FAQs General
Topics | Capturing Video | Editing
Video | Equipment
GENERAL
TOPICS Q: I installed QuickTime Broadcaster and now VideoPoint®
Capture will not open. What do I do? (Mac only)
A: The installation of
QuickTime Broadcaster corrupts the VideoPoint® Capture preferences so you need
to delete the plist for VideoPoint® Capture. The plist is located at: (username)/Library/Preferences/com.vpcap20.plist
. When you restart VideoPoint® Capture you will need to agree again to the end
user license. Q: I upgraded to Mac OS 10.3xx (Panther) and now VideoPoint®
Capture is not working correctly. What should I do? (Mac only)
A: First
you should reinstall the VideoPoint® Capture application. You should then reinstall
the capture hardware driver. Shut down your machine and restart. Q:
I get an error message stating that the device can not be connected.
A:
Either your device is not compatible with Video For Windows or there was not enough
memory to complete the last operation. In that case, free up more memory by closing
other open programs, or by assigning more memory to the capture program. Sometimes
just restarting your computer helps. CAPTURING
VIDEO Q: How can I capture at 60fps?
A: In order to capture
at 60 fps, you need either: " Digital Camera connected over FireWire " An analog
capture card that claims to capture 60 fields per second AND you must set the
capture size to 640x480 (or equivalent) Q: My movie has a few duplicated
frames, what should I do?
A: Duplicated frames have a few causes: " Capture
Rate set too high " Movie Captured from a rented videotape (or any video that
was once on film). If the movie was once on film, you should do the film-to-video
correction in the Corrections Menu. See the user guide for more details. If this
is not the case, you should try setting the capture rate to a lower value before
capturing. Q: Why can't I see any video when I want to capture?
A: Your video source may not be connected properly or the video capture settings
may not be correct. To fix that, open the video settings (from the capture options
menu) and try different settings. Sometimes, just the process of opening these
dialogs will correct the problem. Q: There are a lot of yellow bars under
my captured movie, indicating dropped frames. The movie is jumpy.
A: If
the capture rate is too high, the hardware will not be able to save the frames
as fast as they are coming in. Hence, it drops or duplicates them. It may also
be that your drive is fragmented, causing the software to look all over the place
for available disk space. De-fragment the hard drive that contains the capture
file. Q: After I capture a movie I get only a white (or blue) screen.
(Windows only)
A: This is an installation problem. Reinstall QuickTime,
but do a "Custom" installation and choose all the components (default installation
leaves out some components needed for capture). Also make sure that you have the
latest versions of QuickTime and DirectX. EDITING
VIDEO Q: What frame should I choose for my first frame?
A: Choose a frame that would make a logical choice for time=0. For example, if
you are looking at the projectile motion of a basketball, you would choose the
first frame in which the ball is free of all forces (except gravity). This makes
the analysis easier since a curve fit to your data would not be affected by a
point which is not subject only to gravity. Q: What should I choose
for my last frame?
A: You should choose the frame which contains the
last motion that you want to analyze. For example, for a projectile, you would
choose the last frame in which the projectile is a) visible and b) not under the
influence of forces you are not interested in. Q: After I choose "double"
frames, the movie still has the same number of frames. Why?
A: The de-interlacing
(which effectively doubles the number of frames), does not take place until the
'save' process. This saves time and image quality at the expense of being a little
confusing. EQUIPMENT
Q: What kind of equipment should I buy?
A: For recommended
equipment, visit Pat Cooney's Web site Making
Movies for Video-Based Motion Analysis | 
