How do I get at the "stills" captured from my ZR c

[jaybird]

I have an older Canon ZR DV camcorder. It has a "photo" option, I want to be able to "edit photos" in Adobe Photo shop?. I can capture up to 600 stills on a dv tape or 60min video or a combination of both on a single tape.

Typically I go (when not using Firewire) composite out to a VCR to a WinTV Go! card, BTWIN drivers, capture using VirtualVCR, filter using VirtualDUB, edit with MovieXone or Premiere 6.5 to TMPGEnc PLUS! then to DVDit! PE to burn my DVD ( I actually get a darn good DVD from all this! ).

I know I am missing something simple here but for the life of me I can't figure out how to "capture" a "still photo" from those 6 second still captures from the ZR tape!

Am I missing a piece of software or just missing how to use what I already have?

Please help!

Regards,

jaybird

[daamon]

Hi jaybird,

As the "stills" are stored on a DV tape you've actually got one frame (the "still") being recorded to tape for the 6 seconds (as opposed the 25fps (PAL) for video).

So, to get the "still" onto your PC you have to capture the footage via firewire (albeit of one frame for 6 seconds) as a DV AVI. Once you've got that, you can then use various simple video editors to take any frame = your "still" photo.

I don't know about your cam, but my Sony miniDV cam takes stills at 640x480 (fixed, no option).

Hope that helps...

[jaybird]

**** UPDATE ****

I just thought I would bring this to your attention.

I came across an interesting little "FREEWARE" program called "Video2Photo".

I don't have it properly configured yet. However, it allows you to capture frames and convert then to either BMP or JPEG formats.

You can catch streaming media directly off the Internet or you can use stored footage in an AVI format or DV camcorder scenes as they are being viewed ( of course you must be connected to your PC . )

Manual is a little sparce and the autors English is a little rusty but you will get the idea.

I will post more here when I get things right!

Regards,

jaybird

[daamon]

Hi jaybird,

Looks like a neat little tool. Once you're done, how about posting some comments on the tool?

Good of you to post back - in case others are looking for a similar tool.

[racer-x]

You can export any frame you want as a bmp from Premiere. Just set the cursor on the apropriate frame, then click File > Export > Frame. You can do it from the Preview window or the Timeline, whatever turns you on. It will save the image as a 720 x 480 bmp if you're using NTSC. You may still need to De-interlace the image in Photshop, but it should be OK.

PS, you really should be using a 1394 Firewire.