NATO.0+55+3d modular, page 06/14
Digitization
Digitizing and Recording Objects
Getting live video into NATO is fairly straightforward. Hook up a camera or VCR to your computer (via USB, S-Video in, PC card, FireWire, etc.) and set up a `242.vdig` object. I've gotten video in to work on everything I've tried, from a 7100/80AV with the built-in AV card, to a Powerbook with FireWire or a CapSure card. USB and serial webcams work fine, too. If you have multiple input sources set up, `242.vdig` will tell you about them, and allow you to choose between them. This means that with multiple `242.vdig` objects, you can work with multiple video input sources simultaneously. If you've got a video card with multiple input modes, you may also switch between them.
As with most video input software, you can control the audio and video input parameters using the standard QuickTime configuration dialogs. These will permit you to set up codecs, color balance, gamma, etc. on input, if desired. You may also specify a portion of your digitizer's `window size` for use in NATO, so you can crop on the way in.
Once you've got your media coming in, you can record it to disk, using `242.rekord`. `242.rekord` is, in fact, a bit more than a basic recording object. You have control over basic parameters such as film dimensions and framerate, but you can also specify options such as samplerate (which is sort of like framerate plus, permitting you to create time-lapse recording routines) and timescale.
Once you've specified a folder to record into, using a command or through a dialog box, this object has the option of saving all subsequent record operations to that same directory, which is handy for building automated routines. `242.rekord` will also accept multiple image data streams and create either multitrack movies (each stream is a track), or record multiple movies simultaneously (each stream is a movie).
`242.rekord` only records QuickTime movies, which means that if you set it up to record only one frame at a time (stills), you get single-frame movies (.mov), rather than PICT or JPEG files. You can then re-load these .mov files into NATO and export them from the `242.film` object as PICTs, if you like (or use the QuickTime Player), and then convert them to JPEGs or PNGs in your utility of choice. But you unfortunately can't generate standard still image file formats directly from `242.rekord`.
Here's a patch I wrote which will capture a single frame to a movie, re-open it and save it as a PICT file.
all materials on this site (text, images, etc.) © 2000-2001 Jeremy Bernstein