I have never dealt with video before. I have a simple black and white camera with a composite video output, 1Vpp @ 75Ohm. I need to convert this to some digital format.
Can anyone help lead me down the right path? I have no idea of where to look first.
You need a video decoder that accepts NTSC signal. Most video decoder converts to digital video using BT.656 interface (some sort of protocol in transfering video data). You need a DSP to read this signal and you can further enhance the image if you want. DSP Software engineering is needed though. From the DSP, you can output may be serial or USB or whatever, this depends on your application. You may also use FPGA instead of DSP which is more flexible.
i need a resolution of no more than 400 lines and the output of the camera will be in black and white.
I haven't determined yet the microcontroller. Not being sure how I was going to accomplish this, I didnt determine the necessary need for a microcontroller. If I do need a microcontroller, I will try a pic first, as I'm a very fluent pic programmer.
blue, lets just tackle one issue at a time. the video AD conversion. I understand I need a video decoder to interpret the NTSC signal and output a digital signal of some sort.
Does anyone have any recommendations of which vid decoder is a good one to use for something simple like this?