Topic: MovieSalsa newbie - Getting it to the web

[ThorntonWeather]

I am a new webcam owner (two actually) and a new ImageSalsa / MovieSalsa user.  I have ImageSalsa up and running beautifully (http://www.thorntonweather.com/wx35.php) and reading in the current conditions tags from Weather Display.  No problem there.

MovieSalsa on the other hand is kind of kicking my butt....   

First, for the life of me I can't seem to find any sort of user manual.  Is there one? 

Second, if there isn't a manual, I am curious about learning more about automating the process of generating a WMV from the AVI that MovieSalsa creates.  Doing some searching I have come up with one way to generate it using Windows Media Encoder 9 - here are the basics of the batch file:

cd c:\Program Files\Windows Media Components\Encoder
Cscript.exe wmcmd.vbs -v_mode 2 -input "C:\Download\movie\mymovie.avi" -output "C:\Download\movie\mymovie.wmv"

That does work but the file size still seems pretty large and I don't seem to be getting the quality of some of the others I have seen.  For instance, DeltaWeatherCam.com has beautiful 24 hour videos on his site here:  http://deltaweathercam.com/index.php?page=yesterday and I can't figure out how to encode them with the same sort of quality (granted my cams are nowhere near the high quality that his are). 

I guess I am kind of looking for help with the basics (frame rate, WME configuration, etc) - I am sure once I get a nudge I will be able to run with it.     

Thanks!

   Tony

[Albuquerque Weather]

Took me a while to figure it out too.
How often are you capturing a frame and over how many hours (12, 24 or somewhere in between


Ron

This is my attempt at time lapse
http://www.cherokiwi.com/cherotimelapse.htm

[ThorntonWeather]

Good morning, Ron! 

I think I got it figured out.      I emailed Rick w/ deltaweathercam.com and he sent me some sample configurations.  That has me on the right path finally.  I guess I must be blind because I'll be danged if I can find any sort of documentation for MovieSalsa on their website. 

I have also started playing a bit with FFmpeg - a command line program to convert AVIs into Flash videos.  Virtually everyone has Flash and so I think that might be a better solution that WMV which requires a download for non-Microsoft browsers.  Still tweaking the bitrates and other settings to find the optimal settings.  I've created a batch file that runs MovieSalsa to create the AVI then runs FFmpeg to convert to a Flash video. 

You can check out what I have done so far here:  http://www.thorntonweather.com/test.php

Thanks!

   Tony

[Albuquerque Weather]

Morning Tony

There isn't any
Only have ImageSalsa help on the site.
We lost all the good stuff when Ambient forum went down.

I'll see about posting what I was given help with when I find where I put it for safe keeping

Ron

[Albuquerque Weather]

Forgot

I set mine from 6am - 8pm.  Dont see much in the dark anyway.
This will change as days change to get sunrise & sunset.

Captured images are hires 640 x 480
I get about a 900kb file at 480 x 380 and 10fps.

Looks good so far

Ron

http://www.cherokiwi.com/cherotimelapse.htm

[ThorntonWeather]

All good info - thanks, Ron!  What sort of bitrate are you using?  And it appears you are using an image every three minutes?

   T

[Albuquerque Weather]

Yes one every 3 mins
6am - 8pm

Ron

[Albuquerque Weather]

Once you have your digital still camera and computer software set up and ready to go, you still need to do some math to figure out how often the camera should take a picture. Here is the math formula I used which may help you out.
1. Take the number of hours the process will take and multiply it by 60 to convert it to minutes. For example four hours will yield 240 minutes
2. Decide how long you want the time-lapse sequence to last (10 seconds for example) and convert it to frames (300 frames)
3. Divide minutes by frames to get the fraction of a minute (240/300= 0.8 seconds)
4. Use your middle school math and find the least common denominator (4/5ths of a second) and calculate the actual seconds (4*12=48 seconds) and you will have the correct interval for your frame rate.

So the formula is (Hours*60)/(seconds*30)=frame rate.


Just checked - mine are full frame uncompressed

[kray1000]

I guess I must be blind because I'll be danged if I can find any sort of documentation for MovieSalsa on their website. 

Here are some instructions on the ImageSalsa site.  Regarding the "getting it to the Web" part, refer to the "post-processing shell" instructions at the bottom of the page.

http://www.imagesalsa.com/MovieSalsa/

[Davidb]

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Hello there,

I am just starting with MS, have had a few trial runs this week, but can't figure out the scheduler - it would be handy if there were some instructions somewhere.
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What I would really like to do, would be to shedule it to run on this camera every day starting two hours before high tide and stopping one hour after high tide.     http://freespace.virgin.net/glasson.sc/capture4.jpg
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Its all a bit beyond me at present, but I shall get there in the end.

The camera, by the way, is a "Sentient" wireless one,from Maplin, transmitting its signal about 100yds.
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I am very pleased with it (  for the price  - £100 )  but am dissapointed by the lack of green colour.
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I would be grateful for any advice on this one.
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thanks,  David
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[kray1000]

What I would really like to do, would be to shedule it to run on this camera every day starting two hours before high tide and stopping one hour after high tide.

I don't know of any way to schedule tasks based on tides.

[Albuquerque Weather]

I don't know of any way to schedule tasks based on tides either -
The only way I see it is if you know the am pm tides put them in scheduler +- hours you want.

But youll be changing them on a regular basis.