LEAD Capture and Convert
by Mark Shapiro

Every once in a while we come across a very nice utility program that does a bunch of specific tasks very well. In this case, capturing and converting audio, video and still image files. LEAD Capture and Convert is a very cool product for those running Windows 98/ME/2000/XP.

Even if you already have a video and graphics editing program, you can benefit from LEAD Capture & Convert’s additional features. In many ways this is a video editing program which does everything except edit and trim clips – you can capture video, add effects and text to it, and then output the finished clip in a variety of formats as well as extract still images from video and convert video file formats. It includes lots of cool effects filters- many that are not available on other video and graphics packages.

For $69, LEAD Capture and Convert is really two products packaged together

LEAD Capture is used to capture sound and video from any kind of capture device connected to your computer including digital video (DV) camcorders, digital cameras, web cams, etc. Use LEAD Convert is used to change existing audio and video files to other formats using a variety of customized compression options.

Capture and Convert includes over thirty powerful Direct Show filters to process audio and video during capture, conversion or playback. These include changing the size and/or orientation of videos, cropping videos, and fun video effects such as Emboss, Ghost, Aging, Motion Blur, Fire, and many more.

You can also improve the quality of videos using deinterlace, gamma correction, sharpen, brightness, contrast, and other filters as well as create and apply text and/or video overlays to videos. For audio, you can control volume and add audio effects such as Echo, Phaser, Chorus and more.

In addition to the above LEAD effects, you can also use any video or audio effect installed on your machine as well as any other 3^rd party effect. A maximum of 255 video and 255 audio effects can be applied to any one clip.

 To provide consistent conversion results, you can also set up customized conversion batch files.

Lead Capture

With LEAD Capture you can capture streaming or still images and sound from DV camcorders and web cameras, audio devices and video, TV tuner and DVR cards.

Other capabilities include:

• Schedule recordings to run unattended.

• Add different audio and video effects during capture.

• Encode multimedia files using any available codec installed on the computer

• Use hardware compression for video and audio as supported by the capture card.

• Capture a wide range of still image formats from an existing video file or during capture from a video source.

• Set time limit for captures and preview the video during capture.

• Control DV camcorders from the LEAD Capture application.

• Control TV Tuner from with in the application.

• Create customized capture profiles with its own capturing settings and devices, so you do not need to setup your capturing devices every time you need to capture.

LEAD Convert 

LEAD Convert is an easy to use yet powerful and full-featured multimedia converter. Use LEAD Convert to:

• Convert a batch of audio and video files from one format to another. LEAD Convert supports most graphic and audio file formats, as well as most common video file formats except for proprietary formats like RealVideo and DivX.  LEAD Convert can convert any file format supported by DirectShow. A maximum of 255 video and 255 audio effects can be applied to any one profile or clip.

• One of the real strengths of LEAD Convert is the support of many rare and esoteric file formats. See below.

• Compress audio and video files.

• Apply audio and video effects during conversion.

• Extract a media stream out of a file.

• Create a multimedia file out of a portion of another file.

LEAD Convert supports a large number of source file types:

LEAD Convert supports several output multimedia file types:

Create still image files from a video file or during capture.

For information or to buy LEAD Capture & Convert, go to the web site www.leadtools.com