[MacDV] Re: DV->JPEGs?

Mark M. Florida markflo at mac.com
Mon Dec 23 19:14:08 PST 2002


Here ya go...  slide transfer adapter (for video camera)

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/ador/cafp100.html

On Monday, December 23, 2002, at 08:57 PM, Mark M. Florida wrote:

> one more thought...  if you go the digital still camera route, I 
> believe you can get a slide-transfer adapter that just clips onto the 
> front of the lens (of course the camera would need good macro 
> abilities).  You'd just need a good light source to illuminate it.
>
> On Monday, December 23, 2002, at 08:52 PM, Mark M. Florida wrote:
>
>> I would suggest (and yes, it involves a possible equipment purchase) 
>> to just use a digital still camera.  If you  only need enough res for 
>> video, then shoot at a lower resolution (give yourself a little extra 
>> room, though -- don't go under 800x600 for video use).  The color 
>> range of most digital cameras is close to the "legal" video 
>> color/contrast range, so that shouldn't be a problem -- if anything, 
>> just create a Photoshop action to batch process your images to 
>> squeeze the colors into the "legal" video spectrum.  Another possible 
>> advantage of using a digital still camera is: if you shoot at a 
>> higher resolution, then you will have a better looking copy in case 
>> you want to use these images for something else in the future.  Oh... 
>> one more thing... if you use iPhoto to import from the still camera, 
>> then you have a visual reference for selecting the slides, and you 
>> can (fairly) easily export to video by just making a new "Photo 
>> Album" of the pictures you want to use, and then exporting to video 
>> from there.
>>
>> (I guess you left out what system you have, what kind of camera you 
>> have, etc. -- important info for figuring out the best way to do 
>> something with what you already have)
>>
>> Also, you might want to look into getting an old A/V Mac -- like a 
>> 7100 or 8100 with an A/V card (or even a 7500, 7600 or 8500).  You 
>> could connect your camera's analog outputs to the analog inputs on 
>> the A/V card and use the built-in "Video Player" app to capture still 
>> frames -- it automatically saves them in a sequentially numbered 
>> sequence -- super convenient!
>>
>> The last option involves a possible software purchase.  Premiere has 
>> a "Time Tapse" function that you can use either automatically or 
>> manually.  So you could record your slideshow to video as you 
>> described, then use the "Time Lapse" feature to manually capture the 
>> clip every time it changes (click a button with your mouse).  You 
>> could use this feature with any version of Premiere from 4.0 on up to 
>> 6.0 (don't know about 6.5 though), and you could use it with an old 
>> A/V Mac (Premiere 4-5), or any FireWire Mac (Premiere 6)...  So maybe 
>> just a couple hundred dollars (at the absolute most) to set up an old 
>> A/V Mac with an old version of Premiere.
>>
>> I wouldn't sweat it trying to come up with some crazy software to 
>> visually analyze the video (unless you do this kind of programming 
>> already).  And if you do create something like this, I'm sure you'll 
>> have a decent market with some folks on this here e-mail list.
>>
>> So... to sum up your choices:
>>
>> 1. Use a digital camera (or even something like Sony's video cameras 
>> with the Memory Stick slot -- I have one and it works fine for 
>> capturing video stills)
>>
>> 2. Get an old A/V Mac and use the built-in (clunky) capture software 
>> to grab stills from your existing video camera.
>>
>> 3. Get Adobe Premiere 6.x and use the "Time Lapse" feature on any 
>> FireWire Mac
>>
>> 4. Get Adobe Premiere 4.x (or 5.x) and use the "Time Lapse" feature 
>> on any older A/V Mac (with analog video inputs)
>>
>> 5. Write a video analyzer app that will extract stills when a scene 
>> changes? (and sell as shareware maybe?)
>>
>> Just some thoughts.
>>
>> Hope that helps.
>>
>> - Mark
>>
>>
>> On Monday, December 23, 2002, at 05:28 PM, Randy Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> I'm wondering if anyone knows how to take a DV stream and 
>>> automatically
>>> extract the individual frames out of it as JPEGs?
>>>
>>> Better yet, are there any libraries out there that give you access to
>>> the actual frames in a DV stream?
>>>
>>> What I want to do is organize a large (>20,000) set of slides.  I
>>> thought I could run a DV camcorder while I rifle through the slides
>>> (about 2 seconds per slide).  Then I could write a little bit of 
>>> code to
>>> examine each frame of the DV stream (either directly, or look at the
>>> pictures extracted from it) in order to determine how bright it is.  
>>> By
>>> looking at the brightness level as the frames move along, there will 
>>> be
>>> an area of relative darkness, followed by a transition to lightness
>>> (with perhaps some adjustment going on as the auto exposure does its
>>> thing), then sudden darkness again.  This would appear, if plotted 
>>> out,
>>> as a series of flat plateous and flat valleys with some 
>>> overcorrective
>>> transitions between them, along with a bit of noise, of course.  
>>> With a
>>> few constraints on how fast/slow the slides are allowed to be pushed
>>> through, it should be possible to find the point a few frames before
>>> each transition begins.  Then that frame could be snipped out as its 
>>> own
>>> .jpeg file and eventually labeled in such a way as to make it 
>>> possible
>>> to find the original slide again (or at least know that it's "about
>>> slide 25" in a particular row in a particular box) when a 
>>> high-quality
>>> scan is needed of it.
>>>
>>> What I'd REALLY like, of course, is a slide scanner that was actually
>>> fast [like 3 seconds per slide] with a large slide feeder (like 150+
>>> slides at once), but alas, no such luck.
>>>
>>> In the short term, I want to make a nice 1-hour video featuring a lot
>>> of slides from this collection (maybe 1000).  But I'd like to have a
>>> quick scan available to select which ones I want to use.  But the
>>> quality of the quick scans--while if displayed on a video
>>> directly--would be too blocky for any sort of smooth zooming/panning
>>> shots.
>>>
>>> Also, is there a format for saving individual miniDV frames in that
>>> would avoid further compression? The frames are already pretty 
>>> heavily
>>> compressed.  They could be saved as TIFF, of course, but if I wanted 
>>> to
>>> save individual frames out and then use them later as still clips in
>>> iMovie, for example, is there a particular format that would avoid
>>> decompression/recompression?  Just wondering.
>>>
>>> Wow.  That's a lot of questions.
>>>
>>> ----------
>>> <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/MacDV.html>.
>>> Send a message to <MacDV-DIGEST at themacintoshguy.com> to switch to 
>>> the digest version.
>>>
>>>  XRouter | Share your DSL or cable modem between multiple computers!
>>> Dr. Bott | Now $139.99      <http://www.drbott.com/prod/xrouter.html>
>>>
>>>    Cyberian   | Support this list when you buy at Outpost.com!
>>>    Outpost    |         http://www.themacintoshguy.com/outpost.shtml
>>>
>>> MacResQ Specials: LaCie SCSI CDR From $99! PowerBook 3400/200 Only 
>>> $879!
>>> Norton AntiVirus 6 Only $19! We Stock PARTS! <http://www.macresq.com>
>>>
>>
>>
>> ----------
>> <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/MacDV.html>.
>> Send a message to <MacDV-DIGEST at themacintoshguy.com> to switch to the 
>> digest version.
>>
>> XRouter | Share your DSL or cable modem between multiple computers! 
>> Dr. Bott | Now $139.99      <http://www.drbott.com/prod/xrouter.html>
>>
>>   Cyberian   | Support this list when you buy at Outpost.com!
>>   Outpost    |         http://www.themacintoshguy.com/outpost.shtml
>>
>> MacResQ Specials: LaCie SCSI CDR From $99! PowerBook 3400/200 Only 
>> $879! Norton AntiVirus 6 Only $19! We Stock PARTS! 
>> <http://www.macresq.com>
>>
>
>
> ----------
> <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/MacDV.html>.
> Send a message to <MacDV-DIGEST at themacintoshguy.com> to switch to the 
> digest version.
>
> XRouter | Share your DSL or cable modem between multiple computers! 
> Dr. Bott | Now $139.99      <http://www.drbott.com/prod/xrouter.html>
>
>   Cyberian   | Support this list when you buy at Outpost.com!
>   Outpost    |         http://www.themacintoshguy.com/outpost.shtml
>
> MacResQ Specials: LaCie SCSI CDR From $99! PowerBook 3400/200 Only 
> $879! Norton AntiVirus 6 Only $19! We Stock PARTS! 
> <http://www.macresq.com>
>



More information about the MacDV mailing list