99% of the my train photography is on my video camera. I was wondering if somehow I could play the DVD of my trains on my computer and stop it at a frame to make a picture off of the movie. Any help is appreciated.
The way I do it is to transfer the vidcam recording to a DVD formatted in video mode (as opposed to VR mode, which won’t be readable by the PC). Then I take the DVD to my PC and copy the file name.VOB, which contains the video, file to my hard drive. I then rename the file to anyname.MPG. Using a video editor program (I use Sony Vegas) you can capture a single frame. There are a number of other cheaper programs available through the Internet.
If you edit your video in an editor (such as Windows Movie Maker), there is usually a button that you can click where you can save a still off your video. Just like you, most of my photographs are taken from my video as well. What I do is load my video into the computer, import it into Windows Movie Maker, run my video to the spot I want, pause it, and press the “take a picture” button below the preview window. This opens a window where you can name the picture and save it to your hard drive.
I should have added that if you have Roxio it has a program called Sonic CinePlayer. While playing back if you hit the camera button it will do a frame capture. So you don’t need a specialized video editing program after all and you won’t have to copy and rename the file.
Can you go to a computer store to buy these types of programs or are they over the internet?
I just thought you might already have Roxio Easy Media Creator because it’s one of the most popular programs used to burn CDs and DVDs. Almost every computer store, including Amazon etc., carries Easy Media Creator. You can also download it online. Nero is another popular program.
As far as I know, some (maybe all) software DVD players e.g. PowerDVD and WinDVD allow you to capture stills (snapshots) from the video while it is playing.
If you can play DVD’s on your PC you may well be using PowerDVD or WinDVD already
Tony
Railfan 1
I dont know what kind of video camera you have but mine( a sony trv730) only takes still pics of less than 2 megapixels…I cant tell any difference in the stills pics and pics from the tape. Is there any difference in the quality of the pics? The above mentioned help is correct if you want to get your pics from your tapes on your computer…Danny
I do have Windows Movie Maker. My problem now is getting the video on the computer. I have it on a burned DVD and when I tried to download it from there it said it was uncompatable. I have tried about everything.
Railfan,
If you have a disk recorder camera ( not tape) you may have to get software from whoever makes your camera and install it on your computer to play the disk…I know dell computers will play a mini disk that is made by microsoft but my computer will not play them…
I have tape, I just took them from the tape and transferred them to a DVD.
Check your DVD recorder’s manual. If it says it formats fresh DVDs in VR mode you’re stuck. That is incompatible with the PC. If you can format in Video mode then you should be able to transfer the file. My DVD recorder, for example, allows me to format either way for DVD -RW disks.
I believe Nero - specifically the ‘Nero Vision Express’ part of the suite - can read/rip files from VR mode discs, you can download a 30 day trial version here http://www.nero.com/nero7/eng/nero7-demo.php
Assuming the DVD you have was created in a DVD recorder, you may need to ‘finalise’ or ‘close’ the disc (in the recorder) to make it playable in other equipment - have a look in the recorder manual.
If your camcorder has a 1394/Firewire/iLink output and your PC has the same connection available, then you can capture the tape directly to the PC using Windows Movie Maker (or just about any other video editing software). If the PC doesn’t have a 1394/Firewire/iLink socket, a PCI add-in card to add the connection to a desktop PC costs peanuts these days if you buy it from a sensible place.
Tony
Railfan,
Any luck yet? Did you find out what you weredoing wrong or not doing? Danny
Not yet, still going at it.
By the way, I just wanted to say thanks for helping me try to figure this stuff out.