Snappy ain't for video

Snappy Deluxe 3.0 was an upgrade from Play Inc.'s prior version of snappy which took still pictures of any video source and for the money ($99) was a really good product. Version 3.0 was a $40 SOFTWARE upgrade that made the program capable of capturing video in addition to the stills.

It sucks. It will only capture 5 fps and this information was not provided anywhere in the packaging so you had no warning before you bought it that you were getting crap. You need at least 30-40 fps to get any decent video capture worth looking at. Nowhere in their webpage about 3.0 did they mention the (lack of) video capabilities.

Subject: Snappy ain't for video
From: MADwand@earthling.net
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 00:39:46 GMT
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Don't you people think it might be the least bit important to state that the Snappy Deluxe 3.0 has such a crappy frame rate that it is entirely worthless as a video capture device? If this information had been anywhere on the box, I wouldn't have wasted my time traveling 50 miles to the store to buy it. Now I have to go another 50 miles back there to unload it on the store. 200 miles for nothing. The store clerks actually told me they had heard this thing was crappy (no lie, their words), but couldn't tell me why. At least now I can explain it to them...
Maybe this is something you should spend your "brainstorming" time on, instead of the time you waste coming up with the condescending attitude of your instruction manual.

A: Snappy captures FROM moving video but what Snappy captures is a single super high-quality still image from that moving video. The captured still can then be printed, faxed, e-mailed, databased, presented, or just admired on your screen. Snappy was designed to be the highest resolution image capture device ever created at any price. Coincidentally, Snappy is also the least expensive and easiest-to-use video capture device.

1. This is the FAQ you are directed to from the Snappy Deluxe 3.0 webpage, yet they haven't updated it to show the capabilities of the upgrade (which is not much).

2. They ARE NOT the least expensive and easiest-to-use video capture device. I wound up buying WinTV (from Hauppauge) for $80 which is easy to use, does just as good a job of still capture, and ACTUALLY WORKS for video capture. Plus it's a TV card as well. Their card costs $140. I saved $60 and got MORE for my money!

Also, in case you are wondering, any subsequent version of Snappy after 1.0 is nothing more than a software upgrade. It is the same piece of hardware that they started with. This is the reason the framerate stinks, because it is software driven, instead of hardware driven.