You should make sure that dvgrab does not send commands to the camera. (-noavc)

For the debconf-es-2 videos I've used the following commands to create ogg theoras, mpeg1 and xvid files: (a friend grabbed the files from the dv tapes and gave them to me as raw-dv files in an avi-container)

The script used for encoding the videos from the QA meeting Extremadura 2006.

To produce ogg theora files:

time for i in *.avi ; do 
  time nice -n 19 ffmpeg2theora -x 720x576 -v 8 -V 300 -H 48000 -a 3 -c 2 --aspect 4:3 "$i" -o "goodoggs/${i%.avi}.ogg" ; 
done

To produce mpeg1 files:

time for i in *.avi ; do 
  time nice -n 19 ffmpeg -i "$i" -vcodec mpeg1video -b 300  -g 48 -ac 2 -ab 64 -ar 48000 -s 384x288 lowmpeg/${i%.avi}_mpeg1video.mpeg" ; 
done

To produce xvid files:

time for i in *.avi ; do 
  time nice -n 19 mencoder "$i" -of avi -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1800 -oac mp3lame -srate 48000 -o "xvid/${i%.avi}_xvid.avi" ; 
done

	lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion/ about conversion between video formats eg PAL and NTSC, may be of interest
	www.advogato.org/person/rillian/diary.html ffmpeg2theora: Careful with that --aspect