Export Still Frame??

[jetic11]

Hello All,
I am a new user of the Toaster 3 and had previously been using Premiere and Pinnacle. I need to export a lot of single frames from the project's timeline (for various reasons) as files that can be opened in Photoshop, but there doesn't appear to be any way to do this. Rendering clips out and doing this in Aura takes forever. Is there and way to do this right in Toaster Edit?

[Jim_C]

You can cut the frame out (razor on both sides)you want as a single ..well.. frame on the timeline, rt click on it choose render selected time range then choose one of the file formats at the bottom. (jpg, bmp, tga etc).

If you use the video capture panel in Aura its ultra quick. Dont load your clip, open the video grabber set it for T3 scroll thru the ted timeline until the frame you want is displayed in the video grabber window then grab..

good luck

jim

[jetic11]

Very cool, Thank you!!

[djlithium]

Even better,
fire up a DDR and hit record. Select VT-Edit as the source for recording and record to RTVs using timed record with a setting of 1 frame.

Hit record each time you want to take a still of your show and it will pop them sequentially into the DDR playlist. Instant slid show.

You can then render that playlist out to TGAs if I remember correctly and do whatever you need to in photoshop.

I am finding that Aura is becoming less and less a tool for speed reasons. Still handy. But I think its days are numbered. I would rather have VT3 launch DF4.0 instead and work with it tighter inside Toaster.

:)

[eon5]

open the video grabber set it for T3 scroll thru the ted timeline until the frame you want is displayed in the video grabber window then grab..

sorry, i dont understood very well

step by step... what i must do ?


This is the situation:

An editor need to shuttle the videotape searching actors faces to grab its like one frame, save it as tgas file and edit those freezeframes in photoshop.

i need to find a fast solution... to record video and scroll the frame they want... no, please.

[Jim_C]

open ted, throw a clip on it.Set it to main out on switcher.

open aura. On same desktop as ted is easiest.

in aura go windows drop down -> video grabber panel

on grabber panel, click Video Input tab-choose video toaster as device. You should see Teds output in little screen.

Now popp back to ted and use scroll bar to find ftrame you want.

In grabber window set your length to 1 frame. set field order if neccessary.

Grab pic. Move timeline bar, grab another. When finished you should have one timeline in aura with all your clips on it.

Set your mode for your desired still output and export sequence of stills to desired location.

whew,,,
hope that helps

jim

[Scott Bates]

If you've already captured the footage in VT:

1) Open VT-Edit, load clip on timeline

2) Open Aura (I normally open Aura on a second VT desktop, but in this case I split the screen on one desktop with VT-Edit, small Switcher, 1/3 width VT-Vision and Aura)

--- after you've set up the desktop, right-click on an empty area, select "Module configuration > Save" and save that desktop config somewhere outside the VT root directory so you don't lose it when installing the next patch. Next time you need that desktop configuration just "Load" it.

3) In the Aura Project menu, select Modify Project and set everything to 720x486 D1, but set Field to "None"

4) In the lower right corner of the Aura Display, right-click the "V" button and the Video Grabber panel will open. At the bottom of that panel set "Length" to "1" (frame) and set "Field" to "As Is". I normally set "Apply In" to "Current" layer.

5) Scrub the VT-Edit timeline until you find the frame you want to grab.

6) In Aura, click the "Grab Input" button at the bottom of the Video Grabber panel; that frame will appear on the active Aura layer. Continue grabbing all the frames you need.

7) In the Aura File menu set the filetype Mode to TGA32

8) You can then use Export Image to save each captured frame with whatever name you want, or you can use Export Sequence to save all the frames as individual images with the same base name - i.e. Pic001, Pic002, etc.

If you want to grab frames on the fly directly from tape, select your tape input on the Switcher, select "Program" as the Input in Aura's Video Grabber panel and you should see the tape playing in VT-Vision and in the little window on the Video Grabber panel. Just click the Grab Input button whenever you see a frame you want.

To make the grabbing process easier I've designated the "g" key for "Grab: Video Input" in Aura (Edit menu > Settings > Keyboard Shorts > Configure).

This all sounds long and involved, but once you've set it up it is extremely fast.

[Scott Bates]

Should have known that in the time it took me to type all that up that someone else would have already answered in a shorter form....

double-whew,,, :D

[Jim_C]

Oh sure Scott,

Trounce all over my short encryptic, poorly spelled and probably slightly misleading steps with a page from an Encyclopedia.

Always have to be so thorough don't you.

:D :cool:

jim

[Scott Bates]

Hey Jim, two heads are (almost) always better than one - between us he'll (1) figure it out, or, (2) be absolutely, totallyconfused and just give up!

[bradl]

Originally posted by djlithium
I would rather have VT3 launch DF4.0 instead and work with it tighter inside Toaster.

djlithium,

This is fairly easy to set-up. I just set my system up to launch Mirage from the menu and adding DF or DFX would be similar. It takes a script change, and a little Photoshoping. The real trick is editing the Mask file properly... I could post more details if you are interested.

[technorev]

If he's not, I am. Please post away

TechnoRev

[Dan Hong]

Another way in VT3. From VTedit. Trim the clip down to the single frame or frames that you need. Render project or selected time, save as jpeg, tga, or tiff sequence.

We do a ton of security camera still prints. This is the bomb.

[djlithium]

A lot of people will use Aura for this, but I find Aura to be very auckward for workflow.
This is much easier and more familar to you then probably anything else.


This involves using your source "playback" application like a DDR or ToasterEdit and another capture panel.

First step:

1. Pull up Toaster Edit or your DDR.
2. Map the source out to your switcher so it appears on program out.
3. Load a clip into your source module (DDR or toaster Edit)
4. FF/RW or otherwise find the frame of video that you want to "grab" using your scrub bar or the jog shuttle.
5. Open up the capture pannel
6. Hit the format options tab. Choose NewTek RTV as your format and deselect the sound option and enable "alpha" if you need Alpha (for something like stills or a keyed piece of footage you have on the T3 timeline and are using overlay enabled to get it to show up against black but its actually transparent where your "Key" is. More explaination of this later if you need it.
7. once you have set up the format options, move over to the record tab. Here you will find options for something called "timed record". What you want to do here is enable timed record and set it to 1 frame or 00:00:01.
What this is going to do is when you hit the record button on the capture panel interface, it is going to record 1 frame and then stop. This is how you record still frames.
8. Befor you record however, move to the options tab and locate a place on your drives for where you want to store these stills. Give them a basic name in the naming dialog box with the extention RTV.
9. Go back to your record tab and hit the record button. You should get 1 frame of RTV video captured. You can then scrub your source material around to another point in your video and repeat this process until you are finished.
10. You now need to turn these RTV's into something that an application like photoshop or illustrator will allow you to work with. This is generally TGA files or JPEGs.
11. In order to do this properly you will need to change a setting in the preferences panel so that the default setting for a still frame of video, has a duration in Toaster Edit or a DDR of 1 frame only. Usually the default is 5 seconds as many people will create titles in photoshop and pull them into Toaster but when they do they only get one frame of it on a time line and its hard to zoom in and out and stretch the cruton. For us, we want to do the exact opposite. We are going to "render" these RTV files out to disc and we don't want 5 seconds of still frames.

So, once you have made this change in the preferences panel (look for options with stills about 1/4 the way down the list.) open up another DDR. Choose "add media" to the ddr or drag and drop the RTV files you just recorded from the capture pannels file bin into the new DDR. Once you have these files loaded, you can now export them as single TGA frames.
12. Click on each RTV (one at a time as you do this) loaded into the DDR, and then choose "render selected time range" from the file menu. You will be given similar options to what we started with for recording, but this time you get the option to save it out as a "TGA Sequence". Since you only have one frame in this RTV file, its going to export a single TGA and be done.

That's basically it. From there you will be able to load them into anything that reads 32bit TGA files. Do this for each RTV that you loaded. Make sure you choose TGA as the export option and that you use the extention .TGA on the end to reduce confusion when you are opening it up in photoshop.

Believe it or not, this is much faster then the Aura method and produces easier results for many people because you, like others come from "video tape deck land" and not where Aura is which is more paint box software. What we are doing here is essentially single frame timelapsed recording. This same process could be used to produce timelapsed recording video effects like having a camera pointed at a flower as it opens up in the morning and taking a frame snap shot ever few seconds (although you would have to manually trigger the record button. There is no real timer involved here for triggering attitional still snap shots).

Remember that once you are done this, change your preference back to something reasonable for still duration lenght. So, when you do need a still on the time line it doesn't show up as one frame, but more like 1 second instead. Which is managable.

[bradl]

Originally posted by technorev
If he's not, I am. Please post away

TechnoRev

OK, but I am not at work right now and would probably not describe the process adequately, so will follow up if needed.

Take a look at the SuperStartMenu2 folder (drill down or search for it). In that folder are 4 PNG files. Copy them to somewhere else for experimenting with, then open them in Photoshop. You will have to add your menu item to the three viewable PNGs matching the look of the others, but the real key is the Mask png. The color values in that graphic relate to values described in the ToasterScript file in the SuperStart Menu. This is comman technique for other programs and webpages, with Roll Over, Mouse Down, etc. effects.

Create a new color for your entry and note it's values in Photoshop, for example 200, 120, 60. You will see how to apply that to launch commands by looking in the script. For example of how to add external launch commands, and in fact a copy of some of these files go to www.phreakboy.com (http://www.phreakboy.com). Doc has not added the tweaked-up vertical drop down PNG's (SuperStart2 style) yet but has promised to do so very soon. See "SuperStartMenu3 - Right side Start Menu" (http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11950) for additional Vertical options and this thread at Bauhaus: "Add Mirage to your VT3 Start menu" (http://www2.bauhaussoftware.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=28&sid=fbd518a4ec409b634a33cb21bdcebf0e)

I have edited the Vertical files in Photoshop, and have the PSD file that can easily be customized (it has the matching blank command area with editable matching text over it for the 3 PNGs and the updated Mask file) that I could email to you.

[SBowie]

Originally posted by sbates

2) Open Aura ... snip
Web tutorial - how to grab stills using Aura with a VT system. (http://www.avioworx.com/Resources/aura_tut/vidgrabber/vgrab.html)

[bradl]

Very nice tut Steve! :cool:

[AntAT]

..........

[Scott Bates]

Thanks Steve. Your link is now a "Favorite" so the next time someone asks I don't have to do all that typing :)

[SBowie]

Uhuh - I know that feeling, Scott- hence the tute ;)

There's another one there on using the 2 point stabilization filter as well.

I'm trying to figure out how to cope with continuing to build the Aura stuff while adding a Mirage section - the divergence kind of screws up my site plan. :-p