recording from a webcam, cheese, vlc

[Ian Malone]

Hi,

I'm trying to record from a webcam and getting terrible performance
from Cheese and problematic performance from VLC. Is anyone able to
either tell me how to get one of them working properly or suggest
another app that will work? Details (hardware at bottom)

Cheese cheese-2.30.1-1.fc13.x86_64, nice, simple to use. Recording
performance is awful. The booth framerate is fine, but as soon as I
start recording it drops dramatically (going from frames per second to
seconds per frame). VLC's ability to encode to the same target -
Theora/Vorbis (but see below) and the fact I can do this under windows
with the movie maker suggest a Cheese problem. Resolution is at
640x480 (which is what VLC and move maker are using), dropping to
355x288 is okay. This cheese bug seems to be related
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564957 but not resolved.
Anyone using F14 with good performance for cheese video recording?

VLC vlc-1.1.7-1.fc13.x86_64. Less friendly, for a start I haven't been
able to get it to capture by specifying devices in the capture dialog.
If I just open capture and hit play I get video and sound. I can use
/dev/video0 as the video input and after a bit of trial and error
(using debug mode I realise it was using alsa device names) pulse for
the audio device, but if I attempt to use the capture device advance
options (with or without specifying /dev/video0):
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'v4l2://'. Check the log for details.

~/.xsession-errors has this:
[0x7f2dfc0044e0] v4l2 demux error: invalid tuner -1.
[0x7f2dfc008240] v4l2 access error: invalid tuner -1.
[0x7f2e08008590] main input error: open of `v4l2://' failed: (null)

(Or tuner 0 which is what it defaults to, tried -1 as this appears to
be auto for other params)

But capturing to theora/vorbis results in video and audio playing at
different speeds, the default (which seems to be the ALSA hw device)
has video faster than audio, capturing to the default (mp4) or webm is
okay, using pulse and /dev/video0 webm video is slower than audio...
and so on. This most successful approach so far is to open the device
in play mode, use the 'advanced controls' record button and capture
uncompressed a/v to avi the transcode later. This would be sort of
endurable, but it would be nice to record transcoded and be able to
adjust the recorded size (camera can go up to 1280x720). I'd also like
to be able record both soundcard and webcam audio and video, but it
looks like that will never happen with Cheese and may be difficult
with VLC, so I may have to accept recording one separately and syncing
up later.

AMD Athlon X2 5000+ cpu, 2GB RAM

Logitech C270HD cam:
uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:0825)
input: UVC Camera (046d:0825) as
/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.1/usb1/1-6/1-6:1.0/input/input5
usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo

Thanks for your time,

[Guohua Tang]

Hi,

Maybe you can try FFmmpeg, see
herehttp://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1392026
.

2011/3/26 Ian Malone
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to record from a webcam and getting terrible performance
> from Cheese and problematic performance from VLC. Is anyone able to
> either tell me how to get one of them working properly or suggest
> another app that will work? Details (hardware at bottom)
>
> Cheese cheese-2.30.1-1.fc13.x86_64, nice, simple to use. Recording
> performance is awful. The booth framerate is fine, but as soon as I
> start recording it drops dramatically (going from frames per second to
> seconds per frame). VLC's ability to encode to the same target -
> Theora/Vorbis (but see below) and the fact I can do this under windows
> with the movie maker suggest a Cheese problem. Resolution is at
> 640x480 (which is what VLC and move maker are using), dropping to
> 355x288 is okay. This cheese bug seems to be related
> https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=564957 but not resolved.
> Anyone using F14 with good performance for cheese video recording?
>
> VLC vlc-1.1.7-1.fc13.x86_64. Less friendly, for a start I haven't been
> able to get it to capture by specifying devices in the capture dialog.
> If I just open capture and hit play I get video and sound. I can use
> /dev/video0 as the video input and after a bit of trial and error
> (using debug mode I realise it was using alsa device names) pulse for
> the audio device, but if I attempt to use the capture device advance
> options (with or without specifying /dev/video0):
> Your input can't be opened:
> VLC is unable to open the MRL 'v4l2://'. Check the log for details.
>
> ~/.xsession-errors has this:
> [0x7f2dfc0044e0] v4l2 demux error: invalid tuner -1.
> [0x7f2dfc008240] v4l2 access error: invalid tuner -1.
> [0x7f2e08008590] main input error: open of `v4l2://' failed: (null)
>
> (Or tuner 0 which is what it defaults to, tried -1 as this appears to
> be auto for other params)
>
> But capturing to theora/vorbis results in video and audio playing at
> different speeds, the default (which seems to be the ALSA hw device)
> has video faster than audio, capturing to the default (mp4) or webm is
> okay, using pulse and /dev/video0 webm video is slower than audio...
> and so on. This most successful approach so far is to open the device
> in play mode, use the 'advanced controls' record button and capture
> uncompressed a/v to avi the transcode later. This would be sort of
> endurable, but it would be nice to record transcoded and be able to
> adjust the recorded size (camera can go up to 1280x720). I'd also like
> to be able record both soundcard and webcam audio and video, but it
> looks like that will never happen with Cheese and may be difficult
> with VLC, so I may have to accept recording one separately and syncing
> up later.
>
> AMD Athlon X2 5000+ cpu, 2GB RAM
>
> Logitech C270HD cam:
> uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device <unnamed> (046d:0825)
> input: UVC Camera (046d:0825) as
> /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.1/usb1/1-6/1-6:1.0/input/input5
> usbcore: registered new interface driver uvcvideo
> Thanks for your time,
> imalone
>
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[Ian Malone]

> 2011/3/26 Ian Malone
> > Hi,
> >
> > I'm trying to record from a webcam and getting terrible performance
> > from Cheese and problematic performance from VLC. Is anyone able to
> > either tell me how to get one of them working properly or suggest
> > another app that will work? Details (hardware at bottom)

On 26 March 2011 15:14, Guohua Tang  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe you can try FFmmpeg, see here.

Thanks, with a bit of tweaking I'm able to record with ffmpeg, though
it's a pity this means I can't preview what's being recorded. However
I'm a bit greedy and if I have to use the command line to be able to
do this then I'd also like to figure out how to record synchronised
sound from different sources. Anyone able to suggest how that might be
done? Using sox and piping into ffmpeg doesn't work, video gets out of
sync (also I've got some sox related problem about different rates).

--
imalone

[Bob Goodwin]

On 02/04/11 19:15, Ian Malone wrote:
> Thanks, with a bit of tweaking I'm able to record with ffmpeg, though
> it's a pity this means I can't preview what's being recorded. However
> I'm a bit greedy and if I have to use the command line to be able to
> do this then I'd also like to figure out how to record synchronised
> sound from different sources. Anyone able to suggest how that might be
> done? Using sox and piping into ffmpeg doesn't work, video gets out of
> sync (also I've got some sox related problem about different rates).
>
> --
> imalone

"record with ffmpeg"   How do you do this? Is there an
    instruction/documentation? I have a couple of IP cameras and would
    like to be able to record a film clip from them occasionally.
    Usually just view them with VLC.

Bob

[Ian Malone]

On 3 April 2011 00:33, Bob Goodwin  wrote:
> On 02/04/11 19:15, Ian Malone wrote:
> > Thanks, with a bit of tweaking I'm able to record with ffmpeg, though
> > it's a pity this means I can't preview what's being recorded. However
> > I'm a bit greedy and if I have to use the command line to be able to
> > do this then I'd also like to figure out how to record synchronised
> > sound from different sources. Anyone able to suggest how that might be
> > done? Using sox and piping into ffmpeg doesn't work, video gets out of
> > sync (also I've got some sox related problem about different rates).
> "record with ffmpeg"   How do you do this? Is there an
>    instruction/documentation? I have a couple of IP cameras and would
>    like to be able to record a film clip from them occasionally.
>    Usually just view them with VLC.

This is with an attached webcam, not sure what you need for IP cameras:

ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i pulse -f video4linux2 -s 800x600 -r 15 -i
/dev/video0  -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec libx264 -vpre
lossless_ultrafast -threads 0 webcam.avi

I suspect you'd drop the audio codec options and then -acodec null
maybe. Of course if you're viewing them with VLC then you can just use
the record button you get with View|Advanced Controls enabled.

[Bob Goodwin]

On 03/04/11 17:13, Ian Malone wrote:
> This is with an attached webcam, not sure what you need for IP cameras:
>
> ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i pulse -f video4linux2 -s 800x600 -r 15 -i
> /dev/video0  -acodec pcm_s16le -vcodec libx264 -vpre
> lossless_ultrafast -threads 0 webcam.avi
>
> I suspect you'd drop the audio codec options and then -acodec null
> maybe. Of course if you're viewing them with VLC then you can just use
> the record button you get with View|Advanced Controls enabled.

Yes there is no /dev/video0 with the "IP" cameras. I don't need
        the sound. I've saved this information and will experiment with
        it later.

I have never found a scheme for recording a video stream from
        VLC, don't see "View|Advanced Controls" and a record setting. I
        may be missing something.

Thanks.

Bob

[Ian Malone]

On 4 April 2011 19:12, Bob Goodwin  wrote:
> On 03/04/11 17:13, Ian Malone wrote:
> > This is with an attached webcam, not sure what you need for IP cameras:
> I have never found a scheme for recording a video stream from
>       VLC, don't see "View|Advanced Controls" and a record setting. I
>       may be missing something.

That's odd. Maybe a different version? I'm running
vlc-1.1.7-1.fc13.x86_64, then selecting the advanced controls checkbox
from the view drop-down menu next to 'help'. Another row of buttons
then appears above the normal play controls.

[Bob Goodwin]

On 04/04/11 16:10, Ian Malone wrote:
> On 4 April 2011 19:12, Bob Goodwin  wrote:
> >    I have never found a scheme for recording a video stream from
> >    VLC, don't see "View|Advanced Controls" and a record setting. I
> >    may be missing something.
>
> That's odd. Maybe a different version? I'm running
> vlc-1.1.7-1.fc13.x86_64, then selecting the advanced controls checkbox
> from the view drop-down menu next to 'help'. Another row of buttons
> then appears above the normal play controls.

I had selected a simpler interface to save space, "Custom"
        instead of "Native" which did not display those buttons you
        refer to. Changing that I probably see what you see, still
        haven't been able to record a video stream from an IP camera or
        a web cam. Googling brings up stuff that is different than what
        I have here, probably due to an evolving application, and has
        not been of much help.

It's not important enough to warrant a lot of effort, my
        interest was aroused by your earlier comment since I had looked
        into this before. I'll chip away at it when I have nothing
        better to do.

Thanks.

Bob

[Guohua Tang]

Hi,

My Operating System teacher used FFmmpeg to record his lectures (both video
and audio). He wrote a blog post (in Chinese) about how to do it. Hope the
link will help you.

http://translate.google.com.hk/translate?hl=zh-CN&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&am...

2011/4/3 Ian Malone
> > 2011/3/26 Ian Malone
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I'm trying to record from a webcam and getting terrible performance
> > > from Cheese and problematic performance from VLC. Is anyone able to
> > > either tell me how to get one of them working properly or suggest
> > > another app that will work? Details (hardware at bottom)
>
> On 26 March 2011 15:14, Guohua Tang  wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Maybe you can try FFmmpeg, see here.
>
> Thanks, with a bit of tweaking I'm able to record with ffmpeg, though
> it's a pity this means I can't preview what's being recorded. However
> I'm a bit greedy and if I have to use the command line to be able to
> do this then I'd also like to figure out how to record synchronised
> sound from different sources. Anyone able to suggest how that might be
> done? Using sox and piping into ffmpeg doesn't work, video gets out of
> sync (also I've got some sox related problem about different rates).
>
> --
> imalone
> --
> users mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe or change subscription options:
> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines

[Bill Davidsen]

Guohua Tang wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Maybe you can try FFmmpeg, see here
> http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1392026.

Thank you, even though I've done screen and webcam capture before, that's a nice 
document to have to use as a refresher or to give people with similar questions.