Video capture from usb or firewire

Question

I want to capture video files from an older Canon digital tape camcorder. I have a dell computer with usb and firewire ports. I have 2 cables; one firewire to usb and one firewire to firewire so I can hook my camera to my pc. I need an easy way to capture video from the tapes to the computer. Is there an easy way that does not require a degree from MIT?

Answer 1

A straightforward way to extract video from the camera is to use the dvgrab tool.

Install it with sudo apt-get install dvgrab.

There is a tutorial on how to use it on Ubuntu Documentation.

Give that a try, and if you get stuck, edit your question to describe what you have tried and what went wrong.