Re: Newbie video editing question

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 28 Nov 2010 21:31:10 -0800, Marc Shapiro wrote:

> First off, I'm a video editing newbie.  Not a linux newbie.  I've been
> running Debian since Bo.
> 
> I have a lot of video tapes lying around and I am afraid they will
> degrade over time.  Also, since they are not making tapes any more (or
> VCRs?) I expect it will be difficult to repair my two VCRs when they
> start to die on me.  So I want to convert my analog tapes to digital
> files while I can and write them out to DVD.
> 
> When I mentioned this to a friend, he pulled out a WinTV card, using a
> Hauppauge PVR-250.  Are there drivers for this in the standard kernel
> tree, or do I need to get them from somewhere?

As per this doc:

http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Hauppauge_PVR-250

The card seems to be supported under "v4l" drivers that come with modern 
stock kernels.
 
> Also, what is the best capture and editing software for a newbie with
> minimal needs.  No flame wars, please.  I know that Cinelerra is
> available, but I don't know what else there is, or how easy they are to
> use.  For now all I really need to do is capture the analog signal from
> a VCR and save it to a file.  Then I want to edit out the commercials,
> possibly combine multiple files, and then save the resulting file to a
> dvd iso that can be mounted directly and played back, or written to a
> dvd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_editing_software

PiTiVi, OpenShot and Kino are the easy-ones (in the line of Windows Movie 
Maker).

Cinelerra and Kdenlive are more complete (like Adobe Premiere).

Avidemux and LiVES could be another option.

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón