Kino and DV 1394 in Ubuntu Hardy

Kino is one of the best video editing software available under Linux. Nothing fancy like Adobe Premiere but it does the job. It is easy to use and you can edit and trim your video pretty well and in short time. There are better choice available if you are a promising director but in that case you where not reading this.

Let’s say that you have installed Kino in Hardy from the repository using Add/Remove or just type in the console:

$> sudo apt-get install kino

See how easy is to install software in Linux, who said that Mac or Window$ is easier ?

Now, you want to control your camera and capture that video of your honey moon or your mother-in-law falling down the stairs. Connect your camcorder to your PC with the DV1394 cable.

Open Kino and press the capture button on the right. Kino will tell you that cannot access the /dev/raw1394 in read/write and nothing happen. Kino developer decided to use the raw1394 device even if there are better alternative that can work out of the box. This is not my business but this will force the user to open the console and Windows fan are starting to smile now.

For security reason Ubuntu will set the /dev/raw1394 accessible only to root user and disk group. This is a reasonable decision because if a bad guy can access the raw1394, he can control all your hardware. But let’s say that is hardly to happen in a Desktop PC, so there is no arm to give also to other user the rw access.

Open the console and type:

$>ls /dev/raw1394 -l

$> crw-rw—- 1 root disk 171, 0 2008-06-24 23:58 /dev/raw1394

Now just change the permission to rw to everybody:

$>sudo chmod 666 /dev/raw1394

$>ls /dev/raw1394 -l

$> crw-rw-rw- 1 root disk 171, 0 2008-06-24 23:58 /dev/raw1394

That’s it, not that bad also for a nob. Next time you start Kino, your camera will work like a charm!