This chapter briefly describes the utilities and end-user tools that are available for running applications written for the IndigoVideo board. These utility programs provide a convenient way of accessing many of the IndigoVideo board's functions. In addition, you may find them helpful as a reference when debugging your IndigoVideo Library programs.
Two graphical user interface (GUI) tools are available for controlling video: Video Control Panel (vpanel) and Video Pro Panel (vpro). You can use the Video Control Panel by itself for viewing live video input, grabbing frames of video, and encoding graphics to video, or you can use vpanel in conjunction with your IndigoVideo Library programs. As long as your program does not use exclusive-use mode, you can use vpanel to switch input sources and control display effects, such as dithering and hue. The Video Pro Panel provides access to IndigoVideo's low-level parameters. All the parameters that can be set using the Video Pro Panel are listed on the svSetParams(3V) manual page.
Live video windows for input (videoin) and output (videoout) can be launched separately from a command line or from vpanel. See the videoin(1) and videout(1) man pages for details.
See the Media Control Panels User's Guide, which is accessible from the InSight viewer, for complete instructions on using the Video Control Panel, Video Pro Panel, and the live video windows. Be sure to read the Svideo Release Notes for important information about software updates and notes about special situations and workarounds.
This chapter explains how to use two other utilities: svcmd, an interactive shell-level tool that lets you access IndigoVideo Library routines from a shell command line or a shell script, and svtomovie, a program that lets you turn video input into movie files that you can play using the Movie Maker tool.
In this chapter:
“Using svcmd, the IndigoVideo Shell-level Tool” explains how to use svcmd. The IndigoVideo shell-level tool provides a command-line interface to most of the functions of the IndigoVideo Library, including single-frame output (but not including DMA). You can use the shell-level tool to control IndigoVideo functions from a shell script.
“Making a Movie File from IndigoVideo and Audio Input” explains how to use svtomovie to create movies that can be viewed with Movie Player.
You can use the shell-level tool, svcmd, to control the IndigoVideo board from the command line. You can also use svcmd in shell scripts to automate repetitive tasks. You can use the shell-level tool in one of two ways: either by specifying a single operation on the command line, or by using svcmd's interactive mode.
To get a listing of svcmd commands, enter:
svcmd -h |
To execute a single command, use the syntax:
svcmd command [parameters] |
For example, to set the input source to 1, enter:
svcmd inputsource 1 |
To start svcmd in interactive mode, use the -i flag. To exit svcmd, use the quit or exit command. For example, to set the input source to 2 and the video mode to composite, type:
svcmd -i svcmd >> inputsource 2 svcmd >> videomode comp svcmd >> quit |
For more information on svcmd, see the svcmd(1) manual page.
You can use IndigoVideo input and optional audio input to make a movie. Movies are files that can be played on the Indigo workstation from the Movie Player tool. The svtomovie program provides everything you need to make a movie using your IndigoVideo board, audio input if you wish, and a little imagination.
To start svtomovie from a shell command line, enter:
svtomovie [options] filename |
to which the system replies:
svtomovie: Press <ENTER> when you are ready to collect video: |
You must now “queue” the video source, that is, advance it to the location where the recording is to begin. You can use vpanel to set up the video source and apanel to set up the audio source—svtomovie responds to control from both of these tools.
When you press <Enter>, svtomovie collects video, and optionally audio, and writes it to the file you specified in filename.
When svtomovie finishes capturing the video (and audio) frames, it rewrites the movie file to a playable format. You can play your new movie with Movie Player or edit it with Movie Maker.
The svtomovie options are:
| -a | Turn audio off; audio is on by default. This makes a silent movie and has the possible advantage of capturing more video data, because the audio capturing is disabled and is not using CPU bandwidth. | |
| -b | Use burst mode for capture; continuous mode is the default. Burst mode is useful to get short bursts of 30 frames per second. It captures only 30 frames per second, and can capture directly to only a maximum 8MB memory buffer; hence, there is no audio, and, depending on the chosen size, a limited number of frames. | |
| -d | Turn diagnostic messaging on; diagnostics are off by default. See svtomovie(1) for a list of diagnostics. | |
| -f framerate | Specifies movie frame rate; the default rate is 15 frames per second. This option is ignored if -b is used. In continuous capture mode, the only legal values for this parameter are 15, 10, 6, 5, 3, 2, and 1. All other values will gather data at one of these rates but movie playback will be at the requested rate. In burst capture mode, the only legal value is 30. All other values will be ignored. | |
| -m | Turn audio monitoring on; audio monitoring is off by default. This option is ignored if -a or -b is used. | |
| -n numframes | Specifies number of frames of movie; 100 is the default. | |
| -s | Use stereo audio input; mono is the default. This option is ignored if -a or -b is used. | |
| -w width | Specifies the video width in pixels; 320 is the default. Height is chosen to preserve 8:6 aspect ratio. |