (TIP make OS9 stable for editing - completely disable all networking components). The modern iMac should be fine for video editing (please tell me you didnt use the little CRT model?), however I think the FSB is a little slower - really if you are serious you want a Power class Mac.

      As for my experience of PC editing (I used to teach and build DV editing systems for 4 years, and been a user for 8 years here so I know what I'm talking about):

      Obtain video editing card for your PC (firewire made this bit obsolete unless you need to go to analogue with any quality (i.e. component video).

      Try to install it. Have driver issues, and if you have older cards, often they are just not supported.

      Be frustrated at glitches in video stream.

      Contact their tech support and be told that they only "support" their hardware if you use specific motherboards(!)

      Bite bullet and buy new motherboard.

      It's nasty, and you need to be using known hardware configs to get stability which the Mac has by default (one of the times this is useful).

      Firewire thankfully is making the importing part useable, especially with modern cameras with tape transport control - with something like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker literally anyone can get footage into the box. For editing however, I think iMovie is amazingly easy to use. I have guys in work that only ever used PC's for email and VCR's for recording editing using iMovie by just letting them play with it for half an hour using a G5 I bought for the purpose. I got a copy of FCE for the more advanced things we need to do, but iMovie for simple stuff like editing out adverts and simple titles is very very easy to use even for a complete novice. Even better is the integration with iDVD / iTunes / iPhoto out of the box (free with Mac) - the PC doesnt have anything that comes close.

      One thing I am not impressed with however is the Quicktime MPEG-2 component. Firstly because I had to buy it, but secondly because the export doesnt work properly. I want to stream movies around the network, however it looks like I'm going to be using the superb Windows Media Encoder with media services (our CAL's are "free" in house). I've done a lot of live broadcasts with it and really can't complain. The Darwin streaming server has a bit of catching up to do in the reliability stakes, however there are no client licenses needed. Would be nice if it worked as well as the Microsoft solution.

  4. Before iSight... by ghopson · · Score: 1

    I used a Canon firewire-enabled camera as my video hook into iChatAV. Take the tape out, and leave it running. In other words, buy a Mac :-)

    1. Re:Before iSight... by vranash · · Score: 4, Informative

      On this same note, plug it into your linuxbox, and run either avplay, or avgrab (to save to disk) and you can watch or record your stream in realtime, complete with audio :) Hell, if you absolutely must have a GUI, Kino is looking pretty nice for minimalist stuff, and cinelerra is pretty impressive too if you can deal with it's rough edges. Seriously, having just gotten my Mini-DV Canon yesterday, I can tell you DV firewire cameras have to be the easiest devices to set up in linux, windows, and mac with the exception of maybe USB keyboards (seeing as X isn't very user-friendly to plug'n'play input devices) -- vranash

    2. Re:Before iSight... by pineapples10 · · Score: 1

      so iChatAV is the reason people buy Macs? I always thought it was the colors and the users club....

    3. Re:Before iSight... by TwistedGreen · · Score: 0, Troll

      Nah, don't buy a Mac because of the software... any other computer can do the same thing.

      Buy a Mac because they are "hip" and "cool." Mmm, marketing.

  5. Panasonic's camera's support this by Wade+Tregaskis · · Score: 1

    I have a Panasonic NV-28 (no longer available, but the newer models are basically the same) and it does this just fine. There's significant latency though - about a quarter of a second, so pointing the camera at the screen [showing the video] doesn't quite work as well as it does on a proper setup. This may well be due to the fact that the machine doing this is a 400mhz G4, which can only *just* capture video at full speed, assuming I run in OS 9 (no pre-emption) and kill every other app (including the Finder). And the audio still loses sync with the video over time, although I think that's due to bugs in Final Cut Pro & Express.

    Ironically, on a machine perfectly capable of handling this sort of video grunt - an 800mhz iBook - the hard drive is too slow... grrr.. :)

    I would have thought this is standard fare on all Firewire camera's... I certainly see no reason why they shouldn't be able to do it - after all, they can all output in realtime via component/separated/your-poison. In fact, I can output video from my computer to the camera [via Firewire], and output from the camera to a tv, all in real time (without the annoying lag for the reverse case).

    Unfortunately I can't go the other way, so I can't quite build myself a psuedo-TiVo just yet. :)

  6. Windows XP has support for this... by samrolken · · Score: 4, Informative

    In Windows XP, you can just plug in about any camera, including firewire ones, and open the camera's entry in My Computer, and that's what you get. You can then take that and run it through Windows Media Encoder, or about anything else that can handle the standard Windows video capture APIs. I do it all the time.

    --
    samrolken
  7. How is this different from str by algae · · Score: 1

    So, you bought a digital video camera, and now you want to know if the camera can display video on .. a ... computer monitor.

    If that Sony POS can't do realtime video, I would never buy one. I'm not really into digital video, but all the analog cameras I've used will just output video by default whenever they're on.

    Just as an aside, could you use video over 1394 to set up a real-time video processing cluster, like you can with audio and lightpipe?

    --
    Causation can cause correlation
  8. Easy by dammitallgoodnamesgo · · Score: 1

    DV over Firewire / TS over firewire (MPEG-2 Transport Stream : DTV) is easy, assuming you have software to play the images back. You'll only really start to get issues when you start working with HDTV (And I'm specifically referring to the Japanese broadcast standards here, I'm unfamiliar with the American ones)

    1. Re:Easy by 3waygeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Interesting you should bring up HDTV; I'm in the middle of setting up a HD PVR based on a G3 PowerMac I just bought on eBay.

      My digital cable box, the Motorola DCT-6200, puts out a MPEG2-TS stream over its 1394 port. Using the VirtualDVHS package that's part of Apple's Firewire SDK, it should be possible to record HD video; playback will probably require something a little beefier than the 300 MHz G3, but I have more powerful Windows boxen that can handle that.

      If you're a Linux guy, check out Linux1394; it should be able to handle both DV and HDTV. AFAIK, there's no working Windows solution for my particular situation just yet (Windows doesn't recognize the Moto box as being anything particularly useful; promised firmware updates from Moto may change that). These guys have been in beta for quite a while now, but no release date has been announced.

      HD-capable PVR solutions should become more common in the next few months -- as of April 1, per a recent FCC ruling, US digital cable providers who supply HD services must, at customer request, provide a box that makes the HD signal available through a computer-friendly interface (everyone's taken this to mean 1394, AFAIK).

  9. Re:The only solution (OT) by jhoger · · Score: 1

    Dear jackass,

    Did I say I couldn't figure it out? I didn't figure it out. But I only spent about 10 minutes fiddling with it, eventually figured how to get IE open and configure the IP address and thought "I have actual work to do, I think I'll go do that instead of learning a yet another GUI for a hardware platform I have no real interest in."

    It turns out I am not set in my ways, as I don't use either KDE or Gnome myself... I use Ion, which is totally different than Mac or Redmondish guis, but is more efficient for a stubborn techie like myself that insists on the machine being effectively, efficiently usable from the keyboard.

  10. Since when is this a big deal? by MatrixBandit · · Score: 3, Informative

    I don't understand how this became a story. I do this all the time (and without a mac). I'm running Win2K but thats really irrelevant, and I'm using an old Cannon ZR10 DV camera, and I just hook up the firewire, set the camera in record mode (not playback) and set whatever sofware I'm using to capture (usually either Adobe Premiere or just Media Player Classic with its open device functionality) and boom! live video.

    I actually used this method to record some really neat feedback video with some very interesting natural effects just by throttling the exposure control on the camera.

    Also, using media player classic to record you have full control over what compression method, the end resolution, the end FPS, so you can setup your own surveilance system very easily if you wanted to and still not use that much hd space. (especially if you recorded at like 5 fps and later reviewed it at 60 fps it would be fairly painless (since it's easy to see someone walking around in your house, even at almost 10x the speed) Note: I also do this very thing with my webcam using media player classic.

    sortof off topic but if you haven't tried media player classic, I recommend doing a google on it. it plays flash and dvd's too, as well as having the ability to "open a device".

  11. Daaamn.... by Dahan · · Score: 3, Funny
    Worst

    Ask Slashdot

    Ever.

    If you know that you can play prerecorded tapes through the 1394 port, how about flipping the switch on the camera from VTR mode to Camera mode and see what happens?

    1. Re:Daaamn.... by pineapples10 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Next Ask Slashdot: Im sick of paying Microsoft for their OS and/or Apple for their software/hardware. Is there some sort of free replacement operating system available? It would be great to find one with some sort of source code available. I know this is kind of a weird request, but has anyone heard of such a thing?

  12. Dear Cliff by jantheman · · Score: 1

    I'm sorry, but are you joking or something? Do you really think that this is really a valid Ask Slahdot post? It's not April 1st yet, so it isn't that. Are you smoking something weird?

    This question is akin to those who (after finding newgroups on OE), going straight to alt.folklore.computers & - seeing that it seems quite busy - asking "what does Missing Operating System" mean on their newly bought mass market POS.

    Oh, I was going to go on at length about the demise of the typical post etc but I can't be bothered.

    omg.

    --
    -- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
  13. Yep by NanoGator · · Score: 1

    "It would be wonderful if the same Firewire interface could be used to stream real time video to your PC for cool machine vision applications or for direct capturing of video onto the hard drive. Is it possible get the real time video stream from the Sony digital camcorder (DCR-PC100) through the Firewire cable and display the video picture on your computer screen?"

    Yep. I've done this with a Sony Digital8 Cam + Premiere. The camera sends video footage down as long as it's on. It doesn't have to be 'play' mode to capture video. Premiere doesn't have to be recording to disc, either.

    Or maybe I misunderstand your question? Is there an app where you can just watch the video without using Premiere? Eh not that I know of. (My not knowing does NOT mean it doesn't exist. Can't say I've looked.) Sure would be possible.

    Others have suggested getting a Mac. I'd concur if it's within your price range. Apple's doing better DV-wise (out of the box, anyway) than the Windows platform is. But, if you're not going to go that way, you're not exactly burned. Both XP and 2K like DV just fine.

    I'm not alone here. I have a couple of friends that do DV stuff on PC/Win.

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  14. Whats the problem exactly? by kzadot · · Score: 1

    Is it possible get the real time video stream from the Sony digital camcorder (DCR-PC100) through the Firewire cable and display the video picture on your computer screen?"

    First of all, why doesnt it work? I dont have a sony, I have a cheapo samsung and it streams live video over its firewire interface just fine.

    If your sony doesnt do this buy a decent brand that does!

    It wouldnt surprise me if this is a deliberate crippling as part of some DRM strategy. Sony do own movie and music publishers remember. And their quality is nothing special either. They would be one of my least perferred brands.

    Or is this a software issue? I use linux myself, cant speak about windows. Try some other programs maybe?

  15. Easy. by polyp2000 · · Score: 1

    Im not sure if Im missing the point here, but what you are suggesting is a standard feature of firewire/dv camera's . I use Kino, I just plug in my camera and go to the preview screen and guess what i see what the camera is playing displayed on the computer... I really dont see how you thought this was difficult to do!

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  16. Slashdot is not the place to ask. by stickb0y · · Score: 4, Informative

    First, I'm going to have to agree with a lot of the other posters and say that this is a poor question for Ask Slashdot; it shouldn't have been hard to research on your own.

    Second, Slashdot is not the best place to ask. The quality of your responses would be much better from forums that focus on video capture, such as Ars Technica's Audio/Visual forum and doom9.org's DV forum.

    Now, back to your question:

    With most DV camcorders, you should be able to feed a composite or s-video source into the camcorder, and then you can use whatever DV software you normally use. I've heard that there are a handful of DV camcorder models that require you to record to tape first, but I don't think they're Sony's. Unfortunately, there will be significant latency.

    As for some of the other Slashdot responses so far: No, you don't need a Mac, and no, you don't need Premiere. If you're using Windows and want a lightweight DV capturing app, try Scenalyzer Live! (~$40) or WinDV (free).

    Heck, on Windows, a DV camcorder should show up as a DirectShow capture device. If you don't care about recompressing the video stream (e.g. for machine vision), then you can use any DirectShow-based TV/capture app. There are a number of open-source ones out there (e.g. Virtual VCR).

    1. Re:Slashdot is not the place to ask. by Anml4ixoye · · Score: 1

      Thank you.

      I actually had the same problem as the poster. I have a DV camera, but wanted to be able to view the playback from the camera and a bigger than the 320x240 preview windows I was seeing. I can't buy a Mac, and I did Google for quite a bit (including on SourceForge) for DV playback. Somehow I didn't find it.

      I downloaded and installed WinDV and in less than 3 minutes I have it doing exactly what I wanted. Thanks again for not being a jacka** like some other uberelite posters.

      --
      Random Musings
    2. Re:Slashdot is not the place to ask. by displague · · Score: 1

      My Panasonic DVC-50 imports live or recording streams at the same real time rate regardless of previewing size. I can watch it at fullscreen at the same time if i like.

      If you are asking about applying effects on top of the imported DV in real-time you may need to pipe you dvgrab input to a few other things first.

      Actually, Kino has a live preview of effects at a reduced frame rate. Depending on your horsepower this may work.

      I think Mencoder may actually be ready for doing this sort of thing. Check into it.

      --
      Marques Johansson
    3. Re:Slashdot is not the place to ask. by Dahan · · Score: 1

      Nobody's trying to be uberelite. videomotion didn't say that he was getting live video streamed in, but the picture was too small and his question was whether he could get a full-sized image; he was wondering if it was even possible to get a live video stream. This implies that he didn't even try the basic step of setting the camcorder to camera mode before Asking Slashdot about it.

    4. Re:Slashdot is not the place to ask. by Anml4ixoye · · Score: 1
      Nobody's trying to be uberelite.

      When I posted my comment, the ratio was that a majority of the comments were either "You should have asked Ars-Technica" or "Buy a Mac / Do it on Linux." Examples:

      This question is akin to those who (after finding newgroups on OE), going straight to alt.folklore.computers & - seeing that it seems quite busy - asking "what does Missing Operating System" mean on their newly bought mass market POS.
      Oh, I was going to go on at length about the demise of the typical post etc but I can't be bothered.

      I didn't know how to get a full-sized image either, and know how to set my camera to VCR mode. And maybe the poster should have sent the question somewhere else. But the parent poster managed to make suggestions, and that is what this is all about.

      --
      Random Musings
  17. Not very politely phrased, but probably right by leonbrooks · · Score: 1
    I've also struggled occasionally to get a Mac to behave as I would expect, but J Random Dodo very seldom runs into the same issue (and refer back to the step count in your grandparent post).

    For the record, I use Linux exclusively at work and at home, but I also fix lots of MS Windows machines. Today's spcial was an MS Windows 2000 box which had burped and done these things during the reboot following a hostname change:
    • Forgot that it had a network card
    • Threw away significant bits of MS Office (it now runs OpenOffice)
    • Threw away all but one real user
    • Locked both the Guest and Administrator accounts

    While I was booting the dead 2000 box into Linux to splat the admin account and begin reassembling its brains (as a 2000 box for now, but the night of the long cables is coming), the same firm also had one Windows 2000 box start going spastic whenever a Zip disk was put in the drive. Sometime during the night another box (this one 98SE) had contracted MSBlast without human intervention and was now dedicated to constant rebooting. The same firm (two firms in one office, actually) has only ever had one showstopper with their Linux gateway box: one night someone kicked in the back door of the building and stole it.

    They are now adopting OpenOffice and Firefox throughout, and by next week I expect them to have figured out that they don't use the calendaring functions in Lookout at all, so I'll begin switching them to Thunderbird. At least half of their users never use anything else, so may not even notice when I switch them to a Win2k-themed KDE setup.

    PS, you can operate a Mac pretty well from the keyboard, too. And if you don't like KDE's keboard setup, try 3.2 - you'll be amazed.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
    1. Re:Not very politely phrased, but probably right by Squozen · · Score: 1

      How did a 98SE box get MSBlast? Did it suddenly grow an RPC service?

  18. Dear Slashdot... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Slashdot,

    I've heard a lot about these new gadgets called "keyboards." Do you think there's any way to hook one up to my 'puter to use it for some kind of uber-1337 real-time text streaming input to the screen or the hard disk? Wouldn't that just be the kewlest?

    Sincerely,

    LivingUnderARock (23)

  19. You didn't listen to the question by SilentJ_PDX · · Score: 1

    As Dr. Covey would say "seek first to understand, then to be understood". You didn't listen to the question because your Mac fanatacism got in the way.

    The guy is not complaining about what a PC will or will not let him do, but what the camera will not let him do. He could move to a Mac and that wouldn't change the fact that - according to the questioner - Sony cams don't appear to send a live video feed over Firewire.

    1. Re:You didn't listen to the question by b-baggins · · Score: 1

      I plug my sony cam into my iMac at home all the time and get a live video stream. I can do it in iMovie or in iChat.

      I can set the camcorder on a shelf, and have it point at the room on one Mac, then over iChat have a 640x480 24 fps video feed over my wireless network to my powerbook in another room.

      The problem is definitely with his PC, not the Sony camcorder.

      --
      You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
  20. Umm... Yea. i think so... by Spokehedz · · Score: 1

    IIRC, you just kinda plug them into your computer and it works... At least, kinda. I'm not sure, as I've only played with one for approximately 45 seconds, and then I was thrown out of the Apple store for wearing my WindowsXP shirt... But I digress.

    Here's some software that appears to do what you want, I think.

    Orangemicro.com

    Full control over zoom and stuff like that. It looks pretty neat. I think I'll look up cheap firew-*ahem*-1394 cameras (now that I have my 1394 port of my own.) on one of those online-auction places.

    A winner is you!

  21. Re:The only solution (OT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dear Buttmuch,

    Grandparent is correct. If you couldn't figure out a Mac in less than 10 minutes you are truly stupid and your CS degree obviously didn't do you any good. The fact that you use a retarded WM only reinforces the point.

  22. Kino Will Do This by anewsome · · Score: 1

    Kino running on Linux will do this. If you're messing with DV on Linux, I'm really surprised you don't already know about Kino.

  23. Don't know about firewire, but USB, sure by Cy+Guy · · Score: 1

    I have the Sony DCRTRV350 Digital 8cam corder and it has built-in USB streaming for use as a webcam. It also has a firewire port but doesn't ship with the firewire cable.

    I haven't tried streaming with the firewire, since I don't have the cable, but I don't see why you would need firewire instead of USB - unless you have some tremendous amount of upstream bandwidth.

    --
    Work for Change & GET PAID!
    1. Re:Don't know about firewire, but USB, sure by Dahan · · Score: 1
      I haven't tried streaming with the firewire, since I don't have the cable, but I don't see why you would need firewire instead of USB - unless you have some tremendous amount of upstream bandwidth.

      If you're happy with the compressed and/or low-res video you can fit through the USB port, that's fine, but a full DV stream is around 25Mbps. "Full speed" USB can't do that; you'd need either firewire or "high speed" USB (2.0). However, I don't know of any cameras that have high speed USB ports--firewire is the standard for getting a DV stream out of a camera.

    2. Re:Don't know about firewire, but USB, sure by Cy+Guy · · Score: 1

      And where is that stream going to?

      If your just going to show it on your own screen, then wouldn't you be better of displaying it on a video monitor?

      If you are going to stream on the web - do you have an upload pipe bigger than USB 1.1? If so, then I think you can afford to get hardware that is designed for that prupose, rather than trying to a consumer product in an enterprise application that it was not designed for.

      --
      Work for Change & GET PAID!
    3. Re:Don't know about firewire, but USB, sure by Dahan · · Score: 1

      The submitter mentions, "cool machine vision applications" and "direct capturing of video onto the hard drive," so I'd guess that's where the stream is going to.

    4. Re:Don't know about firewire, but USB, sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may also have a look on the TV Brick a device that "streams" TV through the Internet. See you at my Weblog

  24. Daaamn....Customer Service the "/." way. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And of course Slashdotters being the asses they are will yell RTFWS (Read The Fucking Website). Either answer the question to the best of your ability, or simply ignore it.

  25. Many erroneous replies by swg101 · · Score: 2, Informative
    The software exists in Windows, Mac, and Linux, the issue is that the camera has to support it. Some cameras send nothing over the firewire port unless it is in playback mode. It doesn't matter if you are using a Mac if the hardware will not send data. I have found very little information easily accessible about which cameras will support this. Some manufacturers will answer your questions.

    For machine vision (which is why I have looked at this before), check out the firewire cameras at Point Grey Research. They have some really nice stuff and a great support staff.

    --
    Like pi? Try 10,000 digits.
  26. It depends on the camera, not OS or App by jerde · · Score: 1

    As long as the camera creates a live DV stream and puts it on the Firewire bus, it doesn't matter what platform or app you use.

    In fact, you should be able to connect two camcorders together and use one to record the live video of the other.

    Any software that allows you to import DV video from tape won't know the difference -- it's the same stream.

    (Unless really DUMB software insists on doing device-control and somehow turns the camera's live feed OFF explicitly)

    - Peter

    --
    INsigNIFICANT
  27. of course by hak1du · · Score: 1

    A few minutes on Google or simple using "apt-cache search" show you how--the utilities for doing this are standard and widely available. You can use standard FW camcorders or get high-resolution FW cameras for machine vision applications. FW is the way to go for hooking up cameras for any kind of live video.

  28. Sony's Software by SillySnake · · Score: 1

    I have a Sony Digital-8 TRV-250 camcorder and I can do this with out any problem. I've used real time streaming over usb several times either for web chats via msn or the slightly less than real time Yahoo before. The big thing that sounds like what you need though is Sony's software that comes with the camera. PIXELA I believe has a mode that will let you record whatever the camera is seeing. It requires a fairly fast system to handle, but if it's possible over USB, then I'm sure that firewire won't be a problem for you.

  29. No by aminorex · · Score: 1

    That's not possible. Not even with quantum
    superposition of states. It's actually a
    logical contradiction.

    --
    -I like my women like I like my tea: green-
  30. Dunno, but all the symptoms match by leonbrooks · · Score: 1

    It's one of only three 9X boxes in the place, everything else is 2000 bar one XP. I used to think of 2000 as being pretty reliable (for Microsoft) but am rapidly changing my mind.

    9X does run RPCs under some circumstances but I'm not sure they're enough to get infected. Nevertheless, this box does all of the regular reboots and the like which are symptomatic of MSBlast. Perhaps it's actually got one of the "enhanced" derivatives.

    --
    Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
  31. also see DVTS by danpritts · · Score: 1

    http://www.sfc.wide.ad.jp/DVTS/

    it not only displays the video, it will stream it unicast *or* multicast. IPv6 capable.

    Note that the windows client may have issues with multicast - it has a ttl of 1 which means it won't leave your lan.

    also note that this is a 30 megabit stream before trying it over your DSL.

  32. Media Player Classic will do it by BigDish · · Score: 1

    Media Player Classic, available from here can open video from a device (such as a camcorder) and show realtime video across firewire.

  33. Here here by djmitche · · Score: 1

    I couldn't have said it better. It has never occurred to me that this might be difficult.