John Walkosak
08-20-2004, 05:00 PM
<img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_04.gif" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Video Capture (no, really!)<br /><b>Manufacturer:</b> <a href="http://www.lifeview.com/">Lifeview Inc.</a><br /><b>Where to Buy:</b> <a href="http://www.mobileplanet.com/private/pocketpcthoughts/product.asp?dept%5Fid=6230&pf%5Fid=MP760094&listing=1">MobiPlanet</a><br /><b>Price:</b> $89.95 USD<br /><b>System Requirements:</b> 81.8k for the Drivers and Testing Utility, IA FlyCapture 763.1k, IA Album 1075.9k, IA Vmail 588.1k. The Drivers and testing utilities must be installed to main memory; the IA applications can be installed to a card.<br /><b>Specifications:</b> Dimensions: 49mm x 81mm x 12mm; Weight: 20g; Video Input: Composite video, S video, NTSC/PAL; Video Size: 160 x 120, 180 x 136, 320 x 240; Frame rate: 30fps; Video Size: 160 x 120, 180 x 136; Compression: Motion-JPEG ; File Format: AVI (sync with audio), GIF, IAV; Snapshot Image Resolution: 160 x 120, 176 x 144, 320 x 240, 352 x 288, 352 x 240, 720 x 480, 720 x 576; File Format: BMP, JPG, GIF; Color Depth: 24 bit colors<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Software is very easy to use;<br /><li>Hardware connections are clean and simple;<br /><li>It does everything it reports to.<b>Cons:</b><li>Dongle is separate from CF card;<br /><li>I had to find another cable to connect to my camera<b>Summary:</b><br />We have all seen items reviewed on Pocket PC Thoughts that evoke the phrase “W?BIC!” which translates to “Why? Because I Can!” One would think that an accessory which performs video capture on a Pocket PC would certainly fall into this category, but on second glance, you might be selling the FlyGrabber CF short...<br /><br />Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>What It Is</b></span><br />The FlyGrabber CF compactflash video capture accessory is the model of simplicity. Along with the software (which I will cover in a moment) you get a fairly large compact flash adapter, which in turn has its own dongle to connect to your video camera via S-video and RCA audio. One minor complaint I have with the dongle is the fact that the S-Video connector is female. The S-video port on my camera is also female, and this required me to carry a male-to-male adapter - not a big gripe, but it makes me carry just another thing-a-ma-bob.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_01.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 1: What you get...Software, Manuals, CF card video capture card, and cable dongle.</i> <br /> <br /><span><b>The Software</b></span><br />The software suite is nearly identical to that which comes with the FlyCam CF compact flash camera attachment. You will receive IA Capture, IA Album, an IA Vmail, along with a configuration and testing utility.<br /><br />The testing software is pretty intuitive: It tests the connections between the video source and the Pocket PC adapter. You will use this the first time you connect everything, but not much thereafter.... <br /><br />IA Vmail program is predominately what you will use to grab video from your video source. The software allows you to choose capture size, configure some of the audio, adjust brightness, etc., and save everything as an AVI file. This software is positioned as allowing you to create a file that you can send to someone via email, but I am not sure about the practicability of this. Emailing a multiple megabyte file even from a Pocket PC Phone Edition may not be a great idea. But the software itself works very well. Notice that I said "video source" - you don't have to just attach it to a camcorder. It will take audio and video from any s-video and RCA connections.<br /><br /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_04.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 2: IA VMail interface.</i> <br /><br />The software saves the video into .AVI format. Keep in mind that the Pocket PC media player does not allow for the playback of .AVI files, so to play the movies on the Pocket PC you will need to install a third party video player that can handle them.<br /><br />I mentioned above the similarity to the software suite that came with the FlyCAM CF camera; similar, but not identical. Somewhat disappointingly, you have to have a specific version of the each title for each piece of hardware. This is not a major drawback, rather a minor inconvenience. I use the FlyCAM almost everyday, and this version of software is always on my SD card, but now I will need to have a separate copy of IA Capture, Vimail, and Album installed for the Flygrabber. The software is not a huge resource hog, but it would be nice not to have to carry duplicate software.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>Usability</b></span><br />I performed my tests using my iPAQ 2215, and a Sharp ViewCam (look, I spend all of my money on Pocket PC gadgets, and don’t have much left over for video gear). <br /><br />I made a recording of a potential project site, complete with some narration as I walked around the site. Obviously, none of this was Oscar winning commentary or filming, but it is indicative of the kind of stuff I would use the setup for. <br /><br />I started this review a little tongue and cheek saying the FlyGrabber could be seen as a “W?BIC!” type of device. And really, at 4mb for a 2 minute movie, I certainly am not going to transfer a feature length film to my Pocket PC. But that is not really what this device is for.<br /><br />A fair portion of my work involves documenting some existing conditions. Much of this I will want to keep on the Hi-8 cassettes which are used by my video camera, simply because the movies are not very important, and are only needed until the project is completed. Within these movies, there is a small portion which may be of some importance. That is why I love the FlyGrabber: I don’t need to worry about moving the entire movie to my computer, and take up space. I can just grab the portion of the video I find important and keep that piece handy, always with me on my iPAQ, but what’s better, I can do this in the field. This has uses not only in the construction field, but I can see this as being of great use for real estate professionals, insurance adjusters, etc.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_02.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Here is my setup; the camera on the left is hooked up via an audio cable and an S-Video cable to the dongle on the CF card. It is hard to see in the photo, but the image on the camera is the same as the image on the Pocket PC. </i><br /><br />I connected the FlyGrabber CF card to my iPAQ, connected the cables from the FlyGrabber to the video camera, and turned everything on. Using the video mail portion of the software I saw exactly what was on the camera, and could very easily control which portions of the video I wanted to use.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>All This and Stills Too!</b></span><br />Not only can you extract video into the Pocket PC, but you can use the IA Capture software to grab stills from the video information – just watch the video playing in the window, and hit the capture button at the desired point, just like using the IA Capture program with regular camera hardware. The results aren’t amazing, but they are pretty good considering that they are frame grabs.<br /><br />You can use the IA Capture software to grab stills from the video source in a variety of resolutions and file types. You can also grab some video using IA Capture, but it is a proprietary format that you will need IA Capture to view. <br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_05.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 4: IA Capture interface. Clicking on the camera icon will take you from stills to video (in a proprietary format...).</i><br /><br />IA Capture can also be used to capture video, but it saves them into the proprietary .iav format, which you will need to view from within the IA Capture software.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/2003/walkosak_jul04_flygrabber_03.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 5: IA Capture video player interface. </i><br /> <br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />The FlyGrabber may be a niche product, but it does exactly what it says it will and it does it quickly and easily.