Image of the day

Captured by
John Roach

Enhanced Uranus showing Polar Cap and possible Aurora

My Account

New to Astromart?

Register an account...

Need Help?

toucam frame rates

Started by EdC, 10/09/2003 03:30PM
Posted 10/09/2003 03:30PM Opening Post
Hi all, I've been playing around with the toucam pro and basically capturing files I think 'look OK' on the laptop. I'm not employing any science regarding settings being rather new to the webcam brigade. In looking through a few sites on the subject I have come across an interesting fact. Apparently the optimum frame rate is 5 fps according to the guy who wrote the software K3CDDtools. Higher frame rates force the capture to default to lower resolutions even though the 640x480 resolution is selected. Too high a frame rate will mean the results are interpolated. I must admit I would try to get as high a frame rate as possible which logic would suggest this is the way to go. Using these facts it would appear a lower frame rate is desirable to ensure the individual captured frames are as representative and uncompressed as possible. I would welcome views on this as most posted images do not generally give this parameter.
Posted 10/09/2003 06:13PM #1
Wow. Great info Eddie!

This must be the web page you're referring to:
http://www.pk3.org/Astro/astrophoto_vesta_pro.htm
The tests were done using a Vesta Pro, but I would
think the results could be the same for the ToUcam
as well

I have been doing all of my video capture
at 30fps, but by looking at the tests, I'll
have to see what kind of results I can get @
5fps.

Thanks,

Derrick
Posted 10/09/2003 08:32PM #2
Eddie,

As I understand it the resolution will not change with
a higher frame rate (a 640x480 will stay 640x480) what
will change is the image compression will increase in
order to keep the data stream low enough for a USB1
port to handle .
The increased image compression will add noise and image artifacts , after taking many images with a Toucam Pro
at 5FPS and 10FPS I have found 10FPS to be a better choice ,to my eyes the slightly more compression of 10FPS is not noticeable and you can double the amount of images
in the same time frame .
You will need a fairly fast computer to image at 10FPS or
you may have to many dropped frames , the attached Mars image taken on 08/23/03 was imaged at 10FPS .

Getting of the subject about 10 days after I took this image I tore the cartilage in my left knee and have not been able to image any since although I think I will be able to in a week or two

Thanks,

Wes Higgins






Attached Image:

Wes Higgins's attachment for post 72012