Using DV Tools Under Linux

This is a short web page telling you how to use some of the Digital Video Equipment under Linux.

Hardware
doDvGrab
Using DV in RAVL

Hardware

Currently the only machine able to do any DV stuff is bert. This can be found in the DBL lab. You should be able to log onto it in the normal way.

The following tools enable you to grab DV video from tape onto the temporary buffer /buf and to decode them into a stream of ppm
images and wav audio files.

doDvGrab

This tool will grab raw DV data in real time from the digital VCR and dump it onto disk. It can also grab single images, and can dump an audio track to a wav file.

For usage, type: doDvGrab -help

E.g.:

doDvGrab -start 00:01:00:00 -end 00:02:00:00 -o /buf/out.dv

This will grab 1 minute of video starting from timecode 00:01:00:00 and output it to file out.dv.

The program will automatically search for the start timecode and is frame accurate. If it drops any frames it will warn you, though this is unlikely. There is a 2 Gigabyte limit on the file out.dv (approx 20mins of video). Make sure you grab the data to the local disk (/buf on bert).

To decode the DV file and display it to the screen or output as a stream of images, use "conv -s" or "VPlay". (For usage, type "conv -help" etc.)

To grab audio and put it into a .wav file, use "doDvGrab -audio".

Using DV in RAVL

On Linux, DV is recognised by the video I/O system - just treat it like any other video format. The old 2GByte file limit should no longer apply.