The Digital Media Series
XLR8 InterView USB
Reviewed by: Michael Flaminio
Rating: **
Review Date: 9.27.99
Manufacturer:XLR8
MSRP: $99 (US)
Regular readers to the web site know digital video is one of my favorite topics. I've spent a great deal of time playing with DV and FireWire, and I'll continue to look for new products that push the limits of digital video. But this week, I take a step back and look at a USB video solution, InterView from XLR8.
InterView takes a composite or component video signal and converts it to digital video for USB. InterView is designed for any Mac system with USB, including the Power
Mac G3, iMac,
iBook, PowerBook G3 or any USB upgraded Mac. InterView is ideal for transferring
small video clips or still video pictures to a UBS equipped-Mac. Besides the hardware,
InterView is also bundled with Strata VideoShop 4.5 for video capturing and editing.Inputs
Video can be sent into InterView via either a RCA style composite connector or a s-video style component connector. The difference mainly is quality, with component video offering color separation for crisper images. For audio, users will need to use a provided adapter to connect an audio source into the Mac's microphone port. If a Mac has an alternative audio input, this can also be used, but either way the audio signal is captured separately from the USB video signal. Whenever I showed the device to people, the general response to the audio situation was less than positive. But when you think about it, this is pretty smart. Rather than burdening the limited USB with additional data, InterView saves its USB bandwidth for video alone. This enables users to capture high-quality audio without impacting video quality.
Capture
I tested InterView by capturing about a minute of video.
The
320x240 movie was actually of pretty good quality. I edited the movie down to about
15 seconds for the web and the final uncompressed movie was about 60 MB with a data
rate of about 4.4 MB/sec. I then compressed the movie for web playback, bringing
the size down to 828 KB, with a data rate of about 61 KB/sec. The result was some
pretty spiffy video for a web site or email.
Overall I was pretty impressed with the movie capture part of the device. It worked
well up to 320x240, just as the specs say. The still image capture however is where
InterView fell short. As with the video, InterView captures up to 320x 240 without
any problems. However the specs say the device can capture stills at sizes up to
640x480 pixels. Unfortunately I don't agree. When I grabbed video stills at 640x480,
they were less than presentable. I tried different
ways of capturing stills, but results were the same. Unfortunately full screen video
stills just don't look good with this device.
Operation
InterView was a snap to install. Users only need to install the InterView drivers,
and if needed, VideoShop. The whole thing, including downloading updated drives,
took about 10 minutes. I plugged my video camera into InterView and I was more or
less off and running. The only hitch I came into was that InterView doesn't automatically
recognize from where the video source is coming. I had to go into VideoShop and tell
the capture utility that I was using the s-video connector instead of the composite
connector. I'm kind of familiar with this stuff, so it wasn't too big of a mystery,
but I suspect some users may get tripped up on this. The manual however lists this
as the first troubleshooting item.
Other than the input source, VideoShop never recognized my camera right away.
I often had to go into the capture utility to get it to recognize my video source.
I didn't need to alter the settings or anything, I just needed to open the video
input configuration and it would start working. Also InterView isn't exactly hot-pluggable.
If I unplugged the USB device while watching video in the capture window, I would
need to close and reinitialize the capture utility to get it to work. These are minor
details, but it's just not quite as slick as FireWire.
To control your video, InterView has some 
cool capture controls. VideoShop
has built-in QuickTime image controls, but InterView adds special USB controls. Users
can dedicate the amount of USB bandwidth they wish to use when capturing. Ideally,
I guess this would make InterView operate friendlier with other USB devices on the
same bus. Users can also take advantage of QuickTime's video and audio compressors
for post-compression.
Bottom Line
• InterView is a snap to set up. It can be plugged in all the time, or just when
needed. Also, due to its small size, it can easily fit into a laptop carrying case.
I can best see InterView used for putting pictures or video on the web or in email.
While InterView's quality is no match for FireWire/DV, it is a great solution for
people who just need to get stuff done.
• I am disappointed by the inability to capture good quality 640x480 stills. But
if you're looking for 320x240 pixel stills or video, this should do the job. InterView
has a MSRP of $99, which one of the cheapest way to get video onto your Mac.
• The manuals are pretty slim for the product. I never used VideoShop before and
to be honest, I had no desire to actually use it for editing. The VideoShop CD has
PDF documentation, but that's about all you're going to get. I suspect people who
will be using this product aren't going to be doing complex editing. For the most
part, I'm sure QuickTime's built in editing features will be much easier to use than
VideoShop 4.5.
Pros — Quick and dirty way to get video signals into USB-equipped Macs. Price makes
it a good first step into the world of nonlinear video editing.
Cons — VideoShop/InterView capture controls can be flaky at times. InterView is ideal
in both price and performance for beginner users, but flaky device recognition may
make things a little rough. If you're really looking to capture movies or stills
bigger than 320x240 pixels, look elsewhere.
Requirements:
* Mac OS 8.6 or greater
* Apple iMac or USB Equipped Power Macintosh/G3 at 233 MHz or faster with 20 MB of
application RAM for digitizing.
Equipment:
Power Mac G3 (B/W), iMac
XLR8 InterView
Strata VideoShop
QuickTime 4.0.3
Media Cleaner 4.0
|
|