We hope that these detailed instructions will help you get started with converting analog video signals from a VCR or camcorder to digital video files on a hard drive and playing the digital video files back to a computer monitor or a TV set. We found that these instructions helped both us and our students remember the many details that are involved in capturing good video every time.
We use a 330 MHz Pentium II MMX computer, a Pinnacle miroVIDEO DC30 video capture card with its special software, VidCap software, and Windows 98. Your hardware and software are probably different. However, you are likely to find that you need to do each of the steps in these instructions, even if your particular setup makes some of the steps look slightly different from ours. Changing these steps to fit your setup will give you a useful cookbook.
Connect the signals and prepare the system for capture:
· Connect a source of video to the miroVIDEO DC30's video input jack. Use the S-video jack, if possible, to get the best quality. Using the Composite video jack also works, but allows some brightness information to mix with color information.
· Connect a TV monitor to the miroVIDEO DC30's video output jack.
· Connect a source of audio to the miroVIDEO DC30's audio input jack, which is on the end of a short cable. (Note that a monaural audio signal must connect to the red input jack, which violates the convention that a monaural signal goes on the left channel and that red means right channel.)
· Connect a speaker (such as the one on the TV monitor) to the miroVIDEO DC30's audio output jack.
· Re-boot Windows. For video capture, you want the cleanest possible system!
· Do not set up any local area network connection.
· Close all applications.
· Disable the virus monitor, screen saver, and any other programs that are running.
· Right-click the task bar, Properties, un-check Show clock, OK.
· (If you are capturing full-screen video, you may need to change the display to 256 colors, to lower the processing load. However, providing more colors makes the setup easier, so try that first.)
Set up audio:
· Start, Settings Control panel, Multimedia, Audio. (Note our shorthand: We just say "Start" instead of "Move your mouse pointer to the icon on your screen that says 'Start' and then click the left mouse button.)
· Set Preferred device for Playback to AWE64 (or whatever your sound card appears as), OK.
