Subject:
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Re: Analog camcorder to computer, how?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.animation
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Date:
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Sun, 7 Jan 2001 01:14:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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2712 times
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In lugnet.publish.cinema, Ian Rutherford writes:
> I have made a few short Lego Star Wars movies with my analog camcorder that
> I would like to be able to transfer to my computer so I can edit and post
> them to my website. Does anyone have any ideas what I need, how much it
> would cost, et cetera?
I have a hard/software package called "Studio PCTV USB" from Pinnacle
Systems. This is the same company that makes the software for the LEGO
Studios product.
The hardware part is a plastic unit about six-inches square that plugs into
the USB port of your pc. The "unit" has connections that allow you to
connect a regular TV coaxial cable to it for input. There are also jacks
for S-Video and Composite Video input. The Composite jack is the normal RCA
size but there's only one jack for video. Supposedly there's supposed to be
some kind of adaptor that allows for the separate audio/video connections to
"composited" together into a single line. I've never been able to find such
a creature.
The software has two main components. One is the PCTV Vision which allows
you to watch TV on your computer. It is fed by the cable connection on the
USB unit. This application is pretty nifty in that it allows you to snap
stills of whatever you're watching on the Tube. It also has a video
recording features that captures video into .avi format.
The other software piece is the PCTV Studio. This video editing software is
very similar in function to what's in LEGO Studio though I think it might be
a little more robust in terms of some of the built in effects available
(sounds, titles, fades, etc.). It also allows you to save your finished
product in either .mpg, .avi, or RealVideo formats using a variety of
quality settings and file size.
The price for this package should be around $99 but I got mine $20 cheaper
due to advertised pricing error at CompUSA. My version is over 2 years old.
Please consider this more information than recommendation. I (and many
others) have had a lot of trouble with this Pinnacle sofware. In fact, I've
never actually been able to get the Capture Video function to work in PCTV
Studio. I ended up developing a workaround solution involving the recording
function of the TV application. I run my cable through a VCR and then into
the USB plug-in device. When I set the PCTV to Channel 3 I can view (and
record) any tape that's playing on the VCR or anything that's being fed
through the VCR's auxiliary input (such as a feed from my video camera*).
After recording the segment with the PCTV, I open up the Studio application
and am then able to edit it.
The results of my work can be seen on a rotating display at The Animated
Brick Company Showcase, located at: http://members.nbci.com/animatedbrik
Finally, I would suggest that if you're interested, you check out
www.pinnaclesys.com for more information. Look for info on the Studio USB
products - the message boards are especially interesting for finding out
what kind of problems/successes folks have with the product(they have one
for LEGO Studio).
Also, I did want to say that Pinnacle Systems has offered free software
upgrades to Studio USB owners for some time. I only last week finally
contacted them for mine since I was making do with what I had. I'll be
interested to see though if this upgrade will solve the problems I have with
the capture video function of this system.
Hope some of this helps,
Greg
*For anyone interested - I have a JVC VHS-C camcorder. Like this one, many
of the JVC cameras come with a stop-motion animation feature. This allows
you to record short clips at either a 1/2 or 1/4 second, 1 second or 5 seconds.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Analog camcorder to computer, how?
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| Usb devices, usually are not as good as the pci counter parts. they usuualy have mono audio as oppose to the pci cards, and their capture resultions are some what limiting "Greg Perry" <supernerd23@yahoo.com> wrote in message (...) (24 years ago, 8-Jan-01, to lugnet.animation)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Analog camcorder to computer, how?
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| I have made a few short Lego Star Wars movies with my analog camcorder that I would like to be able to transfer to my computer so I can edit and post them to my website. Does anyone have any ideas what I need, how much it would cost, et cetera? (...) (24 years ago, 6-Jan-01, to lugnet.animation)
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