How to capture video from digital dv camcorder via usb in Linux

Google wasn't really helpful on this one.
Most posts were from before 2012, when there was hardly any support for video capture via usb, apparently. But actually "reading"(TM) the manpage of dvgrab revealed that the support for usb was implemented later.

So I tried it on my Panasonic NV-GS180EG and it worked:

Connect to USB
The usb port at the camcorder is kind of hidden. But it is there.

Start video capture

dvgrab -V -input /dev/video1  

For me, the camera was in /dev/video1, which was only available after connecting the camcorder to the usb port.

dvgrab is now waiting for a video signal

"Waiting for DV..."

 Start video playback on your camcorder (physically)
The camcorder will now send the video (and audio) signal via usb, where it gets recognized by dvgreb ...

"Capture Started"

... and saved to disc

""dvgrab-001.dv":   999.89 MiB  7281 frames timecode 00:04:51.16 date 2000.01.01 00:00:00"

As can be seen, these files are huge, so you better have some free disc space to spend.

You can stop the capturing with

Ctrl + C

but it will also stop automatically once the video signal stops.


I converted the to avi format with VLC which reduced the size about 20 fold.