Using Kino to make YouTube videos

A few days ago, I decided I wanted to make a little demo video of myself using Ubuntu. I wouldn't create anything too complicated but I would use Ubuntu to produce it. I have a Sony digital video camera and a firewire cable so all I needed was some software to help me get the video into a YouTube-acceptable form.

After little research, I found Kino was the best option for me. The first step is to capture the video from the camera to the hard drive. I used DV AVI Type 2, OpenDML AVI, and checked 'Put Timestamp in File Name'. Putting the timestamp in the filename was cool. I actually didn't realize the time and date were encoded into the MiniDV tape so it was neat to see that detail come out during capture.

Now to capture, I just had to plug firewire cable into the camera and computer, click the Capture button on the Capture tab in Kino, and hit play on the camera. I could see that the computer wasn't dropping any frames and I could view the video with sound on the computer as it was captured using the GTK method on the Display tab of Kino's Preferences.

Editing is a serious task but with a little time, you'll be able to do quite a lot. I kept it simple, just adding a title to the end for a few seconds. Finally, comes Export. The first few times I exported I either ran into a 186mb file for 9 minutes of video or the export would quit without producing anything. What finally worked(and what made me want to write this post to tell you about it) was to go to the Other tab in Kino's Export mode and pick XviD MPEG-4 AVI Single Pass(MEncoder) for the Tool and 4:3 Broadband Quality (320x240, 564kb/s) for the Profile.

I then ended up with a 19mb file that looks pretty good. If you'd like to take a look at the result of this process just go here. I hope this helps you to produce your videos in Ubuntu. If you have any suggestions on better ways to do this, I'd love to hear 'em in the comments.

DSLinux, where doesn't Linux run?

I've had a Nintendo DS for about 6 months now and have seen a post or two on Slashdot about how some guys got Linux running on it. So I decided to get the hardware I needed to try this and other home brew apps. In the DSLinux world, there are a few different builds and a few different hardware configurations that would work. The recommended hardware at the time(2 months ago) was called a Supercard SD, a Superkey, and an SD card.

Once I got these things in the mail, I tried to load DSLinux but it didn't work. I tried a bunch of different things but what finally worked was to go to supercard.cn and download the latest firmware for my Supercard SD. Then I loaded up the RAM version of DSLinux and felt the overwhelming joy of running Linux on yet another device. Woohoo!

In the days that followed, I connected to my home wireless network, browsed websites, explored the DSLinux filesystem, and even ssh'd to another Linux box. I even downloaded the source and built my own DSLinux image. It was a lot of fun.

A couple things I wanted to do but never got working was a web server and being able to telnet or ssh into the DS. Guess there's always something more to do in tech. I've not touched the thing for a while but I actually learned quite a lot about embedded Linux in the process.

If you've got the time, the money, and the DS, head over the dslinux.org and expand your linux horizons!

DD-WRT on Buffalo WHR-HP-G54

I've installed probably 20 different models of routers, from Netgear to D-Link, Linksys to Belkin and nothing comes close to these dd-wrt-loaded babies. Installation of the firmware is not too hard as long as you can find a tftp client. Just follow the pertinent instructions for the WHR-HP-G54 on this page and you're rollin'. After you've done it a time or two, it should take less than 10 minutes. I can imagine a guy with a laptop, ethernet cable, and 100 routers being able to do them all in a day.

After the firmware-loading deed is done, you'll have a powerful router on your hands. I can't list all of the features here but let's just say I'm impressed with using WDS for building a small mesh network, the router's built in ssh daemon, and it's unlimited port forwarding slots. I maxed out the ports I had forwarded on my Linksys WRV54G which sucked so this is a nice feature.

Another cool thing is using QoS to prioritize and limit bandwidth to different devices. This kind of thing can help you take back your network if you've had a Vonage or Sunrocket voip appliance serving as the gateway just so it could put itself at the front of the queue.

Before I bought one of the Buffalo routers, I checked on eBay and you can find these routers already modded with dd-wrt and additional SD card storage. Wow, the possibilities...

I've got a lot more to say about this router than this but I figured I'll keep this short. If I've convinced you that this tech is truly cool, go get a router and flash it. Today's hardware is extremely powerful. Apps like dd-wrt are helping to deliver that power back where it belongs: in the hands of the user.

To learn more visit http://www.dd-wrt.com