Best Camera for Image Capture?????

[ab8dd]

I have searched and cannot find advice on what the best quality is that can be captured from an individual frame of video. I am a Manufacturing Engineer for a local company and currently use mini DV with Sony TRV17 to video some of our assembly processes and I have a need to capture some individual frames to be printed and used in picture process books. The problem is the low quality capture only allows for 320x240 resolution. So, what is the best available? What camera do I need to capture individual frames at the highest resolution possible? I want to video then review and capture stills from the individual frames of video without a bunch of time spent editing the capture.

Any advice would be helpful, thanks in advance!

[Taelon]

Standard Definition NTSC is 720 x 480, PAL is 720 x 576. Hi-def can go much higher, so the question would be is Standard Def high enough for your needs?

[ab8dd]

so what camera's have this quality?

[anonymez]

most minidv camera's. i've got a panasonic nv-gs15 that does 720x576...

[ab8dd]

So is 720x576 the best I can get?

Could you email me 1 captured frame at this resolution?

brunotte@foryou.net

[anonymez]

its the best you can get if you're not willing to pay a small fortune for a HD (high definition) camera, which can go much higher...

[ab8dd]

The company I work for may be willing if I can find out what the resolution is and the brand / model number of the camera.

Can anyone make suggestions?

[Taelon]

First off I'm not a camcorder expert, but after some searching I'd think that you wouldn't go to far wrong with either of these units. Quotes and links to review/preview at camcorderinfo.com.

Sony HDR-HC1 MSRP ~ $2000

Achieving a resolution nearly triple to most MiniDV camcorders, the new HD Sony showed 656.1 lines of horizontal resolution and 480.9 lines of vertical resolution. These numbers yield a real resolution score of 315518.49.

This is an amazing score, and I guess based on this score we can confidently say "this camcorder is HD." The resolution that the DCR-HC1 is producing is double to triple that of MiniDV camcorders. It should be noted that is is effective observed resolution, and it is always significantly lower than the video resolution that a manufacturer is going to report. What's amazing on the HDR-HC1 is that the camcorder is scoring three times better, and while of course that is what we would expect, this test result really proves scientifically that the HDR-HC1 (and HDV) is that much crisper than DV.

Or perhaps instead of extracting still images from the video, you could consider capturing hundreds or thousands of still images to a built in hard drive with much higher resolution than even a 'HD' camcorder?
Consider this new JVC model GZ-MG70 MSRP ~$1100

The GZ-MG70 features a 2.12 MP gross pixel count in still mode. It will capture at a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200, up from 1152 x 864 on the GZ-MG50. At this size, nearly 10,000 photos can be stored on the 30 GB drive, with additional room for video. Additional resolutions include: 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768, and 640 x 480. Each can be saved in Standard and Fine qualities.