Export video without SaveFrame?

Core Library Questions

paraclete..

Export video without SaveFrame?

in Core Library Questions • 6 months ago

Hey,

I'm working on a simple Processing app/toy for some preschoolers to play with, which uses the Kinect to let the kids make green-screen style videos in front of a virtual backdrop, and wear their own digital "costumes" through head-tracking. It works pretty well, and the kids are having fun with it.

I'm interested in adding functionality that will let the kids record short videos of their performances. Because I'd like it to be relatively intuitive for the kids (and other less tech-savvy teachers I may share this program with), exporting frames via SaveFrame and then combining them into a video with another tool is an option I'd like to avoid. With Processing 2.0 are there any options for exporting a reasonably-sized video as a video file rather than a series of saved frames? Or is there a way, in code, to access the MovieMaker tool and have it turn the frames into a video file automatically within the program after they stop recording.

(While I want the students to be able to play independently with the tool, I plan on including safeguards in the program that will keep them from eating up the entire hard drive by recording videos - no need to caution me on that front. My first priority is to find if there's a user-friendly way to export video from a Processing application, THEN I'll start dialing back and adding limits and things.)

Replies(6)

amnon.owed

Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

6 months ago

Recording video of a realtime application at a decent resolution doesn't really work with Processing.

The best alternative is to use a program like Fraps (or similar).

paraclete..

Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

6 months ago

I'm aware of screencasting tools, though that would add a layer of difficulty and distance that I think would keep the kids from being able to do it autonomously.

If Processing well and truly has cut out video capture capabilities, I may just keep the tool as-is (as a performance 'toy' rather than a video creation tool), and perhaps later try porting it to a similar but more powerful system like OpenFrameworks (if that can do video capture - I honestly don't know).

amnon.owed

Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

6 months ago

Yeah. If you are on a mac, perhaps Syphon could be a viable option to include the capture from within the Processing sketch: http://syphon.v002.info/

rbrauer

Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

6 months ago

I have a rough solution that calls FFMpeg from Processing to capture directly to video from OpenGL sketches. https://forum.processing.org/topic/realtime-sketch-output-video-capture
I may improve it in the future. If you want to tweak it or use it as is feel free.

scootsull..

Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

6 months ago

I'm actually working through this exact problem- I initially found UMovieMaker but I tested that out last night and the files were HUGE 3.8 gigs for a quicktime movie that's less than a minute and a half. This is what I got from Vimeo when I uploaded it:

I found another library: GSVideo, which I'm gonna try out tonight, it has a lot more control over video quality and output format- I'm hoping it'll work for both of us!

mariuswatz

Re: Re: Export video without SaveFrame?

3 months ago

The movies from the UMovieMaker beta release are encoded with Quicktime Animation, which is lossless, quick to export and easily processed to other formats. It means huge files, but that's not UMovieMaker's fault.

If you need lossless compression you can re-rencode files as QT PNG, for Vimeo or web use you can use H264 which will give you radically smaller (but lossy) files. There are several Open Source compression tools to choose from, or you can use Adobe Media Encoder, QT Pro etc.

Top Reply