Most people use their webcams on a transient basis, chatting with friends and family, maybe setting up a live nannycam, or snapping a few still photos on occasion. But you can also record video with most USB and FireWire webcams. And you can do it right within Easy Media Creator 10 using the Media Import tool. Once captured, you can edit your clips with VideoWave, use them in DVD projects, and send them to your iPod, videophone, or even YouTube.
Capturing Webcam Video
First, open Media Import from the Creator home screen, then click on the Video button at the top. After connecting your camera and turning it on (if necessary), choose it from the drop-down list of video sources. You should then see a live video preview start up. You can also connect full-fledged camcorders, not just Webcams.
The Media Import window shows a live preview of your Webcam recording.
From there, you can adjust recording and picture enhancement options, such as hue, contrast, brightness and sharpness, and set a recording duration. Also make sure the Capture Settings menu is at the highest quality your camera will support. Here, we've chosen the DVD HQ option, which provides a similar resolution and bit rate to commercial DVDs. Finally, choose a file name and destination for your recording, then click the Capture Now button.
Capture as many clips as you like in this manner. The clips will appear in the media browsing pane to the right of the capture pane. Once you've finished capturing, use your clips in DVD projects, or use the Video Compilation feature in Disc Copier to convert them to iPod or cellphone format.
Converting Webcam Clips for Portable Players, YouTube & More
Webcam video is usually lower resolution and quality than that of digital camcorders, making it ideal for playback on the small screens of portable players and YouTube. Creator 10's handy video conversion utility lets you convert clips in a snap.
The video converter translates between all standard formats, including MPEG1 (Video CD), MPEG2 (DVD), MPEG4 (Video iPod), MPEG HD, MPEG Transport Streams, 3GP (cell phone), DivX, WMV, MOV (QuickTime), TiVo, and Media Center PC TV recordings. So you can convert pretty much anything to the portable format used by your device. Presets for popular players like the iPod and PSP take the guesswork out of format settings. You can even batch convert a whole folder full of video files at once.
To start the process, click the Video tab in the main Creator window and choose Convert Video to open the DVD Copy & Conversion utility. Use the Add Movies button as many times as needed to make a list of all the video files you'd like to convert, then choose the appropriate output format (such as "3GP" for your cell phone or "iPod" for your music player) and location in the right-hand pane. You can send video directly to supported portable devices if they’re attached. Be sure to save your export options as a template (with the Options button), so you can use it every time you send video to your device.
Disc Copier includes a versatile video conversion utility.
Want to save the clip for upload to YouTube video on your iPod? Choose the H.264 format, and use letterboxing (in the Options window) if your source is widescreen, otherwise YouTube will squeeze it.
That's all there is to it! You've captured Webcam video and saved it to play back on your portable player or the Internet. If you'd like to edit the video more extensively, use VideoMaker, the full-featured timeline video editor included with Creator.