Camcorders are designed to be simple. and the clients that are in the CDs that come with the cameras are meant to be idiot-friendly. For this reason, transferring video from a camcorder to a Linux system through the USB drive is difficult, if not impossible. There are no drivers for these camcorders available for Linux, and finding drivers for some f the more obscure brands is a difficult procedure Wmdows Itself. However a small amount of investment in a fireWIre card can give big returns.

First off, video transferred over a firewire cable is of a much better quality than video transferred over a USB cable. A firewire setup. is independent of brands and hardware, so it is very easy for Linux applications to capture video from a firewire cable. Many Windows users prefer a firewire transfer to a USB transfer. and this should be no different for; Linux system as well.

A common vdeo editor and capture tool for Linux is Kino.

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To Import video on Kino, connect the camera to the firewire port. Go to the capture tab. (View>Capture or [F3]) and click on the start button. The video should now start getting captured. Press Stop to stop capturing. Once captured. the file can be exported m a variety of formats. edited. or stored on the computer. To save the file in the same quality in which it was captured. go to export. select the DV File tab. and choose the file type as "Raw DV". Uncheck the res ample audio option.

Note that this is not a good method to archive a large amount of video, as this occupies a large amount of space. However, for editing video files, getting the highest quality to start of with is a good idea. Post editing, you can export the raw DV files back to the camera for storage, or burn the data on a DVD.