From: harti@mikro.ee.tu-berlin.de (Stefan Hartmann (Behse))
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation
Subject: Re: PC Video-In cards - Recommendations
Date: 3 Jan 1993 12:05:24 GMT
Organization: ZRZ/TU-Berlin
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: mikro.ee.tu-berlin.de

In <1993Jan1.235221.8281@seas.gwu.edu> burr@seas.gwu.edu (Timothy J. Burr) writes:

>I'm interested in capturing frame sequences from Disney's Beauty
>and the Beast and analyzing the motion in them.  First I need the
>capability to capture the video.  I'm seeking recommendations
>for Video-In cards or even the chip/chip-sets themselves.
>Thanks,
>Tim

>burr@seas.gwu.edu


Hi,
here comes the technical info about the new moviegrabber(tm)
PC-Hurricane(tm).


It is a hicolor color YUV (4:1:1) realtime video movie digitizer which
can store 25 frames/sec(PAL) or 30 frames/sec(NTSC)  into Expanded Memory.

It has support for ET4000 Hicolor and true color boards.

The software is a userfriendly DOS software, which displays the
incoming video signal in almost realtime (about 5-10 frames/sec) on a
ET4000 Hicolor board in 32768 colors/pixel.
This is okay for video purposes, cause the noise inside a video movie
almost does already the dithering to a true color quality.(simualar to
24 bit quality)

If you don't have a Hicolor card inside your PC, then there is also a
256 color version driver, which displays the video signal in almost
realtime in 3-3-2 color quantisation. (still the TGA pics are saved as
16 bit Hicolor/pixel, so quality from the saved output is the same as
in the Hicolor software driver)

If the sequence arrives, which you wanna digitize, just hit the space
key.
Then it is digitized into the Expanded Memory in realtime with 25 or
30 frames/sec maximum rate. This can be adjusted to 12.5 or 8 or 4
frames/sec !

During this storing process, you will not see any signal on your VGA
monitor, but if the RAM is filled with e.g.396 frames at 320x240, then
you can already watch the digitized movie play of the Expanded Memory!

It plays in slow motion the YUV coded fields to the SVGA card via the
ISA bus. This gives a real slow motion Hicolor digital movie out of
the RAM !


So if you have 32 MBytes of Ram on your motherboard, you can be happy.
Then you can store about 16 seconds of realtime MPEG resolution
320x240 true color video with one shot !
With the enclosed software you can save this with one command to
single TGA pics onto the harddisk or save it as a complete Hicolor
movie (uncompressed, big file size).

PC-Hurricane also digitizes the resolutions:
384x288, 360x240, 320x240 and 320x200. So max. resolution is 1 PAL
field (384x288).
Field digitisation is preferred, cause it gives no Interlace
artifacts, due to motion...


So if you want to make a FLI file out of the 16 seconds sequence, no
problem, just start DTA17e (Dave's Targa Animator) and it produces a
FLI animation file out of the single TGA pics..


 Also, if you have the Xing Technology software only MPEG encoder, 
it will be possible to compress this about 400 single
TARGA(tm) pics with just one second command to a MPEG movie !

So you have in about 5 minutes of work a ready to display MPEG movie !


PC-Hurricane has NTSC/PAL switchable. So it can also digitize NTSC
video. It has Video(FBAS) and Y/C(SVHS/Hi8) inputs.



Best regards, Stefan Hartmann,c/o Gatz & Hartmann
email to: leo@zelator.in-berlin.de

Gatz & Hartmann
Ingenieurbuero fuer Multimedia-Anwendungen
Fehrbelliner Str. 32
W-1000 Berlin 20
Tel: 030-375 55 68
FAX1:030-375 55 68
FAX2:030-344 92 79

International area code: ++49 30-

P.S.: We are accepting all other trademarks (tm).

Newsgroups: comp.graphics.animation