News and New Products

Frame grabber combines compression, motion detection

By Warren Webb, Technical Editor -- EDN, 10/17/2007

If your next design deals with video from an analog source, you may want to consider using a frame grabber, which provides a quick and easy way to capture and digitize the video. For example, Sensoray’s latest USB model 2251 frame grabber converts an NTSC- or PAL-composite analog-video source into an MPEG stream along with optional synchronized audio all in 1.5×3.5-in. form factor. Users can adjust the resolution and bit rate to optimize picture quality and storage requirements. You can adjust the output resolution from 320×240 to 720×480 pixels at 30 frames/sec. The bit rate is continuously variable to 6 Mbps. Users can select MPEG1-, MPEG2-, or MPEG4-compression or can capture frames in JPEG format. The 2251 also supports motion detection in three user-programmable regions of interest. For each separate region, the user can adjust the motion-detection sensitivity and localize the motion to a 16×16-pixel block.

The 2251 includes a software-development kit with support for both Linux- and Windows-based computers. The 2251 frame grabber is available now with prices starting at $226.