Trouble making a video of my sketch running

Core Library Questions

zen.webb

Trouble making a video of my sketch running

in Core Library Questions • 2 years ago

I know variations of this question has been asked many, many times, and that everyone is aware of the various limitations with Processing / Java's ability to output videos, but I was hoping to get some pointers and advice based on what I've already tried.

The program I am wanting to capture is an audio visualizer I developed for a musician friend of mine, so I need in particular to get the video to sync up with the audio. I am using Minim to play (and analyze) audio in real-time to make an icosohedron respond to music in various ways.

I have already tried:

- Using saveFrame() to output image sequences, then importing these into virtualdub to make a video. I tried using jpg and bmp images, but still the quality was too low (too many artifacts and ghosting).

- Using an external screen capture program. In particular, I tried virtualdub (never got it to work), CamStudio (horrible discoloration issues, not meant for high quality vids) and a couple really obscure and terrible apps. None of them would output decent quality videos, even with all the configuration / settings maxed out.

- Using MovieMaker to output a .mov file, then converting this into an .avi and importing to Windows Live Movie Maker (I know, I feel dirty too). The quality seems OK, but the video is much shorter than the audio file being used (about 1/4 the duration). I am using the following parameters to instantiate MoveiMaker:

mm = new MovieMaker(this, width, height, "ico.mov", 30, MovieMaker.ANIMATION, MovieMaker.HIGH);

By the way, I am limiting my sketch to 30fps by using frameRate()

Honestly, I am not biased towards any particular method of getting videos made of my sketches,so anything is acceptable! I use Win7 64-bit, and do not have access to a Mac.

Does anyone have any advice about how I can create videos of my work to share on sites like YouTube or Vimeo (HD would be fantastic, but SD would be OK, as long as the quality isn't too bad and the audio + video matches up).

Thanks!

Replies(8)

PhiLho

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

2 years ago

saveFrame(): Jpeg's quality is indeed not optimal in most cases (although at the end, you will get a Jpeg-like compression of your movie, but perhaps you can control better the quality, and there is no point to cumulate artifacts). BMP shouldn't have artifacts, but the files are large. You should use PNG, actually. No quality loss, reasonable sizes.

MovieMaker: don't expect a real-time export. Sketches being recorded are much slower. frameRate isn't important here. You must record without playing sound, concentrating on the number of frames you generate, instead.

zen.webb

Re: Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

2 years ago

I just tried PNG, and still there is noticeable banding across some gradients and glowing effects. Event when I bring this newly generated PNG image sequence into virtualdub and try to make an AVI, the frames are choppy and animations are slower than they should be.

How can I concentrate on the number of frames generated in MovieMaker? Since I'm using Minim's FFT analysis to generate the visuals, I don't think I can not play the audio.

Another thing I tried recently was using Fraps to capture the video, and the quality from this was quite good. However, it generated a 1.6GB AVI file (!!), and I have been unable to transcode it to a format suitable for upload to a site like Vimeo. Still, the initial results from Fraps have been the most promising so far, just having troubles converting it.

Sparkling..

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

bump!

I have the same problem, trying to get vids of my works with processing but fraps isn't free, is there a *free* way to get a decent window capture that records the audio as well?

Jesse Sco..

Re: Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

You're on WIndows ?

There's like 85++ apps !?!

Google ?

Jesse Sco..

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

On Windows, Fraps is the best capture app I've come across...

In terms of the size, 1.6gb is fairly reasonable. For Vimeo, with a free account, you have to get it under 500mb... and maybe a .mov ? Try converting it with FFMPEG, or even out of MovieMaker. Or... download a month trial of Adobe Premiere.... Vimeo will eventually convert your video to h264, so if you can convert it to that, it should give you a reasonable quality (though likely accentuate any artifacts) and a fairly small size ~ 200mb or so.

Jesse Sco..

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

*If* either of you were on Mac, I also would suggest integrating Syphon to your sketch and using the recorder with that...

Sparkling..

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

Thanks Jesse, I'll try get the trial version of Fraps just to see, I found Total Screen Recorder too, actually my problem is that all the freewares I tried didn't let me choose what device I want to record audio from, and all of them recorded what was beeing sent to my motherboard soundcard which I don't use, I'll post the results.

zen.webb

Re: Trouble making a video of my sketch running

1 years ago

I have tried about a dozen different free screen capture programs for Windows, and let me tell you, every single one of them is terrible. Most of them make pretty low quality videos, or have some sort of quirk or another that makes it incompatible with recording Processing sketches. A lot of them actually place big watermarks on your videos or have 'trial periods' that make them unusable.

Fraps is OK, but as Jesse noted, it generates big files. You will then need to transcode them into another format (and thus lose quality, usually). I like Handbrake for this.

All in all, I've never been able to make a video that looks crisp and clear like how Robert Hodgin's videos usually look: http://vimeo.com/flight404

Right now, I'm really just waiting for Processing 2.0 to come out, which I hear might have some better video recording capabilities built into it. We'll see.

Top Reply