Digital Camcorder Movie to Still Images

Aspiration

I don't know if this is the right forum to post in but sure, here goes...

In college for a multimedia project, I've to use a digital camcorder to record a few video clips and make still images from the clips. Does anyone know how to go about doing this?

I've been looking all over the internet for a program to make this happen to no success. Ideally, I should have a camera with a fast shutter speed but I simply can't afford to go off and buy a camera just for this project. Preferrably, I'd like to use some freeware but from the looks of things, I'm probably going to have to pay so if someone could point me in the right direction, it'd be great?!

Mods, I've posted this in the Photography -> Digital Darkroom forum too, if you don't mind, so feel free to remove it from whichever forum and leave it in the more appropriate one?!

Thanks in advance,

Sophie

Scotty #

Pinnacle Studio (Trial version here) definitely allows you to take stills from movie frames but I'd imagine they won't be high enough res for print.

peckerhead

Is this or this any help?

hot chick

or tell ur lecturer that you don't have a program that does this or a camera (i'm assuming everyone is in the same boat as you).

if the college doesn't have the software they shouldn't be asking you to do course work on it.

Futureman

Download a trial of Adobe After Effects.

Creat a new "DV PAL" project (ctrl + n), import your video clip onto the timeline, then go to the last frame of your clip and press "N" (this determines the last frame of your work area), and then go to "Composition > Add to Render Queue". Click the "lossless" text, and in the "Format" dropdown box, select "JPG sequence". Hit "OK" and then select where you want to 'Output to'.


Edit: http://www.adobe.com/downloads/

Aspiration

Thanks loads for the replies- scotty, peckerhead and futureman, cheers- i'll definitely check out yer suggestions.

hot chick, our lecturer is a moron. we're not all in the same boat as everyone's projects are different. I'm the only one in the class using video clips. This is due to the fact that he wants me to use one of his "fantastic" ideas. Bleurgh, i could go into the ins and outs of why he is a bad lecturer, but at the end of the day, he's marking me so i'm just going to try and keep him happy for the next 3 weeks.

City-Exile

Windows Movie Maker ships free with Windows XP and it allows you to capture stills from your video files. The quality of the stills depends on the quality of your video.

hot chick

Aspiration wrote:

Thanks loads for the replies- scotty, peckerhead and futureman, cheers- i'll definitely check out yer suggestions.

hot chick, our lecturer is a moron. we're not all in the same boat as everyone's projects are different. I'm the only one in the class using video clips. This is due to the fact that he wants me to use one of his "fantastic" ideas. Bleurgh, i could go into the ins and outs of why he is a bad lecturer, but at the end of the day, he's marking me so i'm just going to try and keep him happy for the next 3 weeks.

ah... tough break Aspiration.
still, he'll get all his bad karma back.

best of luck with the project

Aspiration

Thanks hot chick

City-Exile, after amounts of distress Movie Maker caused me, because of your post and someone on another forum suggested it, I decided to go back to it once more and it worked! The problem was I was using a .vro file the first time and when I ripped it the clips didnt rip properly so I re-recorded the clips and miracles did their job..

Cheers everyone!

City-Exile

Aspiration wrote:

City-Exile, after amounts of distress Movie Maker caused me, because of your post and someone on another forum suggested it, I decided to go back to it once more and it worked!

Cheers everyone!

Glad to hear that.
I'd be disappointed if my advice was flawed.