Video editing, both hardware & software question

[x]

I have some questions regarding video/film-editing.
I know exactly nothing about video and such, so I went out to some local stores & asked a few questions. Now I'm more confused than ever...

What I want to do
I (=my parents) have approx 2 hrs of film, 20-40 years old. Super-8 I think it's called.
I'm going to transfer it to video, I'll simply "film the film" using my analog video-camera. It has RCA + S-video.
I want to be able to edit (cut/copy/paste only, no fiddling with colours or anything like that). Also make video-tapes using parts of different films (like "summer -68", "the life of our dog" etc).
I want to add a heading (a picture or just text) at the beginning of each sequence. I also want to add some sound - background music, a speaker voice here and there.

What I have
AMD K62*500, Nvidia TNT2 32MB, 2GB free HD-space + 20GB on a
network-server. No TV or S-video on graphics card.
I'm currently running Mandrake 8.2

Questions: 1. Hardware
I need S-video input. You could buy special TV-cards, there are also graphicscards available with S-video.
Visiting 4 computer stores this is what they tell me:
* Buy the cheapest card if you're running Linux - more expensive cards mainly add software.
* Cheap cards only have S-video out, you need a 250$ card.
* Cheap cards have S-video in, but they don't do any compression. You can't do any editing with them
* A 70$ TV-card or a 70$ graphics-card are just the same - they'll work fine.
* Don't even think about the 70$ graphics-card, the SVideo-quality is too bad. A cheap TV-card is OK, though.
????????

Could someone please tell me what I need?
If possible, the best would be to buy a good PCI graphics card, when I'm finished I'll put it in my kid's computer (today they have a 2MB Mach64, ISA I think ..)

Questions: 2. Software
I have tried bcast2000, I find it a bit difficult to understand. The documentation might be good if you're familiar with the basics - but I'm not. What about Xine or XMovie? So far I haven't managed to do anything with them? But they are not editing programs, are they?
Is there any distribution that's aimed "specifically" at video-editing? And which programs are the best to use (remember, I will need a manual!)
GIMP had an interesting feature: opening a.mpg it gave me 133 layers, one picture in each. Maybe I could use this to create my headings? Can I actually edit a movie with GIMP?

Questions: 3. Drivers
Record driver - not really a hardware driver, is it?
I guess each card has its own driver, the "Video4Linux" etc is for communication between bcast and the real hardware driver? (OSS works although I'm using ALSA)
I'm not sure about this, but maybe I don't have to bother?

Any ideas, hints & suggestions are welcome!

[Tyr_7BE]

I am so very useless when it comes to this type of thing.

Anyway I just wanted to say that there's a fork of Gimp that's made exclusively for developing films. It used to be called "FilmGimp" but I believe it's recently had its name changed. I'm sure you'll be able to call it up on google with filmgimp as a query.

Also, my spider senses tell me you'll need Video4Linux, but I'm not sure why.

Told ya I was inept

EDIT: Ah yeah...that's the stuff... http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/
Was previously FilmGimp...AFAIK it uses ugly gtk1.2, but apparently it's quite functional.

[Schotty]

Well, I would have to check on the pecific software, but make sure you get a compatible tv-in card. That way, just hook it up to some sort of playing device. I have to look for specific software but here is where I have a tab open already : MythTV

I want a TiVO unit homebrewed ;D

[x]

What about distro's then, is there any that's more likely to have these programs? I have a modem internet-connection only, so I can't install any programs outside the distro (the very bad side of Linux )

[Schotty]

Try less than 15 megs at most. Pick your fave. Buy it. Install it. Download some stuff. Cinerella is an audio and video editor. May be overkill though. Its pretty high end it seems (free though).

[Compunuts]

Check this distro out. Debian Multimedia Distribution.

As far as I know, if you want to record video into your HDD, you will need a graphic card that has VIVO ( Video In, Video Out ). Some of the lower end VIVO cards are not that expensive such as this card which sells for $ 59. Or this card which goes for $ 73 including shipping.

Here is also a good source to learn how to do video and mutimedia on Linux. YoLinux Tutorial.

[rick420]

OK listen, if you wanna capture all the video and stuff, it might be easier to attach that camera to a win box and capture it real quick. Im not sure what linux can capture.....

To edit , just take the video you have captured, and use avidemux.
http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ , or use transcode. Avidemux is gui based though, its a VirtualDub clone in linux. You can cut scenes out really easy since it has a frame-by-frame preview window. Then compress them to VCD/SVCD and wacth on your DVDplayer

[x]

So now I have a lot to read - thanks!
Also I now have a reason for getting Debian to work - until now, the idea of having to install every piece of hardware manually has kept me away from Debian. (One thing I really loves with Linux is the way hardware is handled - simply installed by the OS, quick & quiet. I almost never have to do anything!
So far from my old, hated Windows. But then there's Debian... :P )

I now have a TV-card, installed (in Mdk8.2) without problem.
How do I know if I have video4Linux? There is no /dev/video, maybe I can add that myself. It's a link I guess, but whereto? The S-videoport perhaps - which is called what?
I'll probably find the answers, really a lot info on that yolinux-site, but it'll take a while so if anybody knows?