Hi everybody,
I have been unable to capture in ANY mode DV or HDV from a Canon HV20. I have read the camera is supported by Kdenlive.
The camera has been detected in the same computer in Windows Vista (Sony Vegas 9 platinum)
I have ubuntu 9.04 and Kdenlive 0.73. Some time ago Kdenlive was able to capture from a Samsung DV camera with the same computer running Mandriva (Kdenlive 0,71). The camera shows a firewire cable is connected when pluged.
What testing should I do to detect what is wrong? I would really appreciate any help.

Maybe that is a permission issue, please read:
http://kdenlive.org/forum/unable-capture-solved

You was right, there was a permission issue. Thank you very much for your help. Keep doing such a good job!

The method I used to change the permissions was shown in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Firewire

If you have physical control of your computer and there is no risk of the Firewire port being used to access your machine then this method may be suitable for you. But it is a security risk because anyone can connect to the Firewire port and access you kernel directly.

This method makes a new group called firewire with control of the raw1394 device file, and your user a member of that group. This method works after a reboot.

1.Open 'System > Administration > Users and Groups'. Add a new group and call it firewire
2.Open the firewire group and add your user name to this group.
3.Open a terminal and type

sudo gedit /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh

4.At the end of the file type

chgrp firewire /dev/raw1394

5.Reboot.