[log in to unmask] mentioned Snappy, a very handy device for grabbing video stills. I used it when it first came out and got excellent results. In fact, some students of mine are using it right now to prepare stills for theses/dissertations. But, I'm sorry to say, its manufacturer (Play, Inc.) has gone out of business and its assets have been bought by GlobalStreams, Inc., which has no intention of continuing to produce Snappy. (See below.) This does mean, however, that one can buy a Snappy for cheap--about US$13. They used to cost about $150! Just go to www.pricegrabber.com and search for "Play Snappy" to find a source. [log in to unmask] also asked about the resolution/format needed for publication. This is where the numbers game gets very tricky. Others may chime in with more expert advice on this, but what I've found through trial and error is the best resolution is 640x480 or 800x600 and the best format for print is TIFF. And I use UNcompressed TIFF because I've had problems with compressed TIFF when crossing from Windows to Mac platforms (or vice versa). Here's my take on the resolution numbers game. First, since TV's aspect ratio is 4x3, you want to use a capture resolution that is also 4x3--as is 640x480 or 800x600. This may seem obvious, but digital capture devices do not necessarily use this ratio. I think this may have something to do with the different SHAPE of pixels in TV screens and computer monitors. 'Course, this may all change if the high-definition standard ever truly becomes a standard and TVs shift to the 16x9 ratio. Second, the video signal used for broadcast TV (whether PAL or North America's NTSC) is a much lower resolution than a computer monitor's or that of a typical digital image prepared for print. Here're the numbers for NTSC, which is the only format I even vaguely understand: Number of horizontal lines in the image: 525 Number of those lines that are visible on a TV monitor: 486 Pixels per line: 720 So, you see, the functional resolution of the NTSC image is 720 (wide) by 486 (high). When you do a video capture from an NTSC signal you may get some of those "invisible" lines, but still you're never dealing with more than 525 lines of 720 pixels each. Some capture devices will store grabs at higher resolutions (e.g., Snappy has a 1500 x 1125 mode), but they're achieving that higher res by interpolating pixels where none originally existed. Sometimes this works, but mostly it doesn't. Since 720x525 is the best you can get from NTSC (PAL is slightly higher), I stick with the 640x480 and 800x600 resolutions because they do the least amount of stretching/shrinking/interpolating the original image. Now we come to the print situation. Home-use printers now commonly print at a resolution of 300 dots (the print equivalent of pixels) per inch. At this resolution, a 800x600 pixel video capture will print at 2.7" by 2". Thus, printing it larger than 2.7" by 2" will require that the image be digitally enlarged. The more it's enlarged, the worse it'll look. And professional printers use even higher resolutions than 300 dpi--making the situation even worse. The solution I've used is to keep frame grabs fairly small when printing them. If you look at the grabs-from-film that Kristin Thompson did for FILM ART, you'll see that a 2.5" to 3"-wide image works quite well as an illustration and doesn't get that grainy/pixellated look. At that size, you can comfortably fit six images on an 8.5x11" piece of paper--good for thesis/dissertation work. You can get away with larger images in electronic versions of critical pieces (on the Web or in a PowerPoint lecture, for example), where a 640x480 illustration looks quite big (depending on the computer monitor's resolution). Sorry for the headache-inducing numbers avalanche! Hope this has been some help! ----- GlobalStreams Statement Re Play, Inc. ----- Dear Play Customer, As you may know, Play Industries d/b/a Play Incorporated, formerly based in Rancho Cordova, California, is no longer in business, and, thus, support of its consumer based product lines is no longer being made available to Play's customers. The assets of Play were assigned to CMA Business Credit Services, pursuant to what is known as a general assignment for the benefit of creditors. On January 31, 2001, Play Streaming Media Group, Inc. d/b/a GlobalStreams, Inc. acquired certain assets and intellectual property of Play Inc. from CMA, including professional broadcast products known as Trinity™. The Trinity based technology will likely be utilized moving forward as a key technological product for GlobalStreams. GlobalStreams does not at this time have any plans to further develop or promote any of Play's existing consumer products, including without limitation Gizmos, Amorphium, and Snappy. Notwithstanding all of the above, please note that we are in the process of collecting all requests for information concerning Play's consumer product line and if in the future, support is available, we will pass your requests to the appropriate contact. >Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 15:01:04 -0500 >From: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Film stills >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII > >I use Snappy, which is a device attached to the printer port on a computer >at one end and a video out of a VCR on another. I read about it on this >listserv, and it has worked for me very well for stills for class use. I >have not use it for publication purposes, but I do have plans in that >direction so I am interested in hearing more about the resolution needed >and format for publication. Jeremy Butler [log in to unmask] ======================================================== The second edition of TELEVISION: CRITICAL METHODS AND APPLICATIONS is now available. More info at: http://www.TVCrit.com ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu