The specs of the device was *nice* - 1080i, 120GB HDD, 5.1 Dolby recording etc. It was a last minute arrangement. I didn’t like this! There was no time to tinker and see if the device was compatible with Linux and Kino for post-recording stuff.

It was set for 1080HD AVCHD or Advanced Video Codec High Definition. The camcorder was easy enough to handle. Most of the controls being easily accessible via the touchscreen. After coming back home that night, I was eager to see the results. So, with some trepidation I decided to plug in the mini-USB cable (that had came with my trusty old Canon PowerShot A610) into the mini-USB slot on the side of the HDR XR-500E.

Immediately the standard tail -f /var/log/messages routine threw up the following details:

Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 5
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=054c, idProduct=0346
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: Product: HDR-XR500E
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Sony
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usb 2-2: SerialNumber: 0C59300C6CC1
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: Initializing USB Mass Storage driver…
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: scsi6 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: usbcore: registered new interface driver usb-storage
Dec 27 00:24:49 localhost kernel: USB Mass Storage support registered.
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Sony Camcorder 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 234413857 512-byte hardware sectors (120020 MB)
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] 234413857 512-byte hardware sectors (120020 MB)
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
Dec 27 00:24:54 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Dec 27 00:24:55 localhost kernel: sdb: sdb1
Dec 27 00:24:55 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Dec 27 00:24:55 localhost kernel: sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
Dec 27 00:25:24 localhost hald: mounted /dev/sdb1 on behalf of uid 500
Dec 27 00:25:24 localhost gnome-keyring-daemon[3043]: adding removable location: volume_part1_size_120019828736 at /media/disk

Sweet!!! Camcorder’s being correctly auto-detected with it’s 120GB HDD storage being propering mounted and being made accessible. Going by the AVCHD file / directory structure, using Dolphin, I browsed to the STREAM folder and found the video recordings from the day, present in MTS format. The files opened nicely using the VideoLAN client (vlc) on Linux, except for the some spots of interlace combing (for an example, see this link). Oh well! we *are* working with 1080i here.

Right now, I’m using Kino 1.3.3 to import the .MTS file by converting them to raw DV files needed by Kino for its own workflow. So far, FFMpeg seems to be working nicely.

Input #0, mpegts, from ‘/home/stephanie/Desktop/wbsub-vid-raw/00017.MTS’:
Duration: 01:09:09.0, start: 1.040000, bitrate: 4096 kb/s
Program 1
Stream #0.0[0×1011]: Video: h264, yuv420p, 1440×1080 [PAR 4:3 DAR 16:9], 25.00 tb(r)
Stream #0.1[0×1100]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5:1, 448 kb/s
Output #0, dv, to ‘/home/stephanie/Desktop/wbsub-vid-raw/00017.MTS.dv’:
Stream #0.0: Video: dvvideo, yuv420p, 720×576 [PAR 16:15 DAR 4:3], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 25.00 tb(c)
Stream #0.1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, 1536 kb/s
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Stream #0.1 -> #0.1

Right now FFMpeg is about half way through conversion process. I’m already looking at a ~7 GB file. Let’s hope I do not run out of space!

Where : Dept of Physics, West Bengal State University, Berunanpukuria, Barasat.

When : At 12:30 PM on Saturday, 26th December 2009.

Lecture Synopsis - “Most people who end up being system administrators are self taught. There is little formal theory in this field so far. System administration also involves very different sets of tasks, ranging from helpdesk issues to management reports, from wiring to software.

A very large number of people also start off with small numbers of machines to run and few issues to troubleshoot. As the number of machines grows, keeping pace with troubleshooting becomes impossible. Sysadmins spend time firefighting, and then burn out. Hiring is often very limited due to budgetary constraints or simply due to lack of available labour.

This talk deals with the constraints sysadmins work under, and how to work around them so that they aren’t as big a bottleneck. We take a look at the mindset required to do this work, and how to convince management that the solutions you are implementing are cheaper than the alternative. We also take a quick look at some of the solutions available for sysadmins to reduce their workload.”

Speaker Bio

Devdas Bhagat is just another recovering sysadmin, and is currently playing database administrator for a large domain registration system. In his copious spare time, he works with other business units at his workplace to help tune their systems, add business benchmarks and other general monitoring stuff. He has spoken at the sysadmin miniconf at LCA’09 (Linux Conference Australia) on system automation and on DNS benchmarking. He has spoken at various network operator group (SANOG) conferences on spam control, DNS, operational issues, large scale email systems, etc. He has also been a speaker on databases at FOSS.IN and it’s previous avatar, Linux-Bangalore. When not busy working with computers, he spends time in the hills trekking and photographing.

Organised by : West Bengal University of Technology in association with Kolkata Linux Users’ Group (ILUG-CAL.ORG)

Prof Suryasarathi Barat, Director of the BESU’s School of IT (PDSIT), had requested me if I could help them scout for “big speakers”. I did know of one “big speaker” and therefore got in touch with Atul Chitnis (Toolz). With everything in place, suddenly there was the sad news of Toolz’s dad passing away and he having to rush to his mom’s side in Germany. With like 4 days to the Techfest, things could have gone into a tailspin, except that Toolz asked me to talk to Kishore Bhargava (BigBeard).

Kishore was available to speak on the 12th. He was also a great sport, as Kabir (his son) was going to give a recital later that evening which BigBeard didn’t want to miss. He landed up on 11th evening from Delhi. The next day (12th) we landed up around 11:00 AM. Kishore was already there. He’s talk was just before the lunch. Even though the awareness about FOSS in the student community was really low (when asked about having heard of FOSS, only 4 hands had gone up in a room with over 70 students). This is a bit strange as the professors keep insisting that they “have linux in all our labs“. There is some serious disconnect here.

Kishore’s talk was as always - lively. He drew in both the students and teachers, and made the session highly interactive. I tried to record his talk on my E71. The video is here, split up into 5 parts since youtube no longer allows for videos longer than 10 mins to be normally uploaded.

Part 1 of 5

Part 2 of 5

Part 3 of 5

Part 4 of 5

Part 5 of 5

Kishore’s presentation is here. It is under Creative Commons. BY-NC attribution. And if you use it somewhere please send nice “Thank You” to BigBeard

Kishore finished up with inviting students and faculty members to attend this year’s FOSS.IN at NIMHANS. He then took in a series of questions from both students and the professors. The “Top Ramen” guy (Gaurav) seemed to have a lot of questions. One of the resonating queries was “On Windows we have .NET / VC++ to program with, what do we use to do GUI programming on Linux, there are so many choices PyGTK, Qt, Glade and many more?”. Apparently “C-H-O-I-C-E” is something neither the students nor the teachers here are very comfortable with. There is a deep sense of unwillingness to leave aside the cacoon of “imagined comfort of the known“.

We all walked down for lunch at the BESU guest house. There we met with the new Vice Chancellor - Prof Ajoy K Ray. He was very open and has invited us back at BESU for future programs and activities. With a pragmatic view about things, and a willingness to listen to others, it seems that Prof Ray is trying to bring in a new drive and energy about the place. BESU needs it badly.

FOSS ke bole tomar, aamar!
FOSS ki karo kena????
FOSS-r aami! FOSS-r tumi
Tai diye jai chena!

Mood : Cynical

Here some of the photos from that event:

From L to R : Rohit, Gaurav, Susmit, Nishant, Mukesh, Shinjan, Sarbartha, Dipanjan, Hemant, Shivam, Debnath, Saikat and me (sitting)

In December, we decided to enable the copy and paste feature on our eBooks. Following this announcement, we received a number of suggestions from customers who would like to see the password protection removed from our eBooks as well. With the increasing popularity of reading eBooks on portable devices, the password protection was proving to be an obstacle that prevented users from doing so.

Therefore, we have taken this feedback on board and decided to remove all password protection from our eBooks with immediate effect. If you own a Packt eBook, you can download it again from your account at www.PacktPub.com; this new copy will have no password protection. We would like to thank all customers who took the time to provide us with this feedback and we hope you are pleased with this outcome.

The move IMHO shares a lot of similarity to the recent Red Hat & Microsoft interoperability deal on virtualization. It seems that for the smarter players the demands from consumers are getting to shape DRM policies in publishing. Kudos to Packt! I’m definitely buying more from you

I received a very good response in my college. I along with a batch mate Swapnil Paratey, seniors-Sushil Deshmukh, Nagendra, Sarfaraj & Rivu , are organising a seminar on Linux & FOSS on 24th February,2009.

We are also supposed to work on the database management system, website & online ticketing system of an auditorium in Agartala-Sukanta Academy.

As I mentioned earlier, I am planning to work on a nanotechnology experiments simulation software & require your help. Please get me in touch with some people as I would like guidance & certain experimental raw data from them.

Also, please let me know about the repositories in a disc. Sorry, I could not get in touch with Mr.Susmit Sanighrahi. He was unavailable on phone that day & after coming back to Agartala, I was a little occupied. I plan to contact him within the weekend.

I am on twitter now & have my blog on wordpress by the name Aveek Sen’s blog.

Nothing’s wrong with that, except they are hardly the kids that *really* need FOSS… I was also wanted to hear the total number of participants this year, but only got to hear the details on webserver logs.

Linux is supposed to be tough! Linux on the Desktop is “Orrey baba!” (a Bengali expression that basically says “Wow! that’s not my cup of tea!“)… yet all of my experiences from the last 6 years of working with people on the ground has been otherwise, this is the latest case in point. Almost all first-time users adapt to Linux pretty fast. It’s the so called “computer literate” that have problems galore.

For what it’s worth, it was their fifth day on a computer.