[clug] Video4Linux and IEEE1394 cameras

[Andrew Pollock]

On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 03:07:36PM +1100, Andrew Pollock wrote:
> (Deep breath)
> 
> I'm having a fiddle around with zoneminder, and I'm trying to get it to all
> play ball with my Sony DCR-PC100E video camera, which has FireWire support.
> 
> I have a Sony VAIO PCG-F590 with an onboard FireWire port.
> 
> Here's the lowdown, so far:
> 
> Stock Debian 2.6.8 kernel, using devfs
> 
> I have a /dev/video1394/0 device, however I don't have anything resembling a
> /dev/video? device (nothing with a major number of that ilk anyway).
> 
> Google tells me coriander might be able to help, but so far Coriander is
> maintaining that there is no suitable device on the bus. gscanbus shows
> something, and lets me do a few low level operations to the camera. I'm
> fairly confident that the camera is at least partially visible.
> 
> I don't know a great deal about Video4Linux, and zoneminder wants a v4l
> device. Its doco suggests to fiddle with xawtv till you get the input
> working properly. xawtv also wants something that resembles /dev/video?
> 
> At the moment I think I've got one thing working reasonably well, but I need
> something else. If anyone's got any experience with this sort of stuff, I'd
> love to hear from you.
> 

Just found this tidbit on http://www.linux1394.org/video1394.php

"video1394 is not a Video4Linux driver. There are no Video4Linux drivers for
Digital Camera video or DV on ieee1394. Instead, one must use a user-space
program in conjunction with the vloopback Video4Linux driver."

Looking for more info on this vloopback beastie now...

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