Formac Studio TVR on Linux

I have a Formac Studio TVR. Its probably a few years old but I used it a long time ago to painstakingly record TV episodes to a Powerbook G4 12″.

As a firewire device on Linux, it works as a DV capture device. So if you have one of these lying around, it works. Just make sure to do the following:

The raw1394 module (`modprobe raw1394` on the command prompt as root).

Change the permissions on /dev/raw1394 so that regular users can read it, or open your DV capture application with privileges high enough to read/write to it. (There are also other methods around this I believe).

Grab a DV capture application, such as Kino, go into the capture prompt and use it there (its fairly simple). You can even use VLC to grab DV video.

While there is an analog TV tuner on the Formac, there is no mention of how it is operated, nor is there any documentation about how to control it.