I have a Canon Optura Pi videocamera and usually shoot in progressive scan mode and would like to export frames for use in publications/web. What's the best way to export the frames?

I've tried using iMovie to save a single frame but it doesn't look so good, maybe that's just the limitation of the camera since it doesn't have a mega-pixel chip. It outputs a 900K image which is 640x480 pixels at 72ppi.

I don't really want to buy the wacky floppy disk adapter for the camera.

-- Baron Sekiya (baron@mediabaron.net), October 10, 2000

Answers

The best solution is to buy the Photo DV software by Digital Origin.

It contains a 1394 Firewire adaptor card that allows you to immediatly import DV into photoshop. It provides three capture modes that allows you to grab one or more pictures manually or automatically, automatic resizing and high quality de-interlacing. It comes for both Windows and Mac.

-- Dirck Halstead (dirck.halstead@pressroom.com), October 10, 2000.

In Final Cut Pro, you can grab excellent stills from video. In the File menu, go to Export > Quicktime, and then adjust the setting for a jpeg.

-- David Snider (rave@his.com), December 05, 2000.