TV Capture Cards?

[Tony]

I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
taking screengrabs.

That wasn't really why I wanted to take pictures, but it's a good point
I hadn't considered, in terms of screen grabbing Spectrum images.

Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model? Also,
what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for either WoS
or their own use?

--
Tony Evans
Saving trees and wasting electrons since 1993
blog -> http://perceptionistruth.com/
books -> http://www.bookthing.co.uk/
[ anything below this line wasn't written by me ]

[Brian Gaff]

I know some emulators have screen save routines like that.

Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Tony" <to...@darkstorm.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnk6jcs...@matrix.darkstorm.co.uk...

[Ian Jackson]

In message <slrnk6jcs...@matrix.darkstorm.co.uk>, Tony
<to...@darkstorm.invalid> writes

>I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
>TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
>taking screengrabs.
>
>That wasn't really why I wanted to take pictures, but it's a good point
>I hadn't considered, in terms of screen grabbing Spectrum images.
>
>Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model? Also,
>what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for either WoS
>or their own use?
>

My elderly Hauppauge WinTV TV card has a capture facility. I suspect
that most TV cards have the same.
--
Ian

[guesser]

On Oct 1, 9:26 pm, Ian Jackson
<ianREMOVETHISjack...@g3ohx.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In message <slrnk6jcs6.1fk.t...@matrix.darkstorm.co.uk>, Tony
> <t...@darkstorm.invalid> writes>I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT

why cant you use it with msn live yahoo messenger gmail chat skype icq
flash player or silverlight then?

[Guesser]

On 01/10/2012 16:15, Tony wrote:
> I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
> TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
> taking screengrabs.

> Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model? Also,
> what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for either WoS
> or their own use?
>

I do this fairly regularly. I have a PCI one by some brand I've never
heard of "Mercury" or something. It has RF, Composite, and S-video
inputs and is based on a philips chipset. Any analogue TV capture card
should do for the job though.

For making screenshots of games for the archive the games are just
loaded into an emulator which can save its display buffer out as a
bitmap or png file (which is most of them).

Regarding your original question about photographing a CRT, this is
something I've become relatively good at but it really depends on what
the capabilities of your camera are and what the subject matter is
you're trying to photograph. If the image being displayed is static it's
usually possible to get a very good photograph with no artefacts at all.
If however the subject is moving then you have to make a compromise
between too much motion blur and "banding".

Guesser.

[Tony]

On 2012-10-02, Guesser <alis...@alistairsserver.no-ip.org> wrote:
> On 01/10/2012 16:15, Tony wrote:
>> I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
>> TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
>> taking screengrabs.
>
>> Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model? Also,
>> what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for either WoS
>> or their own use?
>>
>
> I do this fairly regularly. I have a PCI one by some brand I've never
> heard of "Mercury" or something. It has RF, Composite, and S-video
> inputs and is based on a philips chipset. Any analogue TV capture card
> should do for the job though.

I'll keep looking, most of the ones I see for sale atm are designed for
satellite input.

> For making screenshots of games for the archive the games are just
> loaded into an emulator which can save its display buffer out as a
> bitmap or png file (which is most of them).

Yeh, a few hours after posting I realised I was being stupid and most
people just use an emulator :)

Thanks for the reply.

[Duncan Snowden]

On Mon, 1 Oct 2012 15:15:18 +0000 (UTC)
Tony <to...@darkstorm.invalid> wrote:


> Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model?

I vaguely remember doing this back in the '90s[1] with one of the
(extremely slow) 12-bit units you used to get for the Amiga, but that's
probably not much help. Except to confirm that it can be done.

But, what everyone else said: use an emulator. :)

[1] Does anyone else feel weird talking about “back in the '90s”? I
still kind of think of today as the very, very (very) late '80s.

--
Duncan Snowden.

[Jules Richardson]

On Tue, 02 Oct 2012 10:07:31 +0100, Guesser wrote:

> On 01/10/2012 16:15, Tony wrote:
>> I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of
>> CRT TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the
>> PC, and taking screengrabs.
>
>> Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model?
>> Also, what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for
>> either WoS or their own use?
>>
>>
> I do this fairly regularly. I have a PCI one by some brand I've never
> heard of "Mercury" or something. It has RF, Composite, and S-video
> inputs and is based on a philips chipset. Any analogue TV capture card
> should do for the job though.

I tried this a few times several years ago, with mixed results - some of
the cards out there seem to be very picky about the quality of the
signal, and don't necessarily agree with the output from a vintage
machine. It might need trial and error to find a 'good' card, and even
then there are perhaps certain machines that it won't work with.

> Regarding your original question about photographing a CRT, this is
> something I've become relatively good at but it really depends on what
> the capabilities of your camera are and what the subject matter is
> you're trying to photograph. If the image being displayed is static it's
> usually possible to get a very good photograph with no artefacts at all.
> If however the subject is moving then you have to make a compromise
> between too much motion blur and "banding".

Agreed, although I always found it hard to get a good shot of the display
*and the CRT itself* in the situations that called for it - I took to
making composite shots by photographing the display and the surrounding
hardware with different settings (on a tripod, and using a camera remote
trigger) and then merging them after the fact.

cheers

Jules

[GzavSnap]

"Tony" <to...@darkstorm.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnk6jcs...@matrix.darkstorm.co.uk...

|I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
| TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
| taking screengrabs.

Just use a home DVD-Recorder pluged on the TV.
Read and extract videos from this recordable DVD!
No more hardwares...

[j...@arcade.demon.co.uk]

Duncan Snowden wrote:
> [1] Does anyone else feel weird talking about “back in the '90s”? I
> still kind of think of today as the very, very (very) late '80s.

Every now and then I suddenly realise with shock that I'm
43. 44? 42? erm. 2012 minus... ah 44! Argh!

...and that most members of the Government are /younger/ than me!

JGH

[guesser]

has anyone got one that works with msn live and yahoo messenger?
skype icq gmail chat
silverlight flash player
all claim to support webcams - there isnt much point in buying a usb
webcam - if you have a digital camera with video output or you just
want to show someone a video of your desktop then you need a vga card
with tv output you can feed back into the tv tuner - be careful with
vga cards with tv encoders she tends to bluscreen the first time you
try it though it works the second

[Ian Field]

"Tony" <to...@darkstorm.invalid> wrote in message
news:slrnk6jcs...@matrix.darkstorm.co.uk...

> I was asking in a photography newsgroup how best to take pictures of CRT
> TV's, and someone suggested instead just using a TV card for the PC, and
> taking screengrabs.
>
> That wasn't really why I wanted to take pictures, but it's a good point
> I hadn't considered, in terms of screen grabbing Spectrum images.
>
> Has anyone else used a TV card for that, any suggestion on model? Also,
> what do people use to take screenshots of Spectrum games for either WoS
> or their own use?

IME - all the TV/DVB-T cards I've tried, the software was pretty flaky -
with the USB dongle types coming in the absolute worst of the lot.

[Andrew Owen]

Apologies if I've already answered this as my memory is a bit flaky
these days, but there's a decent guide to CRT photography in the Paint
Plus manual (which may be available online). Of course it's dealing with
film but I followed the guide and got some excellent results back in the
day. Essentially boils down to shoot in a dark room with a sensible
aperture and a long exposure time (which compensates for the scanlines).

[SamTek]

does it capture cross talk synchronization and phosphoric delay please?