Technical Explanation

About my Computer

Let me start off by saying that I have a PowerPC 8100/80AV. Yes, it's a Macintosh for all you non-believers. Since it is an AV (Audio/Video) Mac, it has built in S-Video ports and an AV card to digitize video. All AV computers come with S-Video to RCA adapters. Using the adapter, I run an RCA cable to my VCR. I also have a 16 dollar antenna which I bought from Radio Shack. The antenna is plugged into the ant. in port on my VCR. Using the tuner in the VCR I can get any local channel. This includes FOX, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, Univision (the Spanish Channel), and about five others.

Capturing the Picture

All AV Macs come with a small 80K application called "Video Monitor." This program just allows you view video input in a window on your computer. I can resize the window and actually have picture in picture on my computer. As a matter of fact, I'm watching TV in a window as I'm writing this document. The program is designed to capture a still image. All you have to do is press (open apple-C). I found that when I set my computer to 16 bit color, the pictures turn out great.

Converting the picture

I use Adobe Photoshop 2.5 to crop, scale, and convert the picture to JPEG format. As you can tell, the color is pretty good and the pictures range in size anywhere from 150K to 30K. Using another program called "Fusion Recorder" I have captured QuickTime movies. Unfortunately, I lack the disk space to make these movies available on the net.

Future plans for the TV Picture of the Day page

Some of you have asked if it would be possible to take a snap shot every five minutes of a channel. That way there could be a What's Miles watching on TV page. Unfortunately I lack the technical know how to pull off such a page. The problem lies in automatically taking a picture every five minutes or whenever someone accesses the page. I suspect that there could be some way to do it with an AppleScript, but I really don't know enough about AppleScript. If anyone has ideas or knows how to create such a page, I would be glad to hear from them. I think that it would be great.

How to get it on your computer

Most people will have to buy some sort of card in order to capture video with their computer. I found that the newsgroup (rec.video.desktop), contains a lot of information on this subject. If you're looking for a card yourself, you should look at this newsgroup. I can't really help PC users, but I can answer some questions about AV Macs, if anyone has a question.

About myself

While you're reading this, I'll give you a little information about myself. I'm a Freshman EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) major at the University of California at Berkeley. It should be obvious by now that I'm interested in computers. To find out more about me, you can take a look at my home page. No one's really looked at it yet besides my friends.

Return to the TV Picture of the Day Page.

Miles Michelson <milesm@uclink2.berkeley.edu>