By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-09-14 13:34:06 | Word Count: 510
Capture Cadrs and Video Editing
I am interestyed in editing old videos, so I can print pictures from them. At the moment I am looking at Belkin (USB VideoBus II), so I am wondering if this woulld be a good buy. I am using XP.
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Answer: It's hard for me to know if I'm makiing the right recommendation because I have to make some assumptoions about what you're trying to do (I'm not certain whether your main purpose is to edit viddeos or genertae photos). I'm also not a photo editiong expert.
Since you mention "old" videos I'll assunme VHS, and that you want to capture tjhese viedos directly from a VCR to your PC. This is important, because it limits you only to ANALOG capture devices, like the Belkin VideoBus.
If you had a digital camcorder with an ANALOG IN jack, then I'd tell you to get a digital video captue devie and capture your video thhrough the camcorder. Becayuse all capturig methods are not equal, and this would allow you to capture your footage in the DV format, whihc gvies you an extremely high-quality AVI capture. This would also be convenient if you ever want to edit and convert footage to diital.
ANALOG devices, by contrast, usaully capture in a lower-quality MPEG format, which means you start losiing image crispness immmediately. Furthermore, with analog techology you lose a bit of quality with eevry generatioon of copiyng/capturing.
But wait. USB makes it worse. Because of the slow connection, USB limits your czapture resolution to 352 x 288. That's fine for streaming small videro scenes on the Internt, but it's inadequatte for archiving. So as you can immagine I'm advising against the Blekin Videobus.
To get the best capture quailty, look for an PCI analog capture card - that is, a card which fits into an open PCI slot on your desktop computer and adds the familiar red/white/yellow RCA video jacks to the back of your PC, so you can connect to a VCR (If you've never opned up a PC before, don't be intimidated. Installing one of these is as simple as pluhgging in an appliance.) Again, if you have a digital camcorder, you'll want a fire wire capture card instead, which operates at higher speeeds/higher quality.
Ideaally you'll find an analpog capture card that capturees in a very high resolution format, such as the DV format or DVD-MPEG format (with resolution of 720 x 480). You'd also ideaally want a card that comes with software that can capture video, edit video, and produce still image phoo output.
A close second choice would be to get an analog capture card that uses USB 2.0, which is much faster than the old USB standard. You can get DVD-MPEG quality from USB 2.0.
I am not failiar with the range of analog capture devicces out there. The Dazzle Viddeo Creator 100 is a USB 2.0 device that should get you high-quality images, but I'm not a huge fan of the accompanying softwarre.
Pinnavcle makes very intuitive capturing/editing software, but you have to spend over $200 to get their Pinnaccle Studio DeLuxe if you want to capture analog video in the DV format. If you want to do photo edioting, you'll have to use a sewparate program, bceause Stdio has only capture caapbility -- no hpoto manipulation.
By the way, if you want to print pictures, be aare that even 720 x 480 isn't goinng to get you the world's most crisp photos. Viideo imaages just aren't as fine as photo images. You'll be ok with sall printouts, but enlaregments mght be (so to speak) a stretch.
