Printing Stills from HD Videos

[Stephen Levine]

I've caught some awesome lightning discharges on my HD camera, but feel completely frustrated in capturing and printing stills and would welcome ideas either for a superior program to Windows Movie Maker, or a way to outsmart that program.

My current experience of movie maker is analagous to eating ice cream with a hammer:

* It allows no option to start and stop the tape when uploading. There are two buttons but the only one allowed to be checked is "rewind entire tape to beginning"

* When I stop a recorded video and under "tools" save a still capture, it's in the lowest format possible (300/400) despite HD quality. The program gives zero option to increase the format.

* The Movie Maker program saves in a file that utterly no other program recognizes. Other programs such as Zoom Browser EX or Fast Stone Image Viewer show a box with the title and when clicked on say "file does not exist".

* When I pull up Movie Maker, unlike MS Word that shows all files, it only shows the most recent file created.

* Files can be recovered under "pictures", and can be played in that program, but can not be printed from stills or edited.

* If I play the file in Win Media Player program, there is zero option there for capturing stills.

* I created an intro for the movie in Movie Maker, but the program showed no way to save it, move it to the story board, and now no way to access it.

I deeply appreciate any suggestions, as I have found that the way video breaks down lightning progressions is something that still photos just can't capture.

 

[ScottKoenig]

Try using VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

Hit Shift + S while playing the video to get screenshots.

 

[Bill Hark]

I don't know what type of camera that you are using. I have a Canon HV20 (and just bought another used one from Ebay) and can make nice stills. I can skip forward frame by frame and then hit the still button to make an image. The images are saved on a memory card that I can then transfer to my computer for editing. My Z1 doesn't have a still save function. I just take the tape over to the Canon HV20 to make stills. I have made decent 5x7 prints. Another option is to capture with Premiere Pro. The program allows one to make stills. I haven't yet compared results to see which method is better.

Bill Hark

 

[Stephen Levine]

Thank you, Gentlemen.. my camera is the Canon HV 30, and I've been using just the tape as opposed to a memory card.

 

[hazelmaryjackson]

Adobe Premiere has been recommended to me for capturing stills from video but I am waiting for my new PC to be set up before I try it. Anyone else used it?

 

[jmarc Pourcelet]

Peut-être avec avidemux 2.5

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I use Adobe Media Encoder (Premiere).

1). Open premiere Media Encoder.
2). Choose "add" and select your video.
3). When video is added, click on it and choose "settings".
4). Click "format" and choose "windows bitmap" as the format.
5). Choose a "preset" that matches the video resolution.
6). Move the "scrubber" to the position desired.
7). Click the ">" and "<" signs to select a "frame".
8). Choose "output name" and name a file / path.
9). Choose "OK" and "start queue" to begin the export.
10). You can stop anytime (if multiple frames), but BMP file(s) should be created in your output.
11). Print these BMP output files / enhance them, etc.

Hope this helps.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

in order to playback FHD video on a computer it needs a certain amount of RAM and CPU. My laptop at home is not strong enough for FHD 1080 but it plays HD 720 ok. So here is what I do if I want to grab a still from a video:

if I shot it in FHD, I use freeware MPEG videoconverter from www.squared5.com to reduce it from FHD 1080 to HD 720.

then I playback the HD 720 video file with freeware www.irfanview.com and I can save a still easily. Of course it is far from high resolution compared to taking an original photo. I shoot the FHD or HD video with the Canon 550D. The Canon can take up to 18MP sized photos but a FHD image is only 2 MP in size, and the HD 720 is even smaller. But for posting online it is good enough.

here is an example of a recent video still caught that way :

http://klipsi.blog.tdg.ch/media/01/01/1808265901.jpg

 

[Olivier Staiger]

hey COOL, I just realized that I can save a still from frame directly with MPEG STREAMCLIP FREEWARE even in FHD 1080 size even the laptop is not powerfull enough to actually play the video. Here's how :

-open MPEG STREAMCLIP ,
-click FILES, OPEN FILES, and choose your video
-once your video is open you can glide the slider ( or slide the glider ;-) left-right to the scene you wan to save. To go frame-by-frame, use left or right arrows.
-once you have the frame you want to save, click FILES, then EXPORT FRAME, you can do some adjustments , then OK and there you have it.

 

[Stephen Levine]

Awesome! I thank you each for your suggestions. This gives me some things to work with.

 

[Mark Blue]

I have a Canon HV20 (and just bought another used one from Ebay) and can make nice stills. I can skip forward frame by frame and then hit the still button to make an image. The images are saved on a memory card that I can then transfer to my computer for editing.

Thank you, Gentlemen.. my camera is the Canon HV 30, and I've been using just the tape as opposed to a memory card.

I have the Canon HV-40 and it captures stills from the tape exactly as Bill described it. Just follow the instructions in the user guide and it will be a piece of cake. If you purchase a memory card for your camcorder you can take advantage of this easy method as well. The only thing about the memory card is that it's a Mini SD version and they are becoming increasingly harder to find. SD cards and Micro SD cards are widely available but the Mini SD versions require a bit of digging. A few months ago I found them on the Transcend website where they have a decent deal on them here Transcend Store. At that time they had 2 GB Mini SD cards available and now they are down to 256 MB models. I am going on a mad hunt for the 2 GB versions and am going to buy 3 or 4 of them as it appears they won't be making them any longer at the current rate they are going. That's one of the things about this camcorder that was very short sighted of Canon. They should have made it compatible with the Micro SDHC cards instead of the Mini SD form factor, which is quickly becoming extinct.

 

[Olivier Staiger]

and one more possibility : the CD that came with my Canon EOS 550D ( T2i ) has various softwares, one them being called ZOOMBROWSER EX , and that software also has a function to save stills from video. Check if your Canon Video camera maybe has the same software ?


and one more thing about the great freeware MPEG STREAMCLIP from www.squared5.com : you can save it from FHD 1080 either in JPG but also as TIF or PNG file.

 

[Mark Blue]

and one more possibility : the CD that came with my Canon EOS 550D ( T2i ) has various softwares, one them being called ZOOMBROWSER EX , and that software also has a function to save stills from video. Check if your Canon Video camera maybe has the same software?

I just checked the CD that came with my HV-40 and Zoombrowser EX is on there, so that was a good suggestion Klipsi.

On another note, I ran into your crew mates (TVN Extreme Tornado Tours) at the Runza in Sidney, NE, in June but was a little bummed that you weren't with them. My wife and I met you in Woodward, OK, last year after the Slapout chase and I was hoping to catch up with you again this year. Maybe next time?!

 

[Olivier Staiger]

yeah, sadly I couldn't make it this year, having health issues... ;-( Hope next year too, and dont forget there is also a solar eclipse in the TX panhandle on May 20 at sunset. ;-)

about video capture still-images : I just had a small t-storm here in the swiss Alps and was filming in FHD 1080 with my EOS 550D and caught a nice lightning bolt. Here is the image ( size reduced, original is FHD 1080 = 1920x1080 pixels. As explained before, I opened it with MPEG Streamclip and saved the frame.

http://www.meteoradar.ch/forum/forum_uploads/incoming/20110709_211629_Klipsi.jpg

 

[James Langford]

The only thing about the memory card is that it's a Mini SD version and they are becoming increasingly harder to find..

Correct me if I am wrong, but can't you just use an adapter? I have a micro SD to Mini SD adapter that I use for my HV20, and it works great. Micro SD cards are awfully cheap now.