Screen caps / from video to PC

How to get decent photos from video?

[wildesoul]

Can anyone give me a simple way of getting screen shots from a video or DVD? (My computer does not have a DVD drive) Is it fairly simple connecting a VCR to a PC (Win 98)? If not, can anyone tell me a way to get good quality photos from video? Right now I usually end up taking photos of the TV screen, but these are often of bad quality with a lot of imperfections, even after I've cleaned them up.

Any info or links would be really appreciated. Thanks!

[HughMungus]

It's really easy.

Do you have a video capture card? If not, look on ebay; should be some cheap used ones on there. If so, all you need is a cheap one to do vidcaps. Then you just connect the VCR or whatever your source is to the video capture card and use a program like VirtualDub to capture the video. There are two ways to do that, though. You can record the video as an AVI then use VirtualDub to parse the video file into separate frames or capture individual frames on the fly.

[wildesoul]

No, I don't have a video capture card. I will have to get looking for one.

Thanks for the info!

[Macro]

Good video capture cards are expensive. There are some Pinnacle and other devices that will allow you to connect analogue equipment (like your VCR) to a PC. Some of them are external devices that plug into a usb connector. Products like the Canopus ADVC 50 will automatically convert analogue signals into digital. You could also sometimes use a TV card to achieve this. Hauppauge do a range that start at very affordable prices. I've written a website on this but we aren't allowed to disclose the URL here. If you want it sticky me.

You may be disappointed with the quality. A frame from a video is nowhere near the same quality produced by a good digital camera, even if you use that digital camera at 640 x 480. Videos are typically in very small resolution compared with the 2048 x 1536 - or even the more standard 1024 x 768 - that you get with still cameras.

Also, do ditch 98. You'll find life a lot easier if you moved over to XP which has better multimedia support, USB 2.0, built in programs for working with video, and a lot more. A lot of good devices are now coming without support/drivers for 98.

[killroy]

I used to have a little cheap TV tuner card. It had NO hardware support for capture.

So when I DID capture, it was all software. At the time my CPU at 500Mhz wasn'T able to get full TV res full framerate video, but close... my computer today could eaqsily handle it. And for single frames, NO PROBLEM.

You should be able to get one for less then $100 NEW

get a TV tuner card and virtual dub and you're reay to go and cap.

I could even use it together with a 20 year old video 8 camcorder (HUGE by modern standards, shoulder mounted) and use it as webcam ;)

SN

[HughMungus]

I could even use it together with a 20 year old video 8 camcorder (HUGE by modern standards, shoulder mounted) and use it as webcam ;)

Camcorders make GREAT webcams. Much better optics.