Video4Linux

One good thing that can be said for commercial operating systems is that they have multimillion-dollar companies behind them with the resources to invest in such things as common APIs for just about everything. Linux, you might think, does not have this resource pool. Sure, there are many individuals writing drivers for various devices. A lot of those drivers make it into the official kernel ”some don't. But when a group pools its resources and organizes a concerted effort, you get some amazing results. This is what Video4Linux is all about. It's about an effort to produce a common interface for multimedia devices.

Video4Linux can be thought of as a collection of kernel drivers adhering to an API for multimedia features. From FM radio cards to video capture cards, Video4Linux makes it possible for a diverse set of hardware components to operate within your distribution of Linux.

What's really exciting about Video4Linux is that it offers those amazingly talented device driver authors a standard to write their code to. The inclusion of a multimedia subsystem in the kernel will help move Linux into a world dominated by commercial operating systems.

To begin our journey into video production, it is helpful to have a background in the various technologies that may be used. You may already be familiar with some, such as MPEG and AVI, while there are others you may not have been exposed to, such as MJPEG and DivX. Let's explore a bit and get you up to speed on a few things you'll need to get started.