If you plan to use your composite
video camcorder or VCR (RCA plug) for video capture you should be aware
of:
1) The electrical signal from these devices must be converted to a digital representation for use by a computer. This process is often called digitization or frame grabbing, and requires the use of hardware to accomplish the task. This hardware can range from ~$70 to well over $3500 with the quality and speed of capture and on-board features of the frame grabber dictating the price.
Information on frame grabbers can be found at:
www.nogatech.com - tested works well ~ 15 fps also have USB capture
www.margi.com - not tested
http://www.videoguys.com/vidcap.htm - just about everything in video capture, and they will announce a PCMCIA IEEE-1394 Ratoc dv capture card for laptops soon, so keep watching.
2) During the digitization of composite video (or S video) 'lost frames' can result. These lost frames are 'data' that was missed (or skipped over) during the digitization process. This results in files that are not frame synchronous and; therefore, will result in incorrect timing results when used with The Competing EDGEtm. In many instances this is not a 'significant' issue unless the(se) lost frames occur exactly when you want to carefully analyze an athlete's performance. The result will be incomplete information (or worse an incorrect analysis).
3) Video Photography (and still photography for that matter) is moving toward full digital data representations, and with the IEEE-1394 FireWire tm, iLinktm, and other interface specifications the process of making video 'computer' compatible is really just a question of direct 'transfer' of these digital data to the computer with NO LOSS of quality or lost frames.
4) If you are planing to get the most from your decision to use The Competing EDGEtm it is strongly recommended that you consider the use of SONY computers, cameras and accessories for your application.
5) From one of our suppliers: "We now sell more DV capture cards then any other format. By year end '99 more DV cams will be sold each month then SVHS or Hi8. DV is the future of video. If you are planning on getting a new camcorder, make sure it is a DV cam, that fully supports two way IEEE-1394."