gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) (08/23/90)
I'm looking for hardware to interface a video camera to a mac. I would like to be able to digitize people's faces, and save them in either mac paint or PICT format. Color is not a necessity. I currently know of two products, "Computer Eyes" by Digital Vision, and "MacVision" by Koala. Has anyone had any experiences with any of these products, or can anyone recommend others? Both Computer Eyes and MacVision claim that scanning time is about 6 seconds, or longer for higher resolution scans. Does this mean that the person being digitized would need to sit perfectly still for 6+ seconds? Thanks! Greg Fuller gregf@sequent.UUCP uunet!sequent!gregf
carlo@eagle.cvs.rochester.edu (Carlo Tiana) (08/23/90)
In article <41073@sequent.UUCP> gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) writes: >I'm looking for hardware to interface a video camera to a mac... This seems to be a subject that is coming up more and more these days. It seems like many people (including myself!) are trying to find out ways of interfacing video equipment to macs and macs to video equipment, of all sorts. Since this is relatively new technology (as applied to the Mac), I guess lots of people have questions, but few - who actually have already purchased the equipment - have answers. Would any of those people who are doing video-related work with their Macs, please be so kind as to give a short description of what they are up to, what equipment they are using and how they like it? I am prepared to summarize if this stuff is e-mailed to me, as well as collect postings (in any of the comp.sys.mac hierarchy) for future reference (ie to send to future posters asking these questions). I envisage collecting tips of all sorts - from "how to get NTSC out using a Apple video card" to "my favorite jumper settings on the ColorSpace IIfx" (I just made these up - I don't even know if there are jumpers in that board ;-). Carlo. PS - rec.video seems to apply more to "home video" issues than what I would call "computer-aided video" and I therefore think it would be a waste of bandwidth to cross-post there, for now. carlo@cvs.rochester.edu
wilcox@hydra.unm.edu (Sherman Wilcox) (08/23/90)
In article <9037@ur-cc.UUCP> carlo@cvs.rochester.edu (Carlo Tiana) writes: >future reference (ie to send to future posters asking these questions). > >I envisage collecting tips of all sorts - from "how to get NTSC out using a >Apple video card" to "my favorite jumper settings on the ColorSpace IIfx" I am just now getting started on a multimedia project funded under a fedederal grant. Our goal is to develop a videodisk-based American Sign Language (ASL) dictionary. We plan to store lexical entries, definitions, and example sentences in ASL on the videodisk, then develop a front end which will allow users to look up words based on ASL formational properties. One of our requirements was to show the ASL words, sentences, etc on the Mac monitor. We have decided to implement the system on a Mac IIci with the Rasterops 364 Colorboard and MacroMind Director. I have been using both of these products only for a week, so I am barely knowledgeable, but from I have seen so far they are both excellent products. The Rasterops board produces excellent, clear live-action video in a moveable, resizeable window. Although our product will use the display from within Director, the software supplied with the 364 allows you to do some nice things such as grab single frames and save them as 24- or 8-bit PICT files; do timed grabs of frames to disk; and do timed grabs of frames to memory. The timed grabs to memory feature is especially nice, allowing you to specify the grab interval (0 = continuous grabs, 1 = 1 sec intervals between grabs, etc.), an initial delay before the grabs start, and the number of grabs. The latter is of course limited by your available memory and the size of the window. Using an 8-meg Mac and the live-action window set at what Rasterops calls "half" (seems to be about a 3" by 4" window), I can grab 10 frames. By making a fairly small window, the maximum number goes up to 40+ frames. These frames can then be reviewed, selectively saved to disk, etc. Very nice. The board has NTSC (RCA connector) and S-VHS inputs. So far, I have only used it with VCR as a source (my Pioneer laserdisk is on order), and a Canon RC-470 Still Video camera. Both work like a charm. Although I should get better quality with the S-video input, I seem to get drop outs ("dirt" on the screen) when I use it with the Canon source. I cannot say for sure whether this is a problem with the 364, the cable, or what. I plan to try to isolate the problem and could re-post my results if anyone is interested. I'd be happy to answer any other questions about either the 364 board or MM Director (although I am *far* from conversant with it yet).
midkiff@portia.Stanford.EDU (Neil Midkiff) (08/23/90)
In article <41073@sequent.UUCP> gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) writes: >I'm looking for hardware to interface a video camera to a mac. I would >like to be able to digitize people's faces, and save them in either mac >paint or PICT format. Color is not a necessity. > >Both Computer Eyes and MacVision claim that scanning time is about 6 >seconds, or longer for higher resolution scans. Does this mean that >the person being digitized would need to sit perfectly still for 6+ >seconds? I bought MacVision (version 2.1) recently and have found it pretty good at some things and a bit problematic in other respects. It works perfectly with still frames from VCR or camcorder...which is probably your best solution for portraits: record the subject and digitize from a freeze frame. But it takes 20 seconds for a full-size (640x480 pixels of eight bits (256 grays)) scan, not 6 seconds. The quality is as good as I can detect since I currently have only a four-bit grayscale monitor. Currently I have not been able to make it recognize a "live" signal from the camcorder's camera (even a still life with the camera on a tripod). Does anyone have any suggestions as to why it won't recognize the "live" signal? -Neil
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (08/23/90)
In article <41073@sequent.UUCP> gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) writes: >I'm looking for hardware to interface a video camera to a mac. >I currently know of two products, "Computer Eyes" by Digital Vision, >and "MacVision" by Koala. >Both Computer Eyes and MacVision claim that scanning time is about 6 >seconds, or longer for higher resolution scans. Does this mean that >the person being digitized would need to sit perfectly still for 6+ seconds? Yes. I can speak a little about the "Computer Eyes" product--I have their color version. One reason why it's so cheap is that there isn't any memory on the board. It's really designed for use with a still video camera, or a VCR with a good (probably digital) freeze frame control. You'd undoubtedly have to sit very still with a video camera. -- Steve Dyer dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.edu
lecocq@hplred.HP.COM (Christian LeCocq) (08/24/90)
comp.sys.mac.misc / gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) / 10:16 am Aug 22, 1990 / [...Q: Hardware for hooking your video camera to a Mac] Both Computer Eyes and MacVision claim that scanning time is about 6 seconds, or longer for higher resolution scans. Does this mean that the person being digitized would need to sit perfectly still for 6+ seconds? MacVision: Yes ! And that's an endless source of joy for my two daughters who love to make distorted images of themselves. Also, I cannot use the pause function of my VCR to digitize a specific image, as the output of the paused tape seems to be way too noisy. Other than that, a lot of fun for not too much money. Recomended. Christian
lrm3@ellis.uchicago.edu (Lawrence Reed Miller) (08/25/90)
The pause function on a digital VCR might produce a stable enough image to digitize. I don't have a digitizer to try this with, but the frozen images on my digital VCR do seem to be very noise-free. Of course, a digital VCR probably costs more than the digitizer, but if you are starting from scratch it might be worth it (?). Digital VCRs tend to help with editing. Lawrence Miller
ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (08/27/90)
In article <41073@sequent.UUCP> gregf@crg2.uucp (Greg Fuller) writes: >I'm looking for hardware to interface a video camera to a mac. >I currently know of two products, "Computer Eyes" by Digital Vision, >and "MacVision" by Koala. Has anyone had any experiences with any of >these products, or can anyone recommend others? Was just playing with our (newly upgraded) MacVision today. I like it. It's pretty easy to use, the software offers lots of features and the quality is surprisingly good for an inexpensive unit. I have only used it for grayscale (and black & white) scans - haven't tried color. The 256 gray shade images are impressive. Black and white images can be dithered and saved in MacPaint format if desired, and there are several other compatible formats available too. The full grayscale (or color) scans require about 300K of disk space each. >Both Computer Eyes and MacVision claim that scanning time is about 6 >seconds, or longer for higher resolution scans. I've never seen this claim for MacVision. On my IIcx it takes about 30 seconds to scan a complete frame. On a Mac Plus it's more like 50 seconds. There is a "preview" mode which gives you a small image to view while setting the controls and this scans more quickly, but you can't save or print one of these images. There's only one resolution supported: 640 x 480. >Does this mean that >the person being digitized would need to sit perfectly still for 6+ >seconds? You got the idea, but (like I said) it's more like 30 seconds! Actually, if they move you can get some really interesting Salvador Dali-style effects! I've had good results videotaping something and then freezing the action (on a 4-head VCR it should be pretty steady). ||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego ||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud ||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu
rkm@PacBell.COM (Richard Mossman) (08/27/90)
In article <1990Aug24.215738.10525@midway.uchicago.edu> lrm3@ellis.uchicago.edu (Lawrence Reed Miller) writes:
From my readings on rec.video, I would tend to believe that the reason you
get low resolution scans from a paused VCR is because you and your scanner
are only seeing a single field and not a full frame (2 fields = 1 frame). I
tried taking some photos from a television screen of a paused VCR picture of
a face and got something that was recognizable but streaked and very grainy.
Basically you are only getting half the picture information.
I would also like to know what you mean by "digital VCR". I didn't know these
existed. What manufacturer? Model? Is it performing a digital recording of
both video and audio?
--
Richard K. Mossman {att,bellcore,sun,ames,decwrl}!pacbell!rkm
415/823-0974
=========================================================================
"I need to put some distance between overkill and me!" -- E. John (1988)midkiff@portia.Stanford.EDU (Neil Midkiff) (08/28/90)
In article <5368@ptsfa.PacBell.COM> rkm@PacBell.COM (Richard Mossman) writes: [regarding getting a good "freeze frame" for digitizing] >I would also like to know what you mean by "digital VCR". I didn't know these >existed. What manufacturer? Model? Is it performing a digital recording of >both video and audio? A more accurate term would be "VCR with digital special effects." These have a digital frame buffer (usually only one frame's worth of memory). The recording and playback on the tape is exactly the same as in ordinary VCRs, but to do slow-motion, freeze frame, and so forth, they use the frame memory rather than stopping the tape and continually reading the same bit of tape directly from the spinning video heads. (By the way, the old-fashioned way CAN give excellent results on a 4-head, well-designed machine, but it's mechanically tricky and not all VCRs do it well.) -Neil
lrm3@ellis.uchicago.edu (Lawrence Reed Miller) (08/28/90)
Well, the VCR that I have is a JVC (one of their high-end models). It doesn't do digital recording (video or audio). What it _does_ do is digital processing.When you hit "pause", the VCR captures the current frame in some sort of RAM buffer (digitizes it, I imagine), and continues to display the frozen image on the screen. The resulting picture is very stable, though clearly not quite as high resolution as the "normal" motion picture that is not being captured by the VCR. Though the image is slightly chunker and has slightly less-smooth color gradations, the image would probably digitize fine. Other, more recent machines may have better capturing capabilities (my VCR is about 1.5 years old, I think...), and may overcome this limitation. I am not a video-expert, and don't have a digitizer to test how well the paused image digitizes, but I would imagine that as long as there is a stable image on the TV screen (and thus a stable, clear signal to the digitizer), it will work. I could get the VCR model # for you, if you want, but I doubt that it is still current. Lawrence Miller
ewm@mdavcr.UUCP (Eric W. Mitchell) (08/29/90)
In article <5368@ptsfa.PacBell.COM> rkm@PacBell.COM (Richard Mossman) writes: >From my readings on rec.video, I would tend to believe that the reason you >get low resolution scans from a paused VCR is because you and your scanner >are only seeing a single field and not a full frame (2 fields = 1 frame). I >tried taking some photos from a television screen of a paused VCR picture of >a face and got something that was recognizable but streaked and very grainy. >Basically you are only getting half the picture information. If you want to take pictures of your TV screen, you should set your shutter speed to 1/30 second, then adjust aperature for suitable light level. Since your TV scans at 60Hz, and you need two scans to get a full picture, you will get the best results. If you use something other than a multiple of 1/60 second, you will get bands of brighter regions on the screen where the raster has scanned twice (or more) during the exposure. I've had my best results using the above scheme. They actually weren't too bad. >I would also like to know what you mean by "digital VCR". I didn't know these >existed. What manufacturer? Model? Is it performing a digital recording of >both video and audio? >-- There is still no such thing as true digital VCR. The term now represents more marketing hype than anything. Manufacturers know that the buzz word is associated with higher quality (due to CDs), so they are mis-using it freely. Images are still stored in the same analog format on tape. The difference (as I understand it) is simply that the tuning elements, etc, are digital. Note that this may indeed result in a better picture, but it isn't "digital". Of course, I'm speaking only about consumer electronics. I am unaware of what may be available for commercial use. Eric =========================================================================== Disclaimer: My employer doesn't have the slightest idea that I am posting this. If he did, he would yell at me to get to work.
ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff) (08/29/90)
In article <5368@ptsfa.PacBell.COM> rkm@PacBell.COM (Richard Mossman) writes: >In article <1990Aug24.215738.10525@midway.uchicago.edu> lrm3@ellis.uchicago.edu (Lawrence Reed Miller) writes: > >From my readings on rec.video, I would tend to believe that the reason you >get low resolution scans from a paused VCR is because you and your scanner >are only seeing a single field and not a full frame (2 fields = 1 frame). I have had very good results with a MacVision and a paused VCR. I have a cheap, garden-variety ($250) Magnavox 4-head VCR. I've found that if the image on the TV screen looks steady, it will digitize ok. The extra heads in the 4-head VCRs are for slow motion & pause. Both fields are digitized in my case. The MacVision software allows you to swap their positions to see which looks better. The digitized images are not as sharp as a photograph scanned on a flatbed scanner, but have more of a "painted" soft quality. When displayed on a 256 grey-level monitor, people usually stop, look and say "wow!" in my experience :-) The software also does PostScript halftones on the LaserWriter which aren't bad. >I would also like to know what you mean by "digital VCR". I didn't know these >existed. What manufacturer? Model? Is it performing a digital recording of >both video and audio? I think others have responded to this. A "digital" VCR just means that it has a frame buffer which is used to freeze the image; there is no digital recording taking place. They seem to be overpriced too - I'd say to go with a cheap 4-head model, as they seem to be pretty readily available. ||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego ||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud ||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu
isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account) (08/29/90)
There *IS* such a thing as a digital freeze-frame VCR.It's a normal vcr except in addition to a normal pause, it has a "freeze" pause also. The freeze-pause, in effect, is a frame grabber that grabs whatever the current __field__ (i think) has in it. At least the resoultion is less than that of normal viewing. But it gives an absolutely rock-stable picture with no jitter. (for picture-taking or non-realtime image proccessing) -- Mike Schechter, Computer Engineer,Institute Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ. InterNet: Mike_Schechter@isr.syr.edu isr@rodan.syr.edu Bitnet: SENSORY@SUNRISE
domingo@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Alberto Domingo) (08/30/90)
In article <1990Aug29.165610.19195@rodan.acs.syr.edu> isr@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michael S. Schechter - ISR group account) writes: > >There *IS* such a thing as a digital freeze-frame VCR.It's a normal vcr >except in addition to a normal pause, it has a "freeze" pause also. >The freeze-pause, in effect, is a frame grabber that grabs whatever >the current __field__ (i think) has in it. At least the resoultion is >less than that of normal viewing. But it gives an absolutely rock-stable >picture with no jitter. (for picture-taking or non-realtime image >proccessing) >-- >Mike Schechter, Computer Engineer,Institute Sensory Research, Syracuse Univ. >InterNet: Mike_Schechter@isr.syr.edu isr@rodan.syr.edu Bitnet: SENSORY@SUNRISE Just wonder... Does somebody know if the digital image in these (or still video cameras) can be feeded to the computer, w/o going to an digital -> analog -> digital conversion? That would be faster, and less expensive (?), and more accurate since the conversions introduce noise... Alberto Domingo domingo@boulder.colorado.edu