Stills or QuickTime from Videotape

To produce a still photo or a compressed QuickTime movie from a videotape, you first have to capture a segment from tape into the computer using an application such as iMovie or Final Cut (or QuickTime Player 7).

In QuickTime, choose File/New Movie Recording, or in Final Cut choose File/Log and Capture. (See Introduction to Final Cut for more details on using Final Cut in the editing rooms.)

Capture a short clip from your tape, and Save the clip.

You export a frame of a movie when you want to use it as a still in another application, such as in Photoshop to create a web graphic, or in a word processor as an illustration.

1. Open the saved clip on the Final Cut timeline, or by dragging it from your hard drive onto QuickTime Player (see also Playing and Editing Movies with QuickTime Player.)
2. Use the Time Slider to find the frame you want to export.
3. Choose Export (Using QuickTime Conversion) in the File menu, and in the dialogue box select "Still Image" (or "Picture".)
4. Click the Options button, and in the resulting dialogue box, choose "Compressor: None" and Click OK.
5. Give the new file a name, and Save it to a folder.

1. Drag the file onto Photoshop.
2. If it comes from DV or HDV, which have differently shaped pixels, the still may not be the standard 640x480 or 1920x1080. Choose "Image Size" from the Image menu, and de-select "Constrain Proportions".
3. If Photoshop hasn't already done this automatically, change the size to 640x480 or 1920x1080, click OK, and Save.
4. Crop the picture and make any other necessary adjustments to the colour, brightness and contrast, and save.
5. Reduce the image size if necessary, then use the Unsharp Mask filter to sharpen the image slightly.
6. For use on the web, save the small version as a JPEG file, using "Save As". Choose Format: JPEG and give it a .JPG suffix.

In Final Cut or QuickTime Player you can export an entire DV format QuickTime clip as a compressed QuickTime movie suitable for use in a presentation or a web page.

1. Choose Export in the File menu.
2. In the menu or the Export dialogue box, choose "QuickTime Movie".
3. Click the Options button.
4. In the resulting Movie Settings dialogue box (right), you will need to choose appropriate video and audio settings. There are a number of factors which influence those settings (see Sorenson Compression of QuickTime Movies), but possible settings for a multimedia presentation on a fast computer are shown here. Possible settings for a web movie might be:
   • Compression: H.264
   • Frame rate: 10
   • Key frame rate:100
   • Data rate: 30K per second
   • Width: 360 Height: 240
   • Sound format: AAC
5. Give the new file a name with a .MOV suffix, and Save it to a folder.

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