Hi all I am having some problems transferring minidv video from my camcorder to my computer. I am using linux mandriva discovery 2007, I did some research on what programs to use to transfer and choose KINO and DVGRAB, my camcorder is a Canon HV 20 and it use minidv cassettes. I tried KINO first, I can connected to the camcorder with KINO I am using firewire IEEE1394, but I could not capture or see and video being transfered, I could fast forward and go in reverse using KINO to camcorder, but it would not transfer so I decided to try DVGRAB from command line but I get this error, I am still new to linux so any help would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance. Let me know if you need any more info on the error. Here is my error.

[root@localhost tk]# dvgrab party
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:00.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 1999.11.30 00:00:00
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: timecode 00:00:5411168.00 date 2008.01.31 16:28:04
This error means that the ieee1394 driver received an incomplete frame.
"": frame dropped: tim Capture Started
Segmentation fault
[root@localhost tk]#

Is the HV 20 high definition? If so Kino does not yet have the capability to capture high definition and dvgrab needs the latest version plus a patch. Check out this site for HDV capture howto
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=412826
Although this is a Ubuntu site it worked for me using Gentoo.

Yes! my video is in HDV form and with a brief read for the article it looks that maybe I am out of luck for awhile until developers catch up unless there another video edit/grab program other than what the article on unbuntu is describing (test-mpeg2) thanks for the response. I now have a direction to do research on.

Hey I just found this link

http://www.kinodv.org/article/view/164/1/7/

Kino /DVgrab have added (test-mpeg2) to dvgrab 3.0. I may or may not up grade to it yet. What I may do is wait for a bit until the bugs are worked out. What will probable be the deciding factor is if what I have now in (kino 0.9.2/dvgrab 1.8), will work on standard DV format if it does I will wait, if not I will then find a respository which carries dvgrab 3.0 for mandriva and upgrade. Thanks for the help. Let me know if I am missing something here.

I have tried the latest version of dvgrab ( 3.1 ) and can report success with capturing hdv from a sony HVR-Z1U that was set to film at 1080 50i. The sony also has a feature to down convert hd footage to sd which is handy for capture programs like kino, perhaps your canon also has this feature?. If your distro doesn't yet have dvgrab 3.1 in it's repository's you could try building it from source.