Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 1/10/2006, 9:50 PM
Yes, always use best/full.
You'll get a great capture, assuming the frame is clean.
mbryant wrote on 1/11/2006, 12:47 AM
Really? I thought capture was simply a digital copy.. why would the quality of the preview chosen impact that?

Mark
PeterWright wrote on 1/11/2006, 1:07 AM
I think this is about "frame" or still capture, from the timeline, which is affected by preview quality.
farss wrote on 1/11/2006, 2:57 AM
Just one small tip, I did around 50 stills from HDV for publication in a trade magazine.
Like any interlaced video (assuming your footage is interlaced) any motion will give interlace artifacts when the two fields are merged. You can use PS to filter out one of the fields but that drops the vertical res. So we found the frame with the least possible motion and used that. Despite the fact that out footage was of rotating machinery we found there was one point in the cycle where it stopped briefly, if the camera had captured just that moment, presto, very clean hi res still. Shows it can pay to shoot more than you think you'll need.
Bob.
mbryant wrote on 1/11/2006, 4:19 AM
Sorry - I misread, yes it is about stills capture (which is imacted by the preview quality).
Mark
Laurence wrote on 1/11/2006, 5:57 AM
The Mike Crash smooth deinterlace filter is also a handy thing to insert when capturing stills. It deinterlaces just portions of the photo with motion and this looks particularly good on stills.

Another trick is to divide the photo in half vertically and resize the height back to with my favorite resize program Photozoom Pro. You can actually resize to whatever size you want as long as the vertical height is twice the horizontal. I've captured some wonderful looking stills this way.
jrazz wrote on 1/11/2006, 6:25 AM
...vertical height is twice the horizontal."

I have not used Photozoom Pro, but does this hold true for true widescreen captures as well? It just seems like it would greatly distort the image. Let me know if this is right.

Also, I am asking this as I am getting my A1 tommorrow and I was unsure about this aspect of things. So, the intermediate files do not affect quality?
Thanks guys,

j razz
Laurence wrote on 1/11/2006, 11:44 AM
Well you need to scale HDV footage a couple of ways. Here are the steps with Photoshop and Photozoom Pro:

1. Resize to half height in Photoshop.
2. Export to Photozoom Pro.
3. Resize to 1440 x 540 image to 1920 x 1080 in Photozoom Pro.
Laurence wrote on 1/11/2006, 12:06 PM
Another thing you can do is capture stills from the A1. Just play back the tape in the camera and hit the photo button when you see something you like. This is really cool when you capture with downconversion as it still gives you access to high rez stills. Another thing you can do is hit the photo button as you're shooting video to capture stills without interupting your shooting. Be aware that the resolution of the A1 in camera mode is higher though.
DelCallo wrote on 8/18/2006, 8:58 PM
Where do I find this "Mike Crash" filter? I would like to try it.
Thanks.
Del
jrazz wrote on 8/18/2006, 9:09 PM
DelCallo,

You do not have your email address linked to your user name under your profile. Turn it on (or post your email address) and I will send it to you.

j razz
rs170a wrote on 8/19/2006, 4:38 AM
Mike Crash's filters - and they're all free.

Mike
grh wrote on 8/19/2006, 6:36 AM
Nope; site moved to http://www.mikecrash.com
riredale wrote on 8/19/2006, 11:44 PM
I played around a bit with the Mike Crash DeInterlace filter and found it to be quite "flaky." Sometimes the deinterlace works, sometimes it doesn't. I'm testing it on an m2t file. Is this normal?