UCView: works OK, but can't record video

[kikinovak]

Hi,

We have Arch Linux installed on all our desktops here (public libraries). A friend of mine just showed me his Asus EEEPC, and I wanted to give the nice little webcam app UCView a spin. I built two packages for Arch Linux (unicap and ucview) and installed them. Everything seems to work OK, except I can't seem to record any video. I can start and stop the recording OK, but then, the resulting file is a surprisingly small .ogg file, and there's no video in it.

I fired up ucview from the console, and when I try to record a video, I get the following error message:

Code: Select all

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

** Message: Could not convert format: BGR 24bpp 33524742 to BGR 24bpp 30323449

Which leaves me clueless. Any suggestion for this? Something missing on my system?

Cheers from the rainy South of France...

[arne]

Your camera works with the RGB colorspace but the video encoder expects an image in the YUV colorspace. Unfortunately, the current unicap version lacks the colorspace conversion for this combination, thus it can not generate a suitable image for the video encoder.

If you are lucky, your camera also offers an YUV color format. If you select that, the video recording should work. I put the video conversion on my ToDo list but I can not tell how long it will take until it will be available in unicap.

Cheers,

/Arne

PS: Grüße nach Frankreich, wird wohl auch wieder Sonne geben

[kikinovak]

Thanks for your quick reply! Herzlichen Dank! (I'll go on writing in english, though, maybe other folks will find this thread technically interesting...)

I didn't suspect it was a cam problem, so I installed it on my HP Pavilion laptop, and it works like a charm!

If you are lucky, your camera also offers an YUV color format. If you select that, the video recording should work.

It's a plain Logitech Webcam, or more exactly:

Code: Select all

[kikinovak@bertha:~] $ lsusb
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 046d:0928 Logitech, Inc. Quickcam Express

Is there any way I can select the YUV color format? How? I've never done this.

Apart from that problem, the app is just perfect. I have a deal to offer to you: write the video conversion tool for unicap, so we can use it in our public computer rooms (I'm a sysadmin for eleven public libraries here in South France). If I get this baby to work, I'll gladly work on the French translation of UCView.

[arne]

Is there any way I can select the YUV color format? How? I've never done this.

In the Device menu, select "Change Device...". A dialogue window will open a let you select the video formats supported by your camera.

I have a deal to offer to you: write the video conversion tool for unicap, so we can use it in our public computer rooms (I'm a sysadmin for eleven public libraries here in South France). If I get this baby to work, I'll gladly work on the French translation of UCView.

Thank you very much for your offer! I am more than busy currently but I will see what I can do.

/Arne

[kikinovak]

Looks like my main webcam doesn't support YUV.

In the meantime: http://www.microlinux.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=12

Cheese, erm, cheers!

[arne]

I implemented the conversion in this version but it is completely untested. Could you give it a shot?

unicap-0.2.20-RC1.tar.gz

[kikinovak]

First of all: thanks for the quick reaction!

I gave 0.2.20RC1 a shot, and here's the result:

1) no more errors about the program being unable to convert.

2) Movement and contours seem OK, but the colours in the resulting video are rather, uhm, psychedelic:

http://www.kikinovak.net/images/webcam.png

Any idea where this could come from?

I'd say: it's a big step in the right direction!

[arne]

Ok, if you do not like psychedelic colours, please try this version:

unicap-0.2.20-RC2.tar.gz

[kikinovak]

See the results here:

www.kikinovak.net/images/webcam.ogg



Now to my part of the deal. Expect the french translation for the next few days.

Cheers from the stormy South of France! And thanks very much!

Niki

[arne]

Haha, wonderful

I made a new release which is now available for download. It is mostly identical to the RC2.

Note that to correctly translate UCView, you also need to translate the unicap package since it contains all the device specific strings ( the ones that appear in the device properties dialogue ) .



Greetings from the windy but sunny northern Germany!