NCV001 – a Cinema Verite From MiniDV to DVD!

My first attempt got et by the ZR-20. These are the hazards of analog. :D First hook up the camcorder to the firewire port and turn it on in “VCR” mode, and rewind the tape to the beginning.
Next we check to make sure the Firewire card can be seen by the system:

lspci -nn | grep 1394

Then open up a terminal in the folder you want the saved files to live in, and type:

dvgrab -autosplit -size 0 -showstatus -t

This will cause dvgrab to start playing the tape on the camcorder and sample the video. The terminal screen will show the progress in scrolling text.
“-autosplit” = split the video stream into separate files based on where you paused or stopped the tape when recording.
“-size 0” = allow filesize larger than 1gb.
“-showstatus” = display progress in scrolling text.
“-t” = Timestamp the filename with the date/time the video was taken. (Very nice when you don’t know when the video was taken – it reads the time from the video file)
When it’s done, you’ll have a folder filled with timestamped raw DV files. We will next want to convert these to MPEG2 for use in DVD creation. Here’s a little shell script that will process the entire folder, so you don’t have to type in a new command for every file:

for f in *.dv
do
echo Processing $f
ffmpeg -i $f -target ntsc-dvd -aspect 4:3 -ac 2 ${f/.dv/.mpg}
done

Now we have a folder full of .dv and .mpg files. You can get rid of the .dv files if you want:

rm -f *.dv

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/dvdstyler
sudo apt update
sudo apt install dvdstyler

The DVD Styler interface. Complete customization of the DVD behavior and menu system. Includes a DVD burning function that is both fast and works flawlessly! You can save your project as an ISO that any DVD burning software can write, or just use the built-in DVD burning function.

Currently in the earholes: