CompuServe Messages

Eric, Hi. You do have a kind of tricky application there. I'll take my best shot at it. I am not aware of _any_ video cards for the IBM & compatibles that will both overlay an external video source and, at the same time, output the combined VGA screen with the overlaid video source. Now, that does not mean that one does not exist… I can think of two ways to do this. One is to use a camcorder that will allow you to video computer screens with a refresh rate that is not a multipe of 3.54xxyyzz kHz (NTSC), ie. SVGA, and just video the computer screen to tape and then use conventional editing techniques to edit with that tape. I think these camcorders are somewhat expensive, however. The second solution would be to go ahead and get a "switcher" that will allow you to do picture-in-picture, without relying on one board to do the overlay and encoding. You could take one computer and encode its output as an NTSC input to the switcher, and then take your other video source as a second input to the switcher and then use the switcher to do a positionable picture in picture type of effect. I had not heard of Lotus SmartCam yet, can you describe it to me? -John