Video Recording (For Real, no GUI)

[acherry]

Originally Posted by snazzy

joy i got a working video with sound, thanks to your instructions acherry. I installed the services, restarted the phone, and ran the script. Used prism to convert it and came out nicely, minus the fast video. I'll keep trying for a nice product and will post.

freaking awesome!!!!

My labors were not in vain..

PLEASE post your results asap..

[ivan1.ruiz]

wow thanks for the info. this is still alpha stages though. I cant wait until we get it by installing patches on the device or apps. OR until palm gives us an update..lol

[Snazzy]

I accidentally recorded my video upside down so i recorded another quick one. Its processing on youtube now. I'll post a link once its done.
Still gotta figure out how to sync the audio/video though.

Update: Here's my first half-decent video with sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsLiPeqPdks

[acherry]

Originally Posted by Snazzy

I accidentally recorded my video upside down so i recorded another quick one. Its processing on youtube now. I'll post a link once its done.
Still gotta figure out how to sync the audio/video though.

Update: Here's my first half-decent video with sound.
YouTube - Palm Pre Video Test 2

Sweeet!!
The issue with the fast framerate has something to do with obtaining the a proper .MP4 container: http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...ml#post1952967

and

http://forums.precentral.net/web-os-...ml#post1953881

Thanks NickDG

Again, I'm not a developer, I'm just a geek (telecom is my specialty) utilizing my unemployement time. :-(
How I got my video/sound to sync is beyond me. It was a fluke.. But it does show that it CAN work. The rest is up to you coding cats (or Palm,, hmmph..)..

Thanks Snazzy for the post and the kudos..

[acherry]

Originally Posted by ivan1.ruiz

wow thanks for the info. this is still alpha stages though. I cant wait until we get it by installing patches on the device or apps. OR until palm gives us an update..lol

As long as we continue proving the concept,, it'll happen..
Didin't they say something like that in Field of Dreams?

LOL.. I crack myself up, I do..

[mk3]

Awesome... can't wait!

[robert23]

how did u get video with sound

[Snazzy]

I followed acherry's post #481 just a few above, he explains it with a good amount of detail.
Here are a few things that i feel should be noted though, which some people would already know, but they werent explicitly written and caused me issues.

After installing the videorec app and service (found here) via WebOS Quick Install or however you do it, remember to restart your phone.

Once that's done, then go back in terminal and make sure the Pre is in rw mode before trying to record, so do a
mount -o remount,rw /
otherwise you'll get errors.
The rest is in acherry's very nice tutorial above.

[johncc]

@Snazzy

Are you saying that you can consistently get sound?

[Snazzy]

So far its been that way in every video i've recorded, a little choppy here and there but decently clear. However its mono, and only plays through my left speaker.

Also, the video for me has been recording at a fast rate (like for many other people) while the sound records normally, so that when i play it back, the video ends while the sound is still playing, hence the sound for the end of the clip is cut off. Once we can figure out a way to have the video record at a normal rate, then that should solve this problem.

[Snazzy]

Ok here's another video i put together, my last for tonight.

Here i take a video of my Pre recording a video for more testing purposes. I add in the Pre's recording on top as soon as i run the start command and I adjusted the speed of the Pre's recording so that it ends when i run the kill command. This should make the two videos synced throughout the whole clip. However, they will go out of sync and come back together, meaning the Pre's recording rate seems to change throughout the video. (I highly doubt this is an issue with my video editing software.)

Lemme know what you guys think. Could be due to the fact that i was running the phone app at the same time, but if anything it should slow the recording down, not speed it up like it does in the video.

YouTube - Palm Pre Video Recording Test 2

And i just realized, i think its sick that the phone can record video and run all its other capabilities at the same time with no lag.

[HaDAk]

The thought came to mind... having the option to record video without preview could be very useful in the recovery of a lost or stolen pre. If you have dyndns set up on it, you could ssh in, start the recording, copy the file, and see what you've picked up. Couple that with the script that pulls your GPS location and throws it up on a google map... oh, this could be fun. *evil genius laugh*

[ipalmpreo]

ok, simple question why cant you use the cameras caption to see wut your shooting, but make it smaller..? an apply it to the video recorder app? can n e one tell me the location of the videorecorder app to modify the code, like..cd /usr/palm/applications/com.palm.app.??

[Snazzy]

Having the camera app open would be a good way to see what you're recording! I dunno why i never ran that app while shooting.

And as far as i can tell, its not an its own app like the picture camera is. There's no straightforward video camera app or service, which is what's making this so difficult to throw together a quick app for this. Correct me if i'm mistaken, this is just my speculation from whats going on. It seems like Jason and Yokken and them are using a service on the phone called GStreamer along with another service called palmvideoencoder together to make it work. (See available packages here) GStreamer captures all the raw data from the camera while the palmvideoencoder 'roughly' packages it into an mp4 file. The problem is creating a working container/codec to make it playable right on the Pre without having to convert it with another program like Prism or youtube, which is what i think they're working on now. That and the capture rate issue.

Hope that helps.

[ird]

Gstreamer isn't a service, it's an audio/video framework.

[Snazzy]

Thanks ird. As always, if you guys see anything incorrect with anything i post please comment. I'm not really too familiar with all the components in this, but im learning as i go.

[osaru]

Loving this thread!
By page 1, I was intrigued.
By page 5, I had something to test.
By page 15, I was wondering why people didn't seem to be reading the whole thing.
By page 20, I had downloaded the SDK.
By page 25, I am wondering if I could migrate some coding knowledge to assist.

Excellent work guys

[texasjack]

Is the app working on webos1.2.1?

[psenecka]

This thread was a rollercoaster of emotions.

Thanks to all the developers for spending their free time on this project. I can't wait until a polished version is available

[Prenosicator]

Originally Posted by Snazzy

Having the camera app open would be a good way to see what you're recording! I dunno why i never ran that app while shooting.

And as far as i can tell, its not an its own app like the picture camera is. There's no straightforward video camera app or service, which is what's making this so difficult to throw together a quick app for this. Correct me if i'm mistaken, this is just my speculation from whats going on. It seems like Jason and Yokken and them are using a service on the phone called GStreamer along with another service called palmvideoencoder together to make it work. (See available packages here) GStreamer captures all the raw data from the camera while the palmvideoencoder 'roughly' packages it into an mp4 file. The problem is creating a working container/codec to make it playable right on the Pre without having to convert it with another program like Prism or youtube, which is what i think they're working on now. That and the capture rate issue.

Hope that helps.

Before I state anything, please understand I'm not doing this to 'correct' you, and I appreciate you trying to explain things to those here. I'm just clarifying for effectiveness.

Gstreamer is a video (or more accurately, media pipeline) framework, as mentioned earlier. palmvideoencoder is not a service, but instead it's an element taken from a proprietary Palm binary gst plugin ('gst-inspect palmvideoencoder' for more info, including element properties). The 'gst-launch' utility is NOT MADE FOR PRODUCTION VIDEO RECORDING. It is simply a debug utility, and use any other way is opposed to what the utility was written for, which is part of the issues some are having. The camsrc element is also Palm written, but the source is released GPLv2 (opensource.palm.com) as it is based on an older version of a v4l2 gst plugin. Although the original plugin was written to produce RAW data, this derivitive does not, in the pure sense. It instead, produces data with very specific capabilities (resolution, framerate, and angle), as well as adds a second pad for the still camera. It is also very old, and has multiple bugs (the main one being the duration/time-stamp issue) which stops muxers from working properly (because they don't know when to start). The other main muxing problem is the lack of the -e switch in this older version of Gstreamer (because then they don't know when to stop). The palmvideoencoder element also DOES NOT package, or contain, or 'mux', anything at all. It simply takes the stream given from camsrc and produces a 'sort of' h264 (or 263, or mpeg4, depending on property chosen) compatible output.

That being said, if you played around enough with some caps, you could probably get your 'current' method of doing things working a little better.

I currently have multiple source driver, encoder, and muxer elements playing fairly well together, enough to start work on a service/application. Just don't expect anything spectacular to start. There's a reason Palm had to write their own camsrc driver and palmvideoencoder encoder, and circumventing these to get good muxing results causes other various issues. But I should have _something_ working very soon.

If anyone has any knowledge on this subject, and wants to help with development, please PM me or go to #webos-internals on freenode.