[murbot]

Hey all,

I'm stuck trying to decide here what to buy. I'd like to get a digital camcorder to make some short movies of the family, and I have a few ideas for making some humorous little films... it'll be sort of a toy mostly I guess - but it would be nice to have better quality movies of my 6 month old daughter than my VHS-C camera gives us right now.

But, I'd also love to have a digital camera. I'm always stuck either taking films in not full, or taking crap photos to fill it up because there's a few shots I want developed right away. Being able to move them immediately to my G4 and upload them to a website, or email them off... whatever... would be really great.

Thing is I can't afford both, and have to decide which I would rather have. I read recently about capturing stills from a digital camera in iMovie. I know digital camcorders can take still shots, but the resolution is usually limited to 600x480 or something, and the quality stinks. The article I read (I think it was a MAc World from January or something) mentioned using iMovie to capture a frame out of your video using iMovie instead of taking a still with the camcorder.

So, how easy is it to do this? I haven't even touched iMovie yet, not having a camcorder at all. Can you do this and save it as a JPEG? What is the quality like? Anyone here doing this right now?

Thanks for the input guys.

[G4 Mac User]

Hi,


iMovie 2 is very easy to use. You want a frame out of your movie. Simple point, click, then tell the mac where you want the frame stored (I use my desktop)

I had the same problem buying as you did until I went to www.ubid.com.

I was able to get an RCA Digital Video Camera (one hour is 10 gigs of storeage by the way - but hey you can put it straight on to a vcr tape if you want) for just over 300 dollars. It has firewire and hookups to watch it straight onto the TV also. Sorry if I am bragging but I love the price I paid and the camera does even more than I ever thought a camera could do. My movies are just loved by all my relatives.

What a great camera (my first by the way). I took it down to San Antonio and filmed the entire Riverwalk experience while on vacation several weeks back. I wish I would have bought a movie camera 2 years ago ( I think back to all the things I wish I would have made movies of).


Using iMovie is really simple.


Hope this helps you.

Your Pal


G4 Mac User

[zigzag]

Taking stills off of iMovie is easy, but they have a maximum resolution of 640x480, so they aren't any better than stills taken directly with a camcorder at the same resolution. However, with iMovie, you can select your still from any frame, and you don't have to interrupt filming to take a still.

Most digital camcorders can only shoot using the interlacing system, which can cause slightly jagged horizontal lines on stills. If this is important to you, you might want to look for a camcorder with a progressive scan option. Progressive scan will give you better stills, but the video won't be as smooth if the subject is moving a lot.

If you want to get high-quality stills into your G4 but can't afford a good digital still camera, you might consider buying a scanner instead. Good scanners are very cheap now - the lowest resolution scanners are more than good enough for on-screen viewing. You could take high-quality stills with your old film camera, then scan them into your G4. You'd also be able to scan your old stills.