Trouble with Capture Stage to Disk actor

[Lauri]

Thank you DusX for your reply. Please find attached the sample file. 

In the sample project, there's the scene that is seen in the images in my original post, but I added another scene, where only one file is captured (and supposed to be replaced with same name). In principal I think that should also work. But it also has the same problem of not replacing the file, but instead accumulating files after each round.

The sample project is created in Isadora2.5.2 (MacBookPro OSX10.12.6).

Hopefully you will find a workaround or a solution.

Thanks in advance,

Lauri

sample project.izz

[DusX]

OK, I think you need to ensure that the Capture Stage to Disk inputs only change after 'stop' is triggered, AND before 'start' is triggered.

I added a few Trigger Text, and Trigger Value actors to accomplish this, and believe I have a very messy working version.

I suggest using another Trigger Delay with a very short period after the End Trigger of the Envelope, so that you have a trigger just after the stop is triggered, that can 'push' the input values to the Capture stage to Disk actor, before the 'start' is triggered.

You may even want to daisy chain these to ensure that they always occur in sequence.

[Lauri]

Thanks DusX for the workaround suggestion! I will try it soon.

So this means that there has to be at least two alternating file names, and with a single file name it would not work?

Lauri

[Lauri]

Hi DusX, for some reason I cannot get it working. Would it be possible to get your "messy" working version to try?

Thanks,

Lauri

[DusX]

@Lauri

A couple things, you can't change the capture settings during a capture (this is my experience anyway).
You can't play a file you are saving. So ideally have a version between so you ensure no momentary overlap.

[DusX]

@Lauri

Yes, I will attach the 'messy' file.. I do apologize, its not clean, but it is working.
Only the mulitple file scene (four captures) is adjusted/working.
There is a black out during the switch of movies playing back... I think this could be cleaned up with a crossfade (2 movie players).
Note: a value delay actor worked as an alternative to the second Selector actor (might be more flexible)

liveCaptureTest.izz

[Lauri]

Thanks DusX, yes, I do understand that the capture settings cannot be changed and that the file to be played cannot be the one being saved. Those are logical. That's why I made the project capturing to 4 different files and there was the delay actor too.

Thank you for the file too. I'll look soon how that works.

Best, Lauri

[Lauri]

Sorry DusX, it does not work in my machine. The same accumulation starts to happen (see the attached image). I do not know what is different in our settings/machines? I'm capturing with the default settings (I suppose PhotoJpeg) and Isadora is set to 25fps...

Lauri

[jfg]

Lauri,

I am also interesting in this problem and I tried a lot of different things without success (send to another scene, …). I tried also the proposition of DusX. It doesn't work on my computer too. As soon as you play one of the 4 movies you get the accumulation. The only way is to play another movie (e.g. a number 5) but you don't get what you want and I am looking for. I am cannot say if it is a bug or a normal behavior to protect the registered files but I am also not a Isadora master.

best, Jean-François

[DusX]

OK, so my file and changes where tested on PC.

I have now tested on MAC, and found a couple things (a little tricky to get right).

The Movie Player seems to require being set to 'interactive' (forces the use of the QuickTime engine).
Also, the file must be saved with the 4 movies in the Video bin as 'unassigned' (easiest to pause engine, close Isadora, and select delete the media, and then save the file)

With playback using the QT engine and starting with 'unassigned' video files in the bin, I am getting the desired behaviour.
Besure to not resave the file with link media... if you do, you will need to clear/reset this again by closing Isadora, deleting the media, and saving the file.

@mark this is something to think about moving forward

[Fred]

@DusX check the codec that you ended up with, i did some tests a while ago and the capture (now not 100% if it was stage or camera) was not adhering to the set codec.

[Lauri]

@DusX, thank you, now it works!

@Fred, I used both PhotoJpeg and Uncompressed 8bit 422, and they are captured as supposed (1920x1080) – although frame rate is not the 25fps as set, instead it seems to be what Isadora is able to capture (for instance when prefs set to 50fps, at least one captured file was 46,37fps shown in QuickTimePlayer). For getting the right resolution, I suppose you have to set:

Isadora Preferences/Video/Video Image Processing/Default Resolution: 1920x1080

and

Isadora Preferences/Video/Video Image Processing/When Combining Video: Scale to Default Resolution

and

Isadora Preferences/Stage/Stage1/Aspect: Limit to 16 x 9

(Don't know if that was what you were pointing at?)

[sommerdi]

Hi all,

i have a similar problem, but with capture Camera to Disk .... i need the stage for different propose ...

I would like to capture the camera input into four different video files and replace the content later ...    

but i can't get to run .... i have no clue every hit is more than welcome

Diether

[sommerdi]

sorry here the snapshot of the patch

[Lauri]

I wanted to return to this topic because of some issues – hopefully someone would have an idea to get over the issues.

First, even the capturing works, there’s a visual flaw when the capturing starts/stops: most of the time there appears a black frame (I suppose the first frame), and this black frame gets accumulated to the beginning of the video file leading it to “flicker”. The flicker last longer while the capture generation grows.

I suppose it could be avoided by a fade between the projected files. Hoswever, this is not possible because there’s no “extra” length in the video files that could be time-wise overlapping with each other. 

So, I tried capturing another instance of the stage, but that does not seem to be possible. Isadora is capable of capturing only one camera or stage at a time, right?

The other problem I found is that the capture settings are always reset to default (Photo Jpeg), so changing the capture settings does not really work – if only changing the scene resets the capture settings. It would be useful to use something better than Photo-Jpeg in a cumulaitve video processing.

The third issue I mentioned earlier on this thread is the capture frame rate that does not seem to match with the settings. Let’s say I choose 25fps from the capture settings and 50fps in the Isadora preferences, it results to strange frame rates (like 48,67fps) and the fram rate changes by captured file. Is this a bug in Isadora?

Please, anybody, let me know if there is a solution to the above mentioned issues.

Thanks in advance,

Lauri

[mark]

@DusX 

If there's stuff here I need to solve for v2.6, please write it up as a bug report so I can investigate. (The thread is a bit long for me to digest with everything else I've got to get done.)

Best Wishes,
Mark

[mark]

@lauri said:

First, even the capturing works, there’s a visual flaw when the capturing starts/stops: most of the time there appears a black frame (I suppose the first frame), and this black frame gets accumulated to the beginning of the video file leading it to “flicker”. The flicker last longer while the capture generation grows. I suppose it could be avoided by a fade between the projected files. Hoswever, this is not possible because there’s no “extra” length in the video files that could be time-wise overlapping with each other.

I am testing in v2.5.2 right now, and I see no black frame at the start of the capture. My test was performed on a 1920x1080 source stage window, with the Record Stage Settings set to capture at a custom size of 1280x720

So, I tried capturing another instance of the stage, but that does not seem to be possible. Isadora is capable of capturing only one camera or stage at a time, right?

That is correct. There is one instance of the object that captures the stage, so it can only work with one stage at a time.

The other problem I found is that the capture settings are always reset to default (Photo Jpeg), so changing the capture settings does not really work – if only changing the scene resets the capture settings. It would be useful to use something better than Photo-Jpeg in a cumulaitve video processing.

Well, it turns out this is the way it's been since forever. The Capture Stage To Disk option in the menu used to be a global thing, and so the settings were stored in the Preferences. No one ever complained before, but you're right that these settings should be stored with the Isadora file. For the v2.6 release, the codec, the frame rate, and the Record Stage Settings will all be stored with the Isadora document.

That said, my testing shows that this is setting is remembered as you don't close the file.

1) Choose Output > Compression Settings...
2) Choose Apple Pro Res 422
3) Capture, Capture, Capture... all movies are Apple Pro Res. 

The third issue I mentioned earlier on this thread is the capture frame rate that does not seem to match with the settings. Let’s say I choose 25fps from the capture settings and 50fps in the Isadora preferences, it results to strange frame rates (like 48,67fps) and the fram rate changes by captured file. Is this a bug in Isadora

This is a bug, and I'll fix it. The frame rate, in the end, is determined by the target frame rate as set in the Preferences.

As far as the inaccuracies, it has to do with the rate at which the frames are delivered to the capture component from the main rendering thread. If it can't keep up in terms of delivering the frames, the frame rate may dip below the desired rate. That's much harder to solve, so I may not address it right now. In the end, this feature was intended to deliver excellent real time performance at the sake of some accuracy.

Best Wishes,
Mark

[mark_m]

@mark

While we're on this topic just to remind you that there's one dialogue box in Windows which still doesn't scale properly to the display: it's the output-> compressions setting dialogue box. This has been a long-standing bug and is still present in the latest version. As you can see the dialogue box doesn't quite scale to be able to include all the options, and one cannot size the box in order to do so.
Thanks
Mark

[DusX]

@mark_m said:

This has been a long-standing bug and is still present in the latest version.

 I'm sorry, I take ownership of this oversight. I was aware of this and lost track of it. Thanks for the reminder. I'll get it I to the system right away so that mark can deal with it.

[mark]

@mark_m said:

that there's one dialogue box in Windows which still doesn't scale properly to the display:

Yes, well, I'm not quite sure what to do about that. I'm just telling QuickTime to show the dialog, and it does what it does. Remember: Apple stopped developing QuickTime for Windows years ago. It's not high-DPI aware, etc., etc. So, there may not be a solution for this until we drop QuickTime and I implement this capture stuff natively on Windows. But that's down the pike a little bit.

Best Wishes,
Mark