Digital video motion analysis: Digitizing
Digitize the video of an experiment
- Connect camera or VCR video (and audio) output to computer
video in, plug everything in and turn them on
- Open the "iMovie" application (you can find it
in under the Miscellaneous submenu on the Apple menu)
- Click on "new movie project" -> "Other"
-> "Untitled" then enter the filename for your movie
- Click on the "DV" tab. If your camera is on you
should see an image in the window (Note: sometimes the camera
goes into "sleep" mode--just cycle the power); hit
Play on the VCR and you should see video in the window.
- Use the "import" and "stop" buttons to
digitize the video from the VCR or directly from the camera while
running your experiment. iMovie automatically saves each shot
as a "clip" in a folder called "(your movie) Media".
You can assign a name to each shot before you actually digitize
it or aftwards.
- Click on the "edit" tab to see or delete your existing
shots. In this window, you can jump between shots using the timeline
at the bottom of iMovie. Once the entire clip is loaded onto
your working bar you can scroll or play the existing shots.
If you want to delete a shot, you must first delete it from the
timeline, select it in the loading bar, and hit "apple T"
on the first location of clip to delete then repeat step for
the end part of clip, highlight and press the "delete"
key.
- Once you have digitized the video you need, select "Save
project " under the "File" menu, then export movie
to Quicktime following user prompts. Note: unless there is only
a single shot you want to end up analyzing, I wouldn't recommend
editing with the timeline in iMovie; instead, use "MoviePlayer".
Edit (next)