Simon Edmondson Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 I'm still plugging away at the stop frame work when the weather allows. Yesterday I was trying some tests for the car chase in the next project. These are two of the sequences done. I was working with a USB web cam and Istop motion. The camera only cost about $12 but is good enough at the moment. I would like to get a better one, although smaller, as it would be good to be actually able to fit it inside the model cars. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be a good option ? regards simon Chase_002.mov Chase_004.mov Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 This is a little misleading... USB can't really transmit uncompressed HD-material. It is just too slow if you are not talking about USB 3.0. I have run into that often myself. All the USB-Webcams I know about only transmit half of the resolution and interpolate to HD. This is quite annoying, but is a limitation of the USB 2.0-technology. Like that: Anything that claims to be HD and is USB 2.0 or lower (and does not do any kind of pre-compression or recording IN the device itself) is just pretending OR is actually recording HD but can't transmit it at the same resolution. The best USB-Web-Cams I came across however are the Microsoft LifeCam-Cameras. (especially the more expensive once) They have the same problem with USB / HD-resolution, BUT they are very light-sensitive and like that the images will be less noise anyway than most other WebCams. Microsoft LifeCam The problem: You'll pay more for that... If you need higher resolutions, I would recommend USB 3.0-, fast FireWire- or Thunderbolt-devices (I never had a look at this, so I am not even sure if something like that is buyable). You can see which ACTUAL resolution a Cam can transmit using VirtualDub. (Microsofts LifeCams for instance do even tell you they are recording HD in their own software, but actually you will see the quality-differences. See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted April 15, 2013 Author Share Posted April 15, 2013 Gerald Thank you for your informative reply.The old laptop I'm using for the tests is only USB 1 ( G4 Macbook ) but I am hoping to do the actual project on a new machine so USB 3 should be an option then. Is USB1 not fast enough even when shooting on single frames rather than continuous video ? My older brother used to describe interpolation as "making it up", which is about right ! Much to ponder before I start production properly. regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted April 15, 2013 Share Posted April 15, 2013 Gerald Thank you for your informative reply.The old laptop I'm using for the tests is only USB 1 ( G4 Macbook ) but I am hoping to do the actual project on a new machine so USB 3 should be an option then. Is USB1 not fast enough even when shooting on single frames rather than continuous video ? My older brother used to describe interpolation as "making it up", which is about right ! Much to ponder before I start production properly. regards simon It depends on the manufacturer... in general you can transmit single-frames in higher resolutions, but anything over 15 fps will mean trouble. (and most will have problems below that) AND keep in mind: If a manufacturer knows, the device cant transmit that quality, why should he put hardware in the device which can do better? USB 1.1 is a little bit too outdated today as that I could say much about it... my first USB Cam was a USB 2.0. Interpolation means more or less guessing. If there are 2 pixels and you need to make 4 pixels out of them, the computer will take the medium color-values of the pixels and put these values in two new frames and put them inbetween. This will result in a blurry picture and if there is any very important information which could not be saved with the 2 pixels (because they would fall in the part between pixel 1 and pixel 2 for instance) you will loose these. In reality, interpolation should be called extrapolation in this case and it will just not make anything better. Making an image smaller is always possible, making it bigger has always those problems. There are algorithms which are a little better in guessing stuff (because of that there are different inter/extra-polation-possibilities in Photoshop for instance) but they all just lack the information they would need to make it perfekt. I thing that a USB 3.0-able camera is more expensive than a USB 2.0-capable one... if you need the high resolution this one may provide, you should invest the money, if not, dont.... See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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