Optimizing Your PC Hardware for DSV Recording
By Bill Mollon, Digital Imaging Product Manager,
Gatan, Pleasanton, CA

Part II. Recording Parameters Procedure (DigitalMicrograph)

Now that the hardware components have been identified and optimized you will need to make sure there is a proper “match” between the hardware and software settings within DigitalMicrograph. Use the following steps to setup your recording session:

1.	In the Camera View dialog window select the “setup” icon
	a Set the CCD active area so that it is the proper size(720x 480)   b Optimize the frame rate by selecting the defined exposure time for the camera being used (highest frame rate with max. duty cycle)
	c. Open the DSV window, select the setup icon and match the settings for the CCD active area you entered in step 1 (720 x 480). This will be the “Video Size” to be recorded. Failure to do this “matching” will affect the processing speed of your movie authoring software. A mismatch will force the software to interpolate the unmatched frame area and result in dropped frames d. The interval timing allows for the frame rate of the camera to be captured by the digital stream (50ms = 20frames/sec) e. User can also choose to include annotations such as scale bar in the digital stream. Some of the annotations can be in color. Generating BW video stream will shorten the processing time, hence it reduces dropped frames f. Click the OK button and start the stream by clicking “Start Video”

2. Switch your attention now to your 3rd party software that will act as the Movie creation or Authoring program. We now want to “match” certain settings in the Authoring Software (ex. VideoStudio). Locate the setup section for recording/capture and make sure the following settings are in place:

3. Edit your recording

4. Render the recording

5. Save and share your work with others


Summary

Digital video as compared to analog video is higher quality, more flexible, more convenient, faster and cost effective.

Key components to consider in creating your Recording System are Speed of the digital acquisition, RAM memory in the PC, Hard drive space in the PC, Hard drive read/write speed, and application software for editing and authoring your movies.

A RAID 0 or 5 array is necessary to give fast access and write capability for your data save that will help preserve the frame rate that is being captured by the acquisition camera.

Camera System(s) Used

Authoring Software

•	ULEAD® VideoStudio® 9
	o	VideoStudio Editor
	o	Movie Wizard
	o	DV to DVD Wizard
	o	Menus and Authoring
	o	Output File Format Support
			Video: AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Real Media*, Windows Media Format, 3GPP*, 3GPP2*
			Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo, MPA, WAV, Windows Media Format
			Images: BMP, JPG/JPEG/JPE
			Disc: DVD, Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD) movie title
			Media: CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R Dual Layer, DVD+R Double Layer, DVD-RAM (CPRM)

Other 3rd Party Software Tested

What to Learn More? Visit these internet sites for more information on the subjects covered in this article:

www.dell.com PC’s
www.seagate.com Hard drives
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm How a Hard Drive Works (Figure 1 source)
www.ulead.com VideoStudio
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/index.htm What is a RAID?
http://www.virtualdub.org/ VirtualDub utility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_drive What’s a Hard Drive?

Microsoft^®, ULEAD^® VideoStudio^®, Seagate, Dell are registered trademark names of their respective companies.