Daily Giz Wiz 565: Snappy Video Snapshot

Episode 565 of the podcast

Snappy Video Snapshot
Subject: Review of Snappy Video Snapshot
Released:Friday 9 May 2008
Length:about 18 minutes
Download file:dgw0565.mp3 (8.3 MB)

Listen to the episode

Short info

From the Gadget Warehouse: Snappy Video Snapshot.

Detailed information

This is not a reproduction of an Easter Island statue, but a product from the mid 1990's, made by Play Inc, called the Snappy Video Snapshot.  You connected it to a parallel port of the computer.  It had composite video in and out, which you hooked up to a video source such as your VCR or TV set, and when you pressed the Capture button, Snappy Video Snapshot would do a screen capture for you.  It would also cost you $199.
It was ranked 39 in PC World's 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years in 2005.  The latest iteration of this product was Snappy 4.0, still available at the time of writing on Amazon.

Play Inc went on to create the Trinity Video System.  One of its CEOs, Paul Montgomery, had previously worked with Tim Jenison at NewTek, which produced the Video Toaster, and now makes the TriCaster, a video switching system which Leo has just bought for the TWiTLive.

Here's a clip, from 1990, from the TV programme Computer Chronicles (from www.archive.org), with Paul Montgomery and Tim Jenison showing a demonstration of the Video Toaster on an Amiga.

Two years later came the Video Toaster 2.0.  Here's the promotional video to show what it was capable of in 1992.
[play video]

Gotcha

Jonas from Norway enjoyed Episode 556's Gotcha, as he loves pranks and jokes with his gifts.  However, he hasn't needed to use Gotcha yet, since all he needs to do is give his friend one of Leo's TTTT gadgets like the toothpick bird.  Cheaper too.

Law and Order

Woody Allen finally decided not to use Dick's boat for his next film after all, but Dick's boat will now appear in Law And Order.  Dick will tell us about it next week.  Meanwhile, you can read about it on Dick's website.

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