Firewire card

[badgers]

Hello,
I have installed Mint 64 XFCE 19
My question is regarding firewire and capturing DV camcorder films of my children onto the hard drive.
I purchased this firewire card: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06W9FQVP7/

I see that I have a /dev/fw0
however, Kino and dvgrab indicate I have no DV camera connected. the cable is inserted and the camera is in the playback mode.

is there any tutorials on how to configure firewire on Mint 19? everything I find via google seems to be from the 2006 timeframe and the commands I have tried seem to be out of sync with this current release.

lspci seems to indicate this is a VIA chipset, and I did create a link to /dev/raw1394
however this did not change anthing.
I have started Kino with sudo from the termial and that has not changed the outcome.
any advice is appreciated.

[Lord Boltar]

might want to take a look ate Video4Linux you can get this in the Synaptic Package Manager do a search for v4l there are at least 3 I can think of that might be helpful

dv4l
v4l-utils
v4l-conf

then you might want to check out Cheese

[badgers]

thank you for the suggestion I will read that this afternoon.
have a good day

[badgers]

Is there a linux mint package for the program
Coriander
it seems to be a package I find in my google searches as a recomended fix, but the software tool does not seem to find the package for it.

[badgers]

mint@mint-p6-2110:~$ lspci | grep VIA
04:00.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller (rev c0)

mint@mint-p6-2110:~$ lshw | grep fire
*-firewire
configuration: driver=firewire_ohci latency=32 maxlatency=32
mint@mint-p6-2110:~$ dv4l
no vloopback input device found. vloopback module in kernel?
mint@mint-p6-2110:~$ lshw | grep 1394
description: FireWire (IEEE 1394)
product: VT6306/7/8 [Fire II(M)] IEEE 1394 OHCI Controller
is it possible I need to do something with the Kernel to make it work with Mint?
Thank you

[badgers]

another piece of information
mint@mint-p6-2110:~$ cat /var/log/syslog | grep fire
Aug 9 20:12:17 mint-p6-2110 systemd[1]: Started Uncomplicated firewall.
Aug 9 20:12:17 mint-p6-2110 apparmor[554]: Skipping profile in /etc/apparmor.d/disable: usr.bin.firefox
Aug 9 20:12:17 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 1.200088] firewire_ohci 0000:04:00.0: added OHCI v1.10 device as card 0, 4 IR + 8 IT contexts, quirks 0x11
Aug 9 20:12:17 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 1.724233] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: created device fw0: GUID 0011223333666688, S400
Aug 9 20:21:22 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 560.184178] firewire_ohci 0000:04:00.0: isochronous cycle inconsistent
Aug 9 20:21:23 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 560.705655] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: giving up on node ffc1: reading config rom failed: bus reset
Aug 9 20:21:24 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 562.209662] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: BM lock failed (timeout), making local node (ffc0) root
Aug 9 20:21:24 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 562.209666] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: phy config: new root=ffc0, gap_count=5
Aug 9 20:22:06 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 604.254941] firewire_ohci 0000:04:00.0: isochronous cycle inconsistent
Aug 9 20:22:07 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 604.770445] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: giving up on node ffc1: reading config rom failed: bus reset
Aug 9 20:22:08 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 606.274472] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: BM lock failed (timeout), making local node (ffc0) root
Aug 9 20:22:08 mint-p6-2110 kernel: [ 606.274475] firewire_core 0000:04:00.0: phy config: new root=ffc0, gap_count=5

I am not sure what to make of this at all.

[badgers]

Does anyone know of a way to test simple communication with the card.
I can plug my cable from one port on the card into another port to conceivably verify the cable and physical connection.
I am running out of ideas.

[badgers]

Here is one constructive feedback item.
I installed Windows 7 and it is now working. So I have a high level of confidence at the hardware and cabling is functioning. However I really would like to understand why Linux it can't seem to make it work

[badgers]

so does anyone have any suggestions at all?
when did linux stop supporting fire wire DV camcorders?

[srq2625]

I have no direct/recent experience with 1394, but a quick google found the following that might (they are a bit dated) be of some help:

• Ubuntu Introduction to Firewire
• FireWire/DigitalAudio
• How to detect FireWire interface and Connected device on it, in Ubuntu 11.04

[FreedomTruth]

I also had no success with any of the GUI capture programs with my firewire DV camcorder. However, the terminal program dvgrab works well with mine.

[badgers]

Thank you, you're correct in that link coriander doesn't seem to be an active package. I have tried to use DV grab but the problem seems to be when I connect the camcorder to the firewire cable.
it doesn't register in the the operating system that there is anything on the firewire bus.
I get an error that no camera or device can be found when I try to use DV grab from the command line.
That is why I installed Windows 7 just to make sure that there wasn't it Hardware or broken cable or a bad connector in the system.
I have already captured all of the movies through Windows 7 and now I'm just in coding it. But it does bother me that it could make Linux work and a simple right off the old DVD of Windows 7 was able to hit it with no problem.
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate your time and comments.

[emsjon]

Badgers, Thanks for the postings you made during your research. There are many of use that are asking the same questions about Firewire and not coming up with a good solution. From what I have read Windows last version that included Firewire was 8.1. I wonder what the last version of Mint/Ubuntu/Linux was and could the drivers/software that worked in those days be adapted to work on our stuff in 2019?
I use a program called OBS. I have recently tried to connect a JVC (GY-HD110) HDV 720 Camera to the system. I wanted to use it for live broadcasting but the lack of Firewire support wont allow me to connect via my Linux system.
If you have come up with any new ideas/answers I would like to hear them.

[Phosphoric]

One of my desktop machines has recently installed Mint 19.1 Cinammon. Dvgrab works perfectly with mu Canon camcorder and Gigabyte GA-870A-UD3 motherboard with built in firewire port.

Looks like your problem may be hardware support related?

[emsjon]

Could be, when I pull the Mint hard drive and replace it with a Windows 8.x drive all works fine. So the Linux drivers are also where I believe the problem is. I have just formatted an other Ubuntu laptop with Mint. I will try it next.

[duelingpianoman]

I have a late 2010 macbook pro (16 GiB memory) running 19.1 64 linux mint.

A few years back (and with the latest mint at that time) I was transferring DV Tapes of my kids with no problems. Took a bit of searching to install the right programs, but I had Kino working great.

Went to install Kino this week to finish my transfers and have had ZERO luck. Same with my firewire drive.

I will follow this thread and post if I find a solution.

BTW, has anyone tried Ubuntu Studio as a work around?

[crlMIDI]

Just a few notes on my experience with a local associations's free walk-in service:

Ubuntu may have compatibility issues with some firewire hardware: https://askubuntu.com/questions/604242/ ... untu-14-04. The only easy workaround with old computers may be to try another one. But perhaps there exists a Linux distro not derived for Debian that does work.

I have tried 3 computers of 2007 vintage with two cameras. Mint 18.2
An Acer Inspire T180-GB7Z (built in 1394) didn't connect to either camera. The dmesg command given in https://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/dvgrab gave errors which I didn't try to follow up.
A Dell Dimension E520 with a cheap (15 euro) PCI card connects to both cameras and dvgrab runs correctly. Sometimes you have to wait a little while after startup. When it's working, dmesg gives the GUID of the camera that is connected. I haven't yet tried the card in a more recent computer as we want to use equipment we can lend out to anyone who asks.

One point that doesn't seem to have been proposed here:
A ShuttleX PC with built-in 1394, but with no identification label, works reliably with a Panasonic NVDS65. It did not find a Samsung VP-D361 camera.
I then got the GUID of the Samsung from the Dell computer by running dvgrab or dmesg, and inserted it as an option when using the ShuttleX. For that camera:
dvgrab -i -f dv2 -guid 0x0000f00000007f6d
And it worked. Though not on the Acer.

However, when things don't work in a reasonable amout of time, and when the recordings are precious for the owner, I think amateurs like me should go looking for a professional service to recommend.