Timer Recording?

[whiskey3]

Is there a way to do in SpeedEDIT a timed or timer recording? So I can put the out point for 10 minutes and I don't have to watch the video go down? This was in T2 how lame is this that it is not in SpeedEDIT or am I missing it?

Thanks.... :D

[KiloWatkins]

No Batch Capture, yet. Is it really that hard to capture 12min. and cut off 2? Geez, always wanting more, but doesn't NT mostly give it to us?

Hang in there!

[ScorpioProd]

Well, you need to remember that SpeedEDIT is a stand-alone NLE, comparable to VT-Edit in the old VT. While you are talking about the capture module in the VT, which is NOT a part of the NLE.

Because of this modular nature of VT, I think that is why some normal parts of a NLE, such as timed capture, time lapse capture, frame capture, batch capture, and capture of other formats are missing from SpeedEDIT. Actually, the capture part of SpeedEDIT is fairly primative. Newtek may have forgotten what was in VT that isn't in their stand-alone NLE.

[Seattle-HotShot]

I really miss the time lapse frame recorder that was in VT, in my SE. I was so bummed when I realized that wasn't in there. Imagine taking a small HDV camera and a laptop out to film a timelapse sunrise or something... Sure hope that makes it soon!

In the mean time, I can do the same thing with my Canon DSLR and the Canon software, at far bigger than HDV resolution, which is pretty cool :)

http://twitter.com/carlincomm
Carlin in Seattle

[ScorpioProd]

Or for DV, you can use the freeware WinDV, it can do time lapse.

[whiskey3]

This is retarded....I am sorry how the F%#@ hard is it to code an out point for the capture tool this is unacceptable.....just like having no batch capture and New Tek wonders why their product is not accepted by the professional community.....

[KiloWatkins]

New Tek wonders why their product is not accepted by the professional community

Well then, guess you are not in the professional community, since you use NewTek products.

Please take your NT bashing to Adobe, and let us willing to accept SE1.vergin to continue as one of the best bangs for the buck.

Such a poor attitude to such a small issue. Tons of fixes will evolve when SE is at Rev 5.years, so please move on instead of waisting others time in an attempt to help you.

[whiskey3]

Look..... I've been a user of New Tek products since the Video Toaster days. If T5 has this...... how hard is it to port this over? It is just frustrating that the most simplest things aren't taken care....

[Seattle-HotShot]

Hey Eugene, yeah, big fan of WinDV, just wish there was a HDV version of it. I've never found a comparable product that worked. I'd even consider a program that could generate stills of HDV live feed at intervals, haven't found that either. But sorry, none of this really applies to this thread :)

[joseburgos]

Look..... I've been a user of New Tek products since the Video Toaster days. If T5 has this...... how hard is it to port this over? It is just frustrating that the most simplest things aren't taken care....

Guess it must be harder than one would imagine since they did not add it to SE capture.
A love hate thing for me.
Plenty, IMHO, it should have had when it was released but it did not.
But yet, I find myself using it.
All I can suggest is you send your feature request to Newtek.

Crazy that you can record using the tool but can't set an end time for live capture with it as well as a time lapsed capture.
Even if it can't do batch capture, why doesn't it have a timer?

And do me a favor, don't go complain anywhere else but here, since it's Newteks forum and you want them to hear you (not that you needed me to tell you that).

Kilo,
You wrote "Is it really that hard to capture 12min".
Yes it is and I bet you can't do it.
I know I can't.

[ScorpioProd]

The other way to look at it is does Newtek actually want these features in their stand-alone NLE? Maybe they don't.

After all, that does give a value added to the VT[5], which is without question a much more profitable product than the commodity stand-alone NLE.

Newtek gave the people what they wanted with SpeedEDIT, an unbundled VT-EDIT with HDV support (and a little higher HD). Throw it on your laptop and you can use it when you're away from your VT workstation.

Based on the way it has been developed, it looks to me like Newtek was quite careful not to give it any features that VT doesn't have. It is still limited to the same real-time or nothing that VT is, even when it doesn't need to be.

[animlab]

OK. Here is a solution of timed recording for SE. It is not perfect but works. You need to know some basic operations for ToasterScript.

The code is as follow (please saved as TRec.ToasterScript) :

// ========TRec.ToasterScript==================
// Timed Recording script for SE by Chen Pan, AnimLab @2008
//
min=12
sec=0
frames=0

Tframes = 29.97*60*min + 29.97*sec + frames +1
Tstart=0
Tstop=0

TM=CreateControl(123 124 125 "SkinControl_SubControl_Layers")
TM:{ AddCallback("Timer",
code(
Tnow = int(floor(GetTime()/33.3667))
if(Tnow > Tstop) Stop()
))}

AddMenuItem("%Timed Recording", code(0))
AddMenuItem(" TimedRecordStart." code(TM:{ StopTimer() Stop() Tstart=int(floor(GetTime()/33.3667)) Tstop=Tstart+Tframes Record() StartTimer(33)}))
AddMenuItem(" TimedRecordStop. " code(TM:StopTimer() Stop()))
//====================================

You need to create a "User Scripts" directory under
C:\Program Files\NewTek\SpeedEDIT\Skins\CapturePanel
and put the TRec.ToasterScript under it.
(That will be C:\Program Files\NewTek\SpeedEDIT\Skins\CapturePanel\User Scripts\TRec.ToasterScript.)

You can see the first three lines of script are the target time you want.
Launch SE, open Capture panel, right click at gray area (under "autochop") of Capture panel and you see two new menu items there:

TimerRecordStart.
TimerRecordStop.

Select TimerRecordStart will start capture and stop at specific time.
TimeRecordStop will stop the timer and recording if you want to abort it.

If you need to change the capturing time, you need to close capture panel, edit the script (change value of min, sec and frames variables), save script then relaunch capture panel.

Enjoy it!

[joseburgos]

Chen,
Is it here where I change the time "Tframes = 29.97*60*min + 29.97*sec + frames +1"
If so, what is the format for example 1 min, 12 sec and frame 23?

This is pretty cool script you wrote and shows that there may be a way to do this with a script.

Thank you and hope you work at it some more,

[joseburgos]

The other way to look at it is does Newtek actually want these features in their stand-alone NLE? Maybe they don't.

After all, that does give a value added to the VT[5], which is without question a much more profitable product than the commodity stand-alone NLE.

Newtek gave the people what they wanted with SpeedEDIT, an unbundled VT-EDIT with HDV support (and a little higher HD). Throw it on your laptop and you can use it when you're away from your VT workstation.

Based on the way it has been developed, it looks to me like Newtek was quite careful not to give it any features that VT doesn't have. It is still limited to the same real-time or nothing that VT is, even when it doesn't need to be.

Maybe but no one can disagree, that batch capture being added to the capture window, would be a bad thing.
Also, Newtek markets SE as a NLE.

I speak for myself in asking for features as I use SpeedEdit and need it to do more.
I don't care how they wanted it to be marketed and only care about how I would like to use it if it had X.
Because of this reason, I keep complaining for things to be added and fixed.

No offence to you but a lot of older users of VT who waited for SE and then been disappointed in it, have moved on.
Because of this, again no offence, have been more passive about the way SE works and Netwek these days.
I want it to do more and I am not satisfied with it.
Another user takes the stand that to complain about a Newtek product is sacrilege and should never be done.


Sorry for making this thread a complaining thread and taking away from what may be the start of a 3rd party script/plug-in from Chen.
One that I and many would welcome.

[joseburgos]

Chen,
Is it here where I change the time "Tframes = 29.97*60*min + 29.97*sec + frames +1"
If so, what is the format for example 1 min, 12 sec and frame 23?

This is pretty cool script you wrote and shows that there may be a way to do this with a script.

Thank you and hope you work at it some more,

Forget it, I see it now;
min=1
sec=12
frames=23

Thanks again,

[joseburgos]

Chen,
No matter what I put in as a value, the script always stops at 00:12.12.

[ScorpioProd]

No offence to you but a lot of older users of VT who waited for SE and then been disappointed in it, have moved on.
Because of this, again no offence, have been more passive about the way SE works and Netwek these days.
I want it to do more and I am not satisfied with it.
Another user takes the stand that to complain about a Newtek product is sacrilege and should never be done.

No offence taken, you do some really cool stuff with VT/SE, and you are a passionate user that Newtek needs. Please, allow me to pass the torch to you. :)

I was only playing devil's advocate in what I said, since I don't see a real reason why Newtek wouldn't have put these capture features in SE, either. I assure you, I fully support you, or anyone, taking the stand to complain for features you need! :)

As for me, I fought so hard for features over the years that never were implemented, I've given up the fight. I've been Don Quixote long enough.

And yes, I am one of the older users of VT that waited for SE and was disappointed in it. And yes, I have moved on. I frankly had to without XDCAM HD support in SE, everything else being lesser annoyances in it versus not even playing my format of choice.

I only hang out on the forums since there is still a good amount of knowledge I can still pass on regarding VT/SE/TMPGEnc, and there aren't that many old timers left here to do just that. And I guess I still have some hope that Newtek will see the light someday and make SE the great product I know it could have been and maybe even let it work with my format, but I sadly see no sign of that coming soon. :(

Ah well, best tools for the job as we say.

Anyway, back to Chen's script, which does seem like a cool workaround to the original poster's timer issue.

[animlab]

Chen,
No matter what I put in as a value, the script always stops at 00:12.12.

I test many times and it work for me. Please recheck your script. I guess there is a typo at line
Tframes = 29.97*60*min + 29.97*sec + frames +1
in your script that make variable "min" not reconized and been set to zero as default.

To avoid ambiguous meaning, you can change variable "min" to "minute" in the script. "min" in many program will act as minimum but ToasterScript did not have this min function by default.

[joseburgos]

Chen,
Still not working.
Any of you got it working?

I changed to minute but it still stops at 00:12.12.

[joseburgos]

I exited out of SE and launched VT[5.2].
In VT-SE, it goes past 00:12.12 but does not respond to the values I give it.
Actually, I had to stop it in VT as it never stopped.

Hoping it works for someone else so I can continue to experiment but giving up for now.

[Seattle-HotShot]

I'll be experimenting with this, but if anyone has already tried this, could you make multiple versions of this, say a 5 minute, a 30 minute, etc and leave them all in the same folder?

And thank you so much for the quick script. I swear, if I ever get caught up on my other world domination plans, I'm going to go learn programing and scripting. I used to do a lot of BASIC stuff, and my own PHP webstuff, so think I could muddle through some code, once I had time to do it!

Carlin

[KiloWatkins]

I'm going to go learn programing and scripting. I used to do a lot of BASIC stuff

Carlin, I too did a lot of Basic. But to the best of my knowledge it is all C++, and HTML is something else I can read but not write. I'd rather pay someone whom went to school for 2 years to write this stuff, so they can get paid for all their hard work. Toaster Script is as much an art form as any scripting language, but I think you need to understand and use NewTeks SDK.

GoodLuck.... Chen, thanks for your Script work and debug, there is no problem with using workarounds to solve issues, and you are a gentleman for your posting your work. We are suppose to be able to do this if working, not walking away from a process to leave our work unattended.

[joseburgos]

We are suppose to be able to do this if working, not walking away from a process to leave our work unattended.

I for one love it, love it when I can walk away and leave it unattended.
Batch Capture is one of those things.
Rendering is another.
Although I never done time lapse recording, it too, would be one of those that I would leave unattended.

Not exactly sure what you meant by that but I love it when I can leave it unattended.

Chen or anyone who has it working?

[animlab]

The Trec.ToasterScript works for me under SE 1.5.5. I just do a quick test under VT5.2/SpeedDIT VT and it woks too.

I have include the script inthe attached file haere. You can unzip it under SpeedEDIT or VT5 intallation directory.
67233

Good luck!

[animlab]

Carlin, I too did a lot of Basic. But to the best of my knowledge it is all C++, and HTML is something else I can read but not write. I'd rather pay someone whom went to school for 2 years to write this stuff, so they can get paid for all their hard work. Toaster Script is as much an art form as any scripting language, but I think you need to understand and use NewTeks SDK.


ToasterScript (TScript) is a very simple script language. If you can do Basic, you can do TScript. TScript's syntax is a mixture of C and REXX language. Just few key words and some commands to control VT/SpeedEDIT. Only jobs you need are to read the manual and some pratice with sample code.

The only problem is the TScript manual is for VT4. There is not update for VT5 and SpeedEDIT. So there are lots of limitations and mysteries in the script programming.

[joseburgos]

The Trec.ToasterScript works for me under SE 1.5.5. I just do a quick test under VT5.2/SpeedDIT VT and it woks too.

I have include the script inthe attached file haere. You can unzip it under SpeedEDIT or VT5 intallation directory.
67233

Good luck!

I found my problem.
You need to exit SE to run the edited script.
I was editing it and then running it but that does not work.
You need to edit the time first and then launch SE to use the new values.

FYI: Frames value is not 100% accurate.
I set it for 12 sec and 23 frames and it stopped at 12.25 (even though capture window said 12.07, the clip was 12.25). This goes to what I said about how hard it is to stop it at the right frame when a user claimed it was easy.
I was using script live from camera and not a tape deck although it did the same thing from tape deck.

Will test a lot more tomorrow.
Thank you so much Chen and hope you take this further when you get the new SDK.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Yeah it basically works for me here. Any chance we could tell it to stop the tape transport when it stops capturing?

What I need,, how I work...
I typically get back with a bunch of tapes. Before I rewind the tapes, the camera will tell what the end of the time code is. I capture full tape images, then cut on the time line.

So, bonus points if I could put a tape in, SE or the script would see the end time code, then rewind, then set the in point for 10 seconds from zero time code, play, record, then end capture at last frame, then stop the tape, then rewind. Then pop a little message up on screen to eject the tape, and put in next tape.

Oh, and auto increment the tape ID number, Tape001_0001, etc
The 0001, 0002 is already taken care of, just change Tape001

That would be sweet...

Even so, what you just gave us is improvement, thank you very much.

Carlin

[animlab]

Jose, it is not frame accurated. In my test it is about +/- 1 frame accurated for most of time. So I add one frame in the script and it now is + 0-2 frame accurated.

BTW. you don't need to exit SE to use the new edited value. Just close capture panel the re-lauch it again. User Scripts is read when the panel is launched.

[animlab]

Yeah it basically works for me here. Any chance we could tell it to stop the tape transport when it stops capturing?
I am not quite understand your means. The script is designed to stop at your commands, either the timer run out or you use the stop timer script.

And you can manually use the STOP button on panel but timer will keep running until it run out. So there are chances that you STOP a timed recording, then start RECORD another clip at normal way and it will stop automatically at some spot because of timer.....

What I need,, how I work...
I typically get back with a bunch of tapes. Before I rewind the tapes, the camera will tell what the end of the time code is. I capture full tape images, then cut on the time line.
Yes, the script can be use that way, even the "Auto chop" feature turn on.

You just get the total time length,
rewind tapo,
edit the new time value into script,
close Capture panel when rewind stop,
relaunch capture panel to use the new value,
PLAY you tape,
RMB to start timed recording
and go away to have coffee.


So, bonus points if I could put a tape in, SE or the script would see the end time code, then rewind, then set the in point for 10 seconds from zero time code, play, record, then end capture at last frame, then stop the tape, then rewind. Then pop a little message up on screen to eject the tape, and put in next tape. ....
Sorry that ToasterScript is not that smart.

If you want that feature, perhaps a C++ SDk program can do that. If you want that feature, I can write one for you but you have to pay for the program developement. Give me an email and I will check with you for the details. :)

[Seattle-HotShot]

Hey Chen

Yeah what you have totally worked for me. I would just leave the script open in notepad, put the tape in, see the time code, type it into the script, save the script, close the capture panel, open it up again. Rewind the tape, and it worked.

Like I said, when I get a bit more caught up, I will go look into the SDK or the ToasterScript info.

Really appreciate you taking the time to post that, very cool.

That's the great thing about this community, people share things so freely.

My main reason for posting my earlier post, was that so often the developers don't see how we really use the product.

At the moment I am cash poor but have lots of ideas :) So I post things here and if someone can take the idea and run with it, all the better.

Thanks again, I'll drop you a line later, developing this further would be worth paying for, I just don't have the cash this month.

Carlin in Seattle
http://twitter.com/carlincomm

[joseburgos]

Jose, it is not frame accurated. In my test it is about +/- 1 frame accurated for most of time. So I add one frame in the script and it now is + 0-2 frame accurated.

BTW. you don't need to exit SE to use the new edited value. Just close capture panel the re-lauch it again. User Scripts is read when the panel is launched.

That works great, close and open Capture :)
And yes, +/- 1-2 frames depending on the frame selected.

Like Carlin, I want to thank you very much.

[Seattle-HotShot]

I've recently started playing with WinDV again, to do time lapse recording. There is a setting to record 1 frame every /n frames, and another to start a new clip after x many frames. Would this capture script be able to do something like that? I would love to be able to do a timelapse of clouds going by, at full HDV resolution. I'm less excited about recording a full day of video to my hard drive and speeding it up :)

This was one feature I used in VT with their capture panel, and it was pretty fun.

Carlin in Seattle

[animlab]

I've recently started playing with WinDV again, to do time lapse recording. There is a setting to record 1 frame every /n frames, and another to start a new clip after x many frames. Would this capture script be able to do something like that? I would love to be able to do a timelapse of clouds going by, at full HDV resolution. I'm less excited about recording a full day of video to my hard drive and speeding it up :)

This was one feature I used in VT with their capture panel, and it was pretty fun.


The TScript command for SE seems unable to control the time-lapse recording feature as VT dose. However it is possible to user timer to similate time-lapse recording as a sequence of TGA or PNG files. You can convert it later to AVI or other video format you wanted.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Yeah I'd be ok with a series of stills, not quite as elegant but not a bad compromise.

The biggest reason I'm not doing it with my Canon EOS digital SLR is I hate the idea of that shutter and mirror cycling every 15 seconds for the next day or what ever! At least a little video camera can do a live video output and not have any running parts!

[animlab]

Sorry, my mistake. SE's capture panel was unable to save picture file, since it was unable to choose file format.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Yeah I was kind of thinking that, thought you had a work around through the script. Thanks though!

Any Tricaster users paying attention? Can a Tricaster do frame at a time time lapse recording?

just curious

[animlab]

TriCaster can capture still (JPG only) under the "Capture Media" tab but no time laspe.
You can automatic capture sequence by following scripts:

//====================================
// Time Lapse/TriCaster by Chen Pan, AnimLab
//

// Use ticks value to change the time lapse interval, unit in msec, 1000=1sec
ticks = 1000

CapSeq=CreateControl(255 101 102 "SkinControl_SubControl_Layers")
CapSeq:{ AddCallback("Timer", code(GrabStill())) }

CreateShortCut("alt b", code(CapSeq:{StopTimer() StartTimer(ticks)}), "OrderedFocus", 100)
CreateShortCut("alt n", code(CapSeq:StopTimer()), "OrderedFocus", 100)

//==============================================


Create a "User Scripts" sub-directory under
C:\TriCaster\SkinPro3\BlackBoxDesktop\MediaCapture _Tab\
and save the script as
C:\TriCaster\SkinPro3\BlackBoxDesktop\MediaCapture _Tab\User Scripts\TimeLapse.ToasterScript

Launch TriCaster, click "Capture Media" tab, set the "Capture Details / Input" and "Capture Details / Name". Then,
use alt-B key to start the sequence capture, and
use alt-N to stop the capture.

The captured still sequence are jpg files. You can use any converter to convert them to AVI or MPG.

[joseburgos]

Chen,
I recently acquired a JVC ProHD GY-HD100 camera. Using the Capture panel does not work well with short clips as SE does not do a good job with this camera it seems (the person who I got it from confirmed the same problem).
So I tried your script on it to capture the whole tape. Problem is, SE capture over rides the script when capturing HDV and automatically does scene detection :(
I know the script works because I have used it on a live feed and my Sony DSR-11 deck so it is HDV and SE capture that is the problem.

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

[animlab]

NewTek have designed the HDV capture with time stamp detection (AutoChop) always on to avoid the timecode issues with mpeg2 (m2t file). So it might override the script by design. You cannot capture HDV full tape as one clip.
Also, my customers report that when capturing HDV footage from camera, if there are glitch (timecode/video breaks) in tape or clips are too short, the captured clips might be unable to use. There will be a miscalculated end point of the clip and unable to playback normally.

Here are the comments from NewTek FAQ:

Why is Auto Chop always enabled for HDV?

MPEG footage is dependent on the timecode stored on the tape. If there are timecode breaks, then clip length, editing and playback will be inconsistent.

This is not a SpeedEDIT limitation, all other applications that we have examined have some problem with MPEG files with timecode breaks.

By breaking the capture into multiple files as the timecode changes, we are able to avoid these problems while preserving the timecode.

We took this step in order to make the editing experience as trouble free as possible.

=====================
Why does HDV capture in SpeedEDIT require Auto Chop?

Given the variable nature of MPEG-2 I-frames in HDV material, Auto Chop assures that every clip will have a proper end-frame.

[joseburgos]

I can confirm this exact problem and reason I was hoping your script would help.
Hope this is changed in the future.

Thanks for the very quick response but what about a start and end time based on time code of the tape? Like a batch capture but one at a time? Is this possible to script?
You manually advance the tape in the capture panel and then use a script to mark start and end. Then you manually rewind the tape and use new script to record this time. Is this possible?
Would have to be automatically generated new timed recording based on time code but I do not dare over simplifying programming.
I know you are a very good programmer and hope you can find away to add a new plug-in for us users needing this.

Take care and thanks as always,

[animlab]

I can confirm this exact problem and reason I was hoping your script would help.
Hope this is changed in the future.

There are some other HDV capture program such as "HDVsplit" might be able to capture full HDV tape.
IMHO, timecode breaks should not be a problem, users can choose ignore timecode and stick to the tape time. And I don't think I-frame issues are problems since each section (record) of video should begin with an I-frame.
The HDV problems I met were all happen to the HDV outpoint and video breaks. That will end in bad video noise, wrong clip length and simetimes SpeedEDIT hung at bad clip.

Thanks for the very quick response but what about a start and end time based on time code of the tape? Like a batch capture but one at a time? Is this possible to script? You manually advance the tape in the capture panel and then use a script to mark start and end. Then you manually rewind the tape and use new script to record this time. Is this possible?
The script is based on timer. It did not read the tape time or timecode. But it might be possible to do batch with SDK. The problem is SDK is too hard to dig in. I don't know how much time it will take to find out it is possible or not.



:newtek: I suggest that NewTek set up a VT/TC/SE/3P developer forum and have someone answering the SDK questions there. During last few years, Dr. Andrew answered some of my SDK questions personally. If number of developers grow, he will have less time in future product developement. I don't like to bother him too much. A forum with a proper moderator might help, I hope.