Stripping Stills from Video

<p>For all you cinematographers out there is it possible to strip quality stills from your DSLR video clips ? I was just reading about the EPIC RED camera that combines both digital video and stills. <a href="http://www.red.com/products/epic">http://www.red.com/products/epic</a> I was wondering if this can be done with a regular DSLR and if This, is the wave of the future, or has this already been discussed ?</p>

<p>Canon (and I'm sure others) have a still shot capability. I have several pro Canon video cameras which store the shots to a separate SD card, and can be taken while filming without any disruption. It's also easy to lift single frames from a video sequence. The quality is quite good for a 2MP image, probably because I use 3 CCD cameras (6MP imaging).</p>

<p>Canon DSLRs have video capability, but are primarily still cameras with appropriate controls. Shooting stills interrupts the video stream. The main reason to use a full frame DSLR for a film shoot is the narrow depth of field compared to even a 2/3" studio camera. Most Red cameras are primarily for cinematography, with stills as secondary function. It's nice to go both ways, but you have less than optimal control over the secondary function.</p>

<p>VLC media player is a fairly good media player that has screen capture capability. You can capture individual frames by advancing the video frame by frame till your at the frame you want to capture and capture it either as a jpg or a tiff file. You can choose ( among a lot of other things like to which folder to save to, whether or not to deinterpolate, etc. ) in the advanced preferences menu. Best of all it's a free download <a href="http://download.cnet.com/VLC-Media-Player/3000-13632_4-10267151.html">here</a>.</p>

<p>Not only is the technology here that can do it; but, there will be considerable pressure inside the business model of video productions to do it. For example, many of the stills wanted in video productions will be pictures that look just like the final product presented to viewers. Why set up a separate still photo shoot when a good recording can be made in the first place? </p>

<p>The two kinds of cameras, each built for a different purpose, will implement different technologies; but, there is enough overlap to make this possible. People making the videos for profit will need the technology used in a way that supports selling the final products. Even if the answer is less than perfect, it'll still get done because the results will sell.</p>

<p>1080 HD video has 1920x1080 frames, so you can strip them from HD video quite simply. However the full resolution image from the sensor is not stored, it's downsampled to HD resolution before being written to the card, so you can't get full resolution images from the recorded video stream.</p>

<p>With 4K video (the next generation), you'll be able to extract something like 3840 × 2160 stills and from 8K video (that's going to take a while...) something like 7680x4320 stills. <br>

<br>

I think it will be a while before we even see 4K video in DSLRs that aren't specifically designed (and priced) for cinema use. You can get it now in the EOS-1D C, but it will cost you $12,000.</p>

<p>I think the market demand will force the 4K issue much more quickly than we realize. Just this week SONY has announced new 4K displays with lowered prices along with a delivery system for motion pictures transferred in the 4K format. In addition, the GoPro Hero3 Black version ($399) will record 4K video albeit at 15fps. I would be willing to guess that sometime in 2014 we'll see DSLRs with advanced 4K capability at somewhat affordable costs. With cinemas rapidly being converted to 4K projection, indie film makers will be looking and pushing for it.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>What you woudl define as "quality" is the key question here. As others have noted above, a single frame of HD video is currently only about 2 megapixels. That's OK for a web page or maybe a very small print, but not something you'd want to blow up to 8x10.</p>