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From: ostroff@Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc,comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: digitizing with a video camera
Message-ID: <1990Aug27.031942.7145@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
Date: 27 Aug 90 03:19:42 GMT
References: <41073@sequent.UUCP>
Reply-To: ostroff@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Boyd Ostroff)
Organization: Instructional Computing Center, SUNY at Oswego, Oswego, NY
Lines: 40

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).


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