On Fri, 17 Aug 2001 21:36:00 GMT, paminof@att.net__ (paminof) wrote:

>Roger that . . . how about a 2-paragraph review. ;)
>
>Of all the PCs here, only one has a capture card . . . and I can't get
>it to work even though I write software for a living. I posted a few
>days ago in "rec.video.desktop" header "Win2000 Video Capture not
>working". As I recall, capture writes an AVI (?) and I can do a batch
>save for frames X to Y, or something like that?
>
>I do have a bunch of raw stills that I thought clearly demonstrate the
>TRV30's image-making abilities, but I guess that isn't so. I was
>gonna make some thumbnail albums, add my comments and post them.
>What's wrong with non-interlaced stills? They come from the same CCD,
>no?

Yes, and no...;-) The stills from these use more of
the area of the CCD, and are processed differently from
the motion-video by the camera - and look different
from frame-grabs from the motion-video, even if there
is no motion in that video (so the stills show some
things about the imaging-capability/characteristics of
the camera, but may mislead...).

>The TRV30 (I think also the TRV20) will let you copy frames as stills
>to memory-stick. I tried that. But those appear to be interlaced and
>are ½ the resolution of stills. Video is subjective anyway, and
>frame-grabs go by too fast to make sense of it ;) . . . I suppose the
>technique you describe is like looking at slides with a loupe? The
>resolution of the TRV30 exceeds that of my TV anyway, so I figure that
>all that extra resolution will go to waste until I spring for a HDTV.

No, improving any part of the chain improves the end
product (the image) - though one would see greater
improvement if one of the links were not a poor-quality
TV...;-) With the various camcorders I reviewed
(www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm),
the frame-grabs do not show everything about the
motion-video, but enough to be an indicator of
the relative quality of the motion-video viewed
on a good TV. There are poor characteristics other
than just low resolution: oversharpened edges, excessive
artifacting (like stairstepping, moire patterning,
"mosquito" noise), color error/bias, lower
corner-vs.-center lens sharpness, color-fringing,
excess contrast, lack of good blacks, general exposure
error, etc.