[geeks] Displaying DV video from FireWire

[Joshua Boyd]

On Mon, Dec 06, 2004 at 10:04:59PM -0500, Thomas Gallaway wrote:
> I have this movie I have to edit and color correct in january. All the 
> footage we shot is 16:9 recorded on my DVCam.
> 
> Here is the problem. When using the output of the camera on my sony 
> video monitor it will display the picture stretched. And the monitor is 
> not new enough to have a 16:9 button.
> 
> I could correct this by having final cut pro squinch the image together 
> but that would mean I am outputting a 4:3 project. We want to transfer 
> the movie to 35mm so it needs to stay in 16:9 format.
> 
> So here's my question: Is there some software that I could just use 
> firewire to display the video preview of Final Cut on my powerbook. I 
> will be editing the video on my desktop.

It shouldn't be too hard to write if Apple gives any DV->Quicktime
examples. 

http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/QuickTimeMovieControl/QuickTimeMovieControl.html

I think that may be a good starting point.  I think that quicktime is
usually in charge of handling DV, wether in files or being streamed over
firewire, and this program supposedly supports all quicktime streaming
codecs.  Also, according to the comments, it looks like this program
doesn't keep proportion when the window is stretched.  So, you could
just modify it to keep the window proportion at 16:9, and it should
stretch the incoming 4:3 video to 16:9.

I would love to work out some deal to put this together for you, but I'm
afraid I'm unlikely to have the time the way work is going, and what
with the holidays.

BTW, would a linux solution instead of a MacOS X solution be of interest
to you?  I ask because I personally have needs of a similar program to
run on linux and take DV in and display it along with status
information.