Best quality Grabs/Stills from XH-A1
 

Esteemed gentlemen, (and ladies), a belated Happy New Year to you all.

I have some footage, shot in 25p with the XH-A1, from which I have to extract a couple of stills, or grabs. My efforts, with the Videostudio Pro X2, have thus far been disappointing, probably because the person is walking quite quickly. This is not something that I normally concern myself with but I have to find a couple of half-decent pictures for the PRESS, of an individual that I have filmed. Probably every 10th frame produces a half-decent image, but even then I'm noy impressed. I have seen some good stills, grabbed from motion video taken with this camera, alas; not yet with mine!!

I am uncertain as to the best means of obtaining the crispest footage, and would wholeheartedly welcome any advice.

Kindest wishes,
Mike

I had a similar problem to this a few months ago. I couldn't figure out how to obtain a still jpg image from footage in Sony Vegas so re-installed my old copy of Pinnacle Studio 11 which I have taken stills from very easily in the past.

Quality is a subjective issue, you are never going to get 'normal' stills quality from the captured frame, in my case mine was taken from HDV at 50i - I don't know if that is the same, better or worse than 25p for taking stills.

To be practical, I am not sure if the many and varied NLE's are going to be able to capture a frame any better, if the quality is not there, nothing will put it there! Except, perhaps jiggling with contrast and gamma in Photoshop to 'enhance' an image, but it isn't going to make the true image clearer - you will not be able to suddenly view facial features that were not there before.

It is unfortunate that we don't have - in reality - the supposed techniques of the CSI crime lab that can take a crap section of footage from a cctv camera, at night, of a car 100yrds away and zoom in to get a wonderful hi-res image - if only!

I don't think I'm fooling myself here but I feel I get my best (post filming) stills from the camera itself.

I play back the recorded tape in the camera and pause it on and off until I see the shot I want in the lcd. Then I take a snap (while it's paused) with the photo button.

Works for me.

Yeah, OK, that works! [why didn't I think of that?] but, just remember nobody likes a smart arse :-))
I guess sometimes the answer is staring you in the face

Bill. You are quite possibly a leading contender for 2010's problem solved award! Why in god's name didn't I think of that???!!!

Have you compared the quality using this method, Bill?