How do i capture pictures from DV-tape?

[King-Of-DK]

I have a panasonic NV-MX500 and i cannot figure out how to transfer stillpics recorded on the DV-tape to my PC?? I have captured the video fine using firewire,but the pictures poses a problem,as the software that came with the camera won´t transfer the stills via USB. When the stills are recorded it uses about 30sec of tape,but i can´t figure out if the stills are stored as video or as pics.

[Redd]

According to the review I just read Re: panasonic NV-MX500, it uses a 16 MB Flash - SD Memory Card. It also has a USB port as well an IEEE port and comes with a USB cable.
Are you connecting with the USB cable to your computer? Your stills are captured to the memory stick and should be downloadable via USB. The stills are stored as jpeg files.

What OS are you running? Win XP should automatically see your camera when connected via USB and give choices on how to retrieve the files on the memory stick. When you loaded the Panosonic software, did you install or did it ask to install any USB drivers for your camera?

http://www.ciao.co.uk/product.php/pName/Panasonic_NV_MX500/TabId/4/Pid/1,5215873,52159...043/subTabId/1

[King-Of-DK]

It is NOT pics stored on flashmemory. This is exactly the problem. the manuel only covers how to transfer pics if they are stored on flash memory,but this camera has a number of options to store pics. These pics i speak of is stills stored on the DV-Tape itself (when you photograph,you can press a button called photoshot,and it captures a still of the current scene being shot and saves it to the DV-Tape directly,NOT flash memory,and this is the problem,as i have no idea if the camera stores this still as just a still video image or a still picture),now i have no trouble transferring pics from the flash memory using the usb cable. I have bought a firewire card and cable to transfer the video to pc,but i can´t seem to get to the large number of pics scattered throughout the tape. when i capture the video,the capture program skips over all the pics storeed on the tape itself,even though the pics/stills is maybe 5 minutes apart on the tape. WinXP have no problem finding the camera in either USB or firewire.

[Beavis]

My Canon stores stills on the DV tape the same way as you've described here, but my capture program (WinDV) just captures them as short (few seconds) DV clips with (obviously) no motion going on. Then I just pull a frame out of that clip and save it to jpg or whatever.

[King-Of-DK]

How exactly do you do that? usb or firewire? will windv work with my camera? How do i save the frame as jpeg?

[saurabh_fzr]

Windv is a capture program, u can use any capture program for that purpose.I can tell u the steps I follow to do that.
1. Capture the DV onto your HDD
2. open the avi file in virtualdub ( it is a free program u can find it in the tools section if u donot have it already)
3. Use the slider to browse to the exact frame u wanr to copy.
4. In Video menu (in Virtualdub) u will see an option of copy source/output frame to clipboard.
5. open ur photo editing program and save the frame.

Saurabh

[King-Of-DK]

Thanks but there must be an easier way to get a frame out of the tape without capturing the whole thing again? Also what is the quality of the frame when saved in vdub?I have ulead video studio 7 basic it came with the capturecard,can this be used? Also the stills saved on the tape is not actually jpeg stills,but dv-video with no motion? That would expain why i couldn´t transfer the stills with USB. What is the resolution of the saved frames/stills when transferred to PC?

[saurabh_fzr]

Vdub does not save ur frames, and if already captured u need not capture it again. Just open Vdub and open the video file.

U need not capture the entire tape. Capture only the portion on which u have ur pics.

The resolution of the frame is same as that of ur avi file ie 720 x 576 for PAL ( not sure for NTSC). After copying the frame it can be saved in any formay u like.

Saurabh

[King-Of-DK]

First off,the stills are scattered throughout the tape,and therefor i would have to recapture everything. Secondly,if this camera is 3megapixel does this only conform to the "real" pics stored on flashmemory,if so what will the dpi/pixel be on the stills from the tape when saved as jpeg? Isn´t there any software att all that can grap the stills directly from the camera? This camera does not store the stills in a "collection" but merely saves the still on the tape when the button is pressed,so on one tape for example, i have a still 3 min in,the next will be 7 min in and so on..

[MpegEncoder]

First off,the stills are scattered throughout the tape,and therefor i would have to recapture everything. Secondly,if this camera is 3megapixel does this only conform to the "real" pics stored on flashmemory,if so what will the dpi/pixel be on the stills from the tape when saved as jpeg? Isn´t there any software att all that can grap the stills directly from the camera? This camera does not store the stills in a "collection" but merely saves the still on the tape when the button is pressed,so on one tape for example, i have a still 3 min in,the next will be 7 min in and so on..

First off, this is NOT a 3megapixel camera. It's 800,000 pixels (with 3 CCD's).

Secondly, all camcorders that put images to tape are doing just that. The "still image" is just the same frame repeated on the tape for a certain period of time (30 seconds sounds WAY too long, my Sony does 7 seconds).

Thirdly, there is NO way for "software" to get these frames "directly from the camera" because the are on the tape. My Sony has a way to "capture" a frame from the tape onto the FLASH card, maybe yours does also.

Fourthly, don't expect easy random access to a TAPE. That's what the FLASH card is for.

[King-Of-DK]

The manual says the pics are 3megapixel, but what do i know!! OK,so the stills are stored as video,not picture format. Problem is, when you film,and want to take a still you either have to change the camera mode to photomode or just take a snapshot and here is where the problem arises. If you want to use the flashmemory,you have to stop filming and change the cameramode to photo,if you don´t it saves the still on the tape,and this i thought would be better,as you didn´t have to stop filming in the middle of a scene. You might be right about the 30sec being too long,it was just an example,and i do think the camera have a snapshot mode where i can take a shot of an already recorded image and save it to the flashmemory,but will the saved image be 3megapixel or what will the quality be like?? If the still is 7sec long,then it is not a single frame,but a series of frames,and one has to snapshot the best one?

Thanks for all your help guys,learning new stuff everyday

[King-Of-DK]

Thirdly, there is NO way for "software" to get these frames "directly from the camera" because the are on the tape. My Sony has a way to "capture" a frame from the tape onto the FLASH card, maybe yours does also.

Incorrect.. I just got it working,the camera needed to be connected with both USB and FW. The program really does capture the photoshots directly from tape,and saves them as *.dvf. The program actually scans each tape,marks the stills rewibds the tape,then transfers them