Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

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Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

So I want to make some screen videos of he Apple II screens. Don't want to use an emulator or have a camera.

The challenge is how off the Apple II color video is from real NTSC. There is no guarantee a Composite to USB adapter will pickup the color image. Has anyone had any luck with a specific model or brand. I'm looking for one that is OSX compatible since I have a Mac.

Thanks,
Corey

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Hello Corey,
i have two TV-capture devices - one is TV-capture card and one is
external TV capture unit to USB ( both from Hauppauge ).
I haven´t tried such task yet, but i will try within next days and report....
sincerely speedyG

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

So I want to make some screen videos of he Apple II screens. Don't want to use an emulator or have a camera.

Really? Not even on your phone? My last flip phone had video capture capability.

The challenge is how off the Apple II color video is from real NTSC.

How off? Very off. How very off depends a bit on how old the Apple II is. If it's a rev 0, good luck. If it's a IIe or IIc, you're getting warmer - the image displayed on my LCD monitors gets better as the years/models progress.

There is no guarantee a Composite to USB adapter will pickup the color image.

No. You'll have to experiment. You sound like the kind of guy that still has a VCR. (I do too.) They are good at cleaning up a video signal. Pass it through a VCR before a composite adapter.

Personally, I use an old Olympus point-n-shot digital camera I got for "free" with my Visa reward points... it seems to do a pretty good job at capturing the screen. I set it up on a tripod and zoom in on just the screen.

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

I use G4 PowerBooks, OS 10.4. El Gato made a compatible composite video capture device with digitizer software called Eye TV, in this case I'm referring to the version called Eye TV 200. I have and use this equipment. I haven't tried it with my Apple II's yet, but it would be easy enough to try. Capturing audio is a more of trick. I seem to recall some A][ magazine software that let you route the sound through the cassette port so you could run it to a home stereo amplifier. That would be the way to capture the clean synchronized sound with the video.

Eye TV 200's still show up on FleaBay with some regularity. I got mine for less than $20 with the FireWire 400 cable. The software is online for free.

I suppose that there might be a career in selling these videos to Twitch ;p .

Mutant Pie

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Speedy,

Any luck trying the Happague cards? I may just take a pot shot and buy the Roxio one for the Mac. Figure it's s big enough company that they would support the latest OSX.

I guess I should add some background. I don't want use a camera for various reasons, but one is that I'm working on a kiosk design for a museum and can't really have the distortion of a camera. I need direct video.

I need to be able to record video from rev 0 and up. I also need to record some apple-1 video, but it's black and white so shouldn't be much of a problem.

Cheers,
Corey

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

I bought the EyeTV "Hybrid" years back when we didn't have a TV. I've never gotten that model to work with an Apple II. The screen vertical hold won't lock and I just get a rolling display.

eric F

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

I've used the EyeTV 250 to output to a Mac the odd time I wanted to use one at that end of my place. I never directly compared it with a composite monitor but I don't remember it as looking odd. Right now my EyeTV is at a friends place where he's digitizing some tapes so I can't do a comparison.

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Hello Corey,
this week i have to solve several "non movable dates" i.e. a day at court with a friends trial....
another date at a doctor with appointment made 2 weeks ago and similar tasks...
so first day i get a chance to setup one of my Apple II and a Apple IIe to test will be Saturday or Sunday....
( depending to if my girlfriend raises up a surprizing complaint or not.... )
so at one of the days at this upcoming weekend i will be able to test and come back with report on monday....

sincerely
speedyG

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Hello Corey,
after testing i´m sure the device your looking for is a Terratec AV400 Grabster !
FYI i´ve created a entire temporary dir in my site at:
http://www.appleii-box.de/GrabsterAV400/
the dir contains pictures of the device
the english manual
the technical data
the drivers
the driver updates and
the custom version of the software belonging to the device.
if you have problems with download alternate download is availiable at:
ftp.terratec.de/Video/Grabster/GrabsterAV400
With this device you may catch the Apple II videooutput direct from TVoutputjack
and input it either to the S-Video Input or the Standard RCA Videoinput jack.
Besides the device also has stereo input so you are able to input with
support of your stereo from Microphone or soundcard sound to the device and therby create
a commented video. The device then outputs to your PC a standard MPEG2 video as recorded file
that might then be taken by DVD recording device to standard DVD:
This device permits you to chose any kind of videosize from 240x144 up to 756x576 in either PAL or NTSC
at any framerate you will set from 15fps up to 29 fps.
Just before you make decision download the dir.
view the manual
view the tech data
view the package content
install the software and view the software.
After view all the availiable info´s software and data make your choice....
the device works at any computer with XP or Vista ( unfotunatly not OS X ! ).
After you downloaded the dir
please drop note ( that dir contains 349 MB stuff ) so i can delete it from my site, due to it`s size limitation.

I then will upload test video example.
then i will drop here posting and you may pick up example video.
after that i´ll kick off the stuff again due to it`s size limitation.

sincerely
speedyG

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Do you know if the AV400 Grabster uses an off the shelf video capture unit with a custom vendor and ID. I have noticed in most of my research most of the USB capture devices use the same chipset but the software is different.

Thanks,
Corey

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Hello Corey,
i know that there are 2 kinds of drivers availiable to the AV400 Grabster.
The one displays while installation AV400 device
and the other availiable driver displays "Tigerbird".
As far as i remember i have used the device several years ago also with a Linux system
(Suse Linux 9.1 ) and that system detected the device as "Tigerbird" capture device.
But thats´s several years back - so i would not swear on the bible ... maybe i
remember wrong and it was one of the other devices i have used formerly.....

My problem - along the path of past 20 years i have been using at least 25 or 26 different
kinds of Videocards and videodevices due to the fact that i collect movies and rip them off TV or
TV recording systems of various kinds VHS recorders and various digital recievers and decoders and DVD players.
Thereafter i make the DVDs and they are gathered in the collection....

But as far as i also remember in general i have mostly used devices from Hauppauge and
the Terratec was the only device I have used that wasn´t from Hauppauge.... and the Hauppauge
devices have allways been detected by Linux systems as devices from Hauppauge.... therefor
i believe to remember the only device identified as Tigerbird could have been the AV400 Grabster.

The main reason i bought that device was that it also accepts all kinds of S-Video sources
and every kind of exotic videosizes and formats ( even down to 188 X 144 and also old standards
like VCD and SVCD besides the current standards of DVD and therefor also accepts sources like
small handy video units.... and helmet cameras, like those i used while paragliding and
some other outdoor activities...
sincerely
SpeedyG

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Hello Corey,
did you download the stuff, so i may delete it from the site ?
sincerely
speedyG

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Sorry I'll grab it later today or tomorrow morning. Been swamped all day and I'm on my iPhone not at my computer right now.

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Re: Capturing Apple II video with a modern computer

Thanks, I grabbed them...

Cheers,
Corey

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