Super Snapshots From Digital & Analog Video Sources
Written: Nov 27 '99 (Updated Sep 14 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: don't need digital stills/videos, captures analog photos from camcorder/vcr/TV (but will capture digital sources), easy to use, cheap
Cons: e-mail export works only with Winmessaging, software requires update patch (1 Mb) from Play Web site
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| JMB623's Full Review: Play Snappy Video Snapshot |
Like most people, you've got homemade analog videos of your friends and family with some primo images sprinkled throughout. If you could capture that one frame where your kid was caught with a perfect smile, you'd give up your eyeteeth. But how do you do that without buying one of those expensive video capture cards, or buying an even more expensive digital video recorder? A product that will allow you to do that does exist for less than a hundred bucks. It will also capture from digital sources like DVD and HDTV. Play, Inc. the people who make "Gizmos" for Windows 98, developed Snappy 3.0. Install the software, plug the capture device into your LPT port, plug your video source into the hardware, and you're ready to go.
The hardware is a small box the size of a pack of cigarettes that comes with a 9V battery. It has RCA jacks for output from your regular guy VCR, camcorder, and TV. The Snappy software shows a small TV screen where you preview your videos, waiting for that perfect moment. When you see the picture you want, you click on the "SNAP" button to capture it. The software allows you to adjust some parameters before the capture, including color, brightness, contrast, sharpness, tint, and RGB. The setup controls allow you to choose your video source, picture quality (Moving/scene), picture type (Color or B/W), and image format, among others. You can also choose to save (jpeg, bmp, etc.), print, or e-mail the image(only works with Windows messaging, a drawback). Snappy is capable of 1500 X 1125 pixel 24-bit color resolution for digital and analog captures.
You just plug in your video source, run it on the Snappy preview screen, click "SNAP", then decide whether to save, print, or e-mail it. If you save it you can work on the image in your regular photo editor/graphics application. The software is intuitive, eye-catching, easy to install, and easier to use. The user manual that comes with it has more instructions on how to get quality images to feed to Snappy than on how to run it, indicative of how easy it is to use. The reason I don't give it a rating of "piece of cake to use" is that if you choose to dabble with all the parameter settings available, there is a learning curve. If you use all default settings out of the box, it is a "piece of cake" to use. Getting quality images on your camcorder is much harder to do than inputting and capturing them.
I've seen Snappy 3.0 on-line for as low as $89.95, and compared to buying a digital camcorder or $300.00 video capture card, it's bargain-basement cheap. On top of that, Play, Inc. takes great pride in their product, is extremely solicitous if you need help, and provides an excellent help file and user manual. I've made dozens of super candid photos of my daughter for my mother using once in a lifetime moments captured on my camcorder. It's so easy anyone can do it, and, you don't need a graphics/photo editor to get good shots. (UPDATE 12/15/99) The Snappy people contacted me to let me know that although Snappy 3.0 is still being sold, a new version 4.0 is being released. It is primarily a software update with no hardware changes, and I will review it after I get a chance to install and run it, which should be in a day or two. (Update 9/14/00: This is the important part of an e-mail I received from Play on updating earlier versions of Snappy: "As for upgrades, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 and 3.0 Deluxe users can visit:
http://cf.play.com/snappy/index.cfm and buy an upgrade to Snappy 4.0. For
3.0 Deluxe users, it costs $19.95. For 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 users it costs
$29.95 (this includes an audio cable that we send to them as well.) For
more information, visit the above link. You can also get to the upgrade
page by clicking on the banner on Play's homepage").
Recommended:
Yes
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JMB623
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Member: Joel
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