[WEB4LIB] Video Capture - I need help

[Richard Wiggins]

You have multiple choices here.  What you pick, as with any project, depends
on what you really want to do, and how well you want to do it (i.e. how much
you are willing to spend).

To really answer your question, some hints as to specifically what you want
to do with the video, and what your budget is, would be helpful.

-- Scan converters.  As others have mentioned, these plug into your VGA out
port and convert to NTSC.  The quality of inexpensive scan converters has
improved dramatically over the years.  The limiting factor is NTSC
television.  For the best quality from inexpensive ($200 or so) scan
converters, be sure it has an S connector, and connect to an S-VHS VCR.  TV
production companies spend $10,000 or more for much fancier scan converters.

-- A video card with TV out.  These are increasingly common.  The best known
is probably the ATI All-in-Wonder card.  Buying one of those is a perfectly
reasonable solution.  This is an example of a card that is able to capture
video, send out video, and perform as your basic S-VGA card.  The
All-in-Wonder brand is applied to a variety of ATI cards.

-- Capturing the video on computer using software.  Lotus Screencam is a
product that captures entire video sessions for playback on a computer.  It
works reasonably well.  The Camtasia product you mention is a competitor
(from my town of East Lansing) whose distinguishing characteristic is it
converts to a variety of formats, including AVI, whereas the Lotus product
writes to a proprietary format that can only be played by the (freely
distributable) Lotus Screencam player.  Capturing to AVI in real time can be
a challenge for software and is likely to be inferior to sending the video
outboard to a video recorder.  You may not be able to capture more than 256
colors, for instance, or there may be dropped frames. I would only mess with
either of these in-the-computer alternatives if the goal is to play back the
"video" on a computer.  These products are most useful for demos, where they
can be quite adequate. I have used Lotus Screencam for this purpose and
found it to be finicky at capture but just fine for playback.

-- Firewire.  Someone mentioned this.  Firewire is a high-speed digital
cable spec invented by Apple and popularized by Sony and others.  It is
specifically well suited to digital video but is also used for other digital
applications (e.g. there are Firewire hard disks).  It is now an IEEE
standard, 1394.  Contrary to someone's advice here, I would check to be sure
that your computer really can send exact screen sessions out the Firewire
port; do not assume that if the computer has Firewire it has this function. 
If the function IS present, this is the highest quality video out you're
going to find, at least at consumer prices.  But you will need a capture
device that takes IN the Firewire signal.  The cheapest of these will be a
camcorder, as the Firewire-capable VCRs are priced for those with deep
pockets; it is cheaper to buy the camcorder in a given format than the
corresponding VCR. You can get a Firewire camcorder that writes to various
formats:  Mini-DV, the consumer format invented by Sony to work with
Firewire; Digital-8, Sony's subsequent scheme for capturing DV format onto 8
millimeter tapes previously used for analog video; DVCAM, a professional (or
semi-pro to the purist) format that's basically the DV format with greater
redundancy of the bit stream.  You can find Digital 8 cameras for $1000 or
less; Mini-DV for $1000 to $3000; DVCAM for $3000 to $20,000 or more.

This is a general rundown. If you tell us more about your specific
application(s) we can give more specific advice. What about audio?  Do you
need to capture that as well?  Be sure the solution you pick does this
adequately.

By the way, using an ATI All-in-Wonder and a large screen TV is popular
among gamers and is a pretty good way to show a computer screen on a big
screen TV in a conference room.  But NTSC isn't really up to showing
computer screens (specifically text) very well.  We should all hope for HDTV
to settle down and become available at popular prices, and for the
distinction between a computer monitor and a television to go away.

Feel free to call me to chat.  517 353 4955.

/rich

------Original Message------
From: Julia Schult <jschult at elmira.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: August 11, 2000 9:11:19 PM GMT
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Video Capture - I need help


My director has asked me to find out what we need to capture
computer sessions and put them on videotape.  He has been
hearing and reading about video capture cards.  He was told
that besides the video capture card, you need a special
cable that does some sort of conversion on its own, and
those are expensive.  I immediately thought of SnagIt, and I
went to their page and found their product Camtasia, which
captures a computer session in .AVI format.  I looked into
that, and found that .AVI format can be converted to
videotape with a "scan converter".

It seems to me that the video capture cards sell for "less
than $1000 dollars" meaning around a thou.
Camtasia plus a scan converter seems to cost less than $400.

The conclusion seems obvious.

Am I missing something here?  Is there an expert out there I
can talk to about video capture cards, or Camtasia, or
converting AVI to videotape?

Please?

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu

Richard Wiggins
Consulting, Writing & Training on Internet Topics
www.netfact.com/rww         wiggins at mail.com
517-349-6919 (home office)  517-353-4955 (work)  
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