[bfinn19]

I'd appreciate some guidance on implementing a mac solution to the following situation:

I'm in the health care field, and am looking at purchasing a digital endoscope. This device feeds video to a control box, which has various video outputs--S-video, VGA, RCA (I think) and SDI (? round connectors, look a little like cable TV connectors). The usual setup is to direct the output from the interface box to a medical monitor, &/or a digital printer.

What I'd like to do is capture the real-time video directly to a Mac on the network, and use the Mac monitor as the main monitor, and as the storage area for the video, with the ability to capture snapshots (TIF files) on disk which can be brought into an electronic medical record or printed out on a better-quality printer.

I'd appreciate guidance on hardware and software to accomplish this. I realize I'll need either a card or external box for the video capture (I'll probably use a silver door dual G4 as the machine). Recommendations on manufacturers etc appreciated.

Thanks

[SirCastor]

Digital analog converter boxes aren't too expensive (I bought mine for $200 a few years back).
Apple's Quicktime broadcaster is a solution for recording, and you can watch it as it's recording, and or broadcast it for anyone to see really. I haven't ever set it up in that regard though.

Specifically for equipment, it doesn't sound like you need broadcast quality equipment. I'd go with something that does firewire around $100-$150. Or you can, use a card.

[ragweed]

bfinn19, i am also interested in a solution similiar to the one you want. I have vga output from a pc that i would like to digitize in the highest resolution video format possible. Then i would like to be able to move that video into imovie so that i could edit it. Any information on how to capture the vga(xga) output into a video format would be appreciated either on a pc or mac. Unfortunately i can not capture the video direct on the computer involved, i must capture it from the vga output. SirCastor perhaps you have info on capturing vga output, unfortunately in my situation i don't have s-vid or rca outputs available.

Thanks

[Martin Mraz]

I'd also like to hear anyone's two cents worth on this. I'm currently looking at purchasing something relatively inexpensive that would be used on a PC of a client's of mine, but I'd also like to be able to hook it up to my mini. A further complication for me is that I live in Prague, Czech Republic, where not everything is available and some companies don't ship overseas. One device I've been looking at is the Dazzle DVC 150, but from what I can tell, you need their s/w to make it work, and that's Windows-only. I'd like something that's 100% h/w compatible on both platforms, and has no s/w dependencies...