Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion video?

Also, is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs (Premier,
Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be taken from exising video?

Thanks
Mike

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Mike Alpha wrote:
> Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion video?
>
> Also, is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs (Premier,
> Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be taken from exising video?

Second question first. Yes, just about any editing program will permit
this.

I'm not sure how the first question differs from the second, unless,
you are looking for software, that controlls the camera and turns it
off and on periodically.

Dave

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Mike,

> is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs
> (Premier, Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be
> taken from existing video?

Most video editors will allow you to adjust the playback speed (speed it
up) which produces a similar end result to time lapse.

However, you will have limited recording time with this approach. Most
camcorders are limited to 60-90 minutes of recording. You might get a few
hours if you record directly to a hard drive. But, true time lapse will let
you capture MONTHS or YEARS on even a small hard drive.

> Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion
> video?

Here's a response I wrote back in Feb 2004 to a similar request. I don't
know if Tiar and WinTLV are still around, but you can download "Scenalyzer
Live" from http://scenalyzer.com/main.html.

If you use your camcorder, you'll probably have to remove the tape to
prevent it from powering down after 5 minutes and you may have to disable
the "screensaver" mode in the camcorder too.

I've also switched to the CinemaCraft Encoder for making MPG's, and
"NeroVision" for the DVD creation.

Hope this helps...

Anthony

-----

I needed something similar this last year to film a time lapse of our house
construction. None of the "web cams" I looked at had decent enough quality
to take seriously.

One option was to use my camcorder, connected via firewire. I tried three
different programs, "Scenalyzer Live", "Tiar", and "WinTLV". All three
worked fine (each with their own limitations), but I didn't want to tie up
my camcorder for a year or leave it out in the elements.

So, I purchased a used digital camera (Olympus D360) and mounted it outside
in a weatherproof box. I built the box by cutting a hole in the bottom of a
"Rubbermaid" container, and gluing in a piece of glass from a cheap picture
frame (with a bolt and washer on each side to make sure it stayed in
place). Then I bolted the box to a post on top of a nearby shed. A short
scrap of gutter attached the top helps keep rain off the glass, but I also
coated it with "Rain-X" to help shed wind blown rain. It's not a pretty
arrangement, but has worked well over the last year.

I chose the older D360 because it connects to the computer with a serial
connection. This allowed me to run a cable about 40 feet down the pole and
into the shed where my laptop was located. A USB connection would have been
limited to about 15 feet or so.

I used a piece of CAT5 cable to make the serial connection to the camera.
This left me extra wires I could use to run power to the camera as well (I
had to double up wires for the power connections). A simple power adapter
in the shed and appropriate connectors at each end make up the connection.
All standard Radio Shack parts.

I use a free program called "CAME" (http://park2.wakwak.com
~tsuruzoh/index-e.html) to control the camera and take the time lapse
pictures. Steve's Digicams has a list of similar software at
http://www.steves-digicams.com/dig [...] ctrl.html.

I've been very happy with the CAME utility, even though it requires
resetting several settings if the power goes out and you have to reboot.

I started out taking a picture every 15 minutes, but found I missed too
many details. So, I settled on a picture every 5 minutes which seems to
work out well.

Every few weeks or so I bring the laptop in the house and transfer the
JPG's to my desktop PC. Then I go through and delete pictures that were
taken at night, during lunch, or day's where nothing was happening. For the
period of April 2003 to Jan 2004, I ended up with just over 3000 pictures
(about 835 MB total). If space were an issue, there are certainly many
pictures I could still delete if I wanted to.

To create a video from the pictures I used another free program called
"JPGVideo" (www.ndrw.co.uk/free/index.html) to convert the JPG pictures
into an AVI file (use Indeo compression to avoid enormous file size).

I then use the free "VirtualDub" (www.virtualdub.org/index) program to
resize the video to the DV standard of 720x480 and save it out as a
standard DV file (I use the MainConcept DV codec - www.mainconcept.de).

Next, I use Adobe Premiere to add music, fade in's and out's, etc. and
resave to a new DV file. Any video editor would work for this. You could
even use VirtualDub in a pinch.

Next up is "TMPGENC" (www.pegasys-inc.com) to convert the DV video into a
MPEG2 file for making a DVD.

Finally, I use "DVD-Lab" (http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/) to author and burn the
DVD.

Overall the setup has worked very well, and the process really isn't as
complicated as it sounds. The picture quality is great, and the time lapse
is really fascinating to watch.

One of the first things I discovered was that I had to disable the camera
flash, to avoid the reflection off the glass of the weatherproof box. This
is easily done in CAME. We had one power outage that glitched the camera.
This required climbing up a ladder, opening the weatherproof box, and
turning the camera on/off to reset it. Otherwise, I haven't really touched
the camera in over a year.

I've had the camera "shift" positions a couple of times over the year as my
homebuilt box flexed in the heat, or sagged due to the weight of snow. But,
it's a very minor problem, and virtually undetectable in the final video.
If it were an issue, I could have built a sturdier box and stronger
mounting.

The biggest problem I have had is the fluctuating lighting from day to day.
Cloudy overcast day's seem to produce the best, most even lighting. Bright
sunny day's are bad as some parts of the picture are very bright while
other parts are quite dark. I'm sure a lot of this is due to all the tall
trees surrounding our house and casting shadows. The camera compensates
rather well with the autoexposure, but there's only so much it can do.
Still, the resulting video is pleasing to watch, and an irreplaceable
record of our house construction.

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

<davesvideo@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1126365924.289057.119150@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Mike Alpha wrote:
>> Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion
>> video?
>>
>> Also, is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs (Premier,
>> Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be taken from exising video?
>
> Second question first. Yes, just about any editing program will permit
> this.
>
> I'm not sure how the first question differs from the second, unless,
> you are looking for software, that controlls the camera and turns it
> off and on periodically.

What I want to do is connect a camcorder video signal directly to my PC and
use a program to capture frames at set intervals and output them as an AVI
file.

Mike

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"HerHusband" <unknown@unknown.com> wrote in message
news:Xns96CD6A47E1342herhusband@216.196.97.136...
> Mike,
>
>> is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs
>> (Premier, Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be
>> taken from existing video?
>
> Most video editors will allow you to adjust the playback speed (speed it
> up) which produces a similar end result to time lapse.

A friend tells me you can get some NLEs to capture frames at set intervals
from an existing video file and reconstruct them as a time lapse sequence.

> However, you will have limited recording time with this approach. Most
> camcorders are limited to 60-90 minutes of recording. You might get a few
> hours if you record directly to a hard drive. But, true time lapse will
> let
> you capture MONTHS or YEARS on even a small hard drive.
>
>> Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion
>> video?
>
> Here's a response I wrote back in Feb 2004 to a similar request. I don't
> know if Tiar and WinTLV are still around, but you can download "Scenalyzer
> Live" from http://scenalyzer.com/main.html.

I'll check it out.

Thanks
Mike







>
> If you use your camcorder, you'll probably have to remove the tape to
> prevent it from powering down after 5 minutes and you may have to disable
> the "screensaver" mode in the camcorder too.
>
> I've also switched to the CinemaCraft Encoder for making MPG's, and
> "NeroVision" for the DVD creation.
>
> Hope this helps...
>
> Anthony
>
> -----
>
> I needed something similar this last year to film a time lapse of our
> house
> construction. None of the "web cams" I looked at had decent enough quality
> to take seriously.
>
> One option was to use my camcorder, connected via firewire. I tried three
> different programs, "Scenalyzer Live", "Tiar", and "WinTLV". All three
> worked fine (each with their own limitations), but I didn't want to tie up
> my camcorder for a year or leave it out in the elements.
>
> So, I purchased a used digital camera (Olympus D360) and mounted it
> outside
> in a weatherproof box. I built the box by cutting a hole in the bottom of
> a
> "Rubbermaid" container, and gluing in a piece of glass from a cheap
> picture
> frame (with a bolt and washer on each side to make sure it stayed in
> place). Then I bolted the box to a post on top of a nearby shed. A short
> scrap of gutter attached the top helps keep rain off the glass, but I also
> coated it with "Rain-X" to help shed wind blown rain. It's not a pretty
> arrangement, but has worked well over the last year.
>
> I chose the older D360 because it connects to the computer with a serial
> connection. This allowed me to run a cable about 40 feet down the pole and
> into the shed where my laptop was located. A USB connection would have
> been
> limited to about 15 feet or so.
>
> I used a piece of CAT5 cable to make the serial connection to the camera.
> This left me extra wires I could use to run power to the camera as well (I
> had to double up wires for the power connections). A simple power adapter
> in the shed and appropriate connectors at each end make up the connection.
> All standard Radio Shack parts.
>
> I use a free program called "CAME" (http://park2.wakwak.com
> ~tsuruzoh/index-e.html) to control the camera and take the time lapse
> pictures. Steve's Digicams has a list of similar software at
> http://www.steves-digicams.com/dig [...] ctrl.html.
>
> I've been very happy with the CAME utility, even though it requires
> resetting several settings if the power goes out and you have to reboot.
>
> I started out taking a picture every 15 minutes, but found I missed too
> many details. So, I settled on a picture every 5 minutes which seems to
> work out well.
>
> Every few weeks or so I bring the laptop in the house and transfer the
> JPG's to my desktop PC. Then I go through and delete pictures that were
> taken at night, during lunch, or day's where nothing was happening. For
> the
> period of April 2003 to Jan 2004, I ended up with just over 3000 pictures
> (about 835 MB total). If space were an issue, there are certainly many
> pictures I could still delete if I wanted to.
>
> To create a video from the pictures I used another free program called
> "JPGVideo" (www.ndrw.co.uk/free/index.html) to convert the JPG pictures
> into an AVI file (use Indeo compression to avoid enormous file size).
>
> I then use the free "VirtualDub" (www.virtualdub.org/index) program to
> resize the video to the DV standard of 720x480 and save it out as a
> standard DV file (I use the MainConcept DV codec - www.mainconcept.de).
>
> Next, I use Adobe Premiere to add music, fade in's and out's, etc. and
> resave to a new DV file. Any video editor would work for this. You could
> even use VirtualDub in a pinch.
>
> Next up is "TMPGENC" (www.pegasys-inc.com) to convert the DV video into a
> MPEG2 file for making a DVD.
>
> Finally, I use "DVD-Lab" (http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/) to author and burn
> the
> DVD.
>
> Overall the setup has worked very well, and the process really isn't as
> complicated as it sounds. The picture quality is great, and the time lapse
> is really fascinating to watch.
>
> One of the first things I discovered was that I had to disable the camera
> flash, to avoid the reflection off the glass of the weatherproof box. This
> is easily done in CAME. We had one power outage that glitched the camera.
> This required climbing up a ladder, opening the weatherproof box, and
> turning the camera on/off to reset it. Otherwise, I haven't really touched
> the camera in over a year.
>
> I've had the camera "shift" positions a couple of times over the year as
> my
> homebuilt box flexed in the heat, or sagged due to the weight of snow.
> But,
> it's a very minor problem, and virtually undetectable in the final video.
> If it were an issue, I could have built a sturdier box and stronger
> mounting.
>
> The biggest problem I have had is the fluctuating lighting from day to
> day.
> Cloudy overcast day's seem to produce the best, most even lighting. Bright
> sunny day's are bad as some parts of the picture are very bright while
> other parts are quite dark. I'm sure a lot of this is due to all the tall
> trees surrounding our house and casting shadows. The camera compensates
> rather well with the autoexposure, but there's only so much it can do.
> Still, the resulting video is pleasing to watch, and an irreplaceable
> record of our house construction.

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

Mike Alpha wrote:
> Any suggestions for CHEAP software that does time lapse/stop motion
> video?
>
> Also, is there a provision in any of the popular NLE programs
> (Premier, Vegas) to allow for time lapse sequences to be taken from
> exising video?
>
> Thanks
> Mike


Have a look at CaptureFlux or ImageGrab at
http://paul.glagla.free.fr/index_en.htm

Mike