How I did my IBR videos

During the last IBR I captured the spot trackers in a series of videos and posted them up. If you didn't see them, this is what they look like.



I like free software and found the very useful software called Virtualdub. It does run on windows only so there's that consideration. There's a good writeup on how to use it over here -> https://timelapseblog.com/2009/08/04/using-virtualdub-for-time-lapse/

It's a bit clunky to use the first go round but that doc makes it easy. In addition, once you get your settings that you like, such as filter, framerate and such, you can save those off to a config file. From then on, you just open the program, load your settings and point it to your folder and your movie spits out. This part isn't so hard, except virtualdub expects the files to be in a particular format which my naming scheme didn't work with. To fix this, I simply highlight all the files in the folder with a ctrl-a, then right click the first one and choose "Rename." It will offer you a name which I'll chose something like "TL" and it'll rename the first one as TL and then it'lld o the same but add a number to the rest of the files. Then they will be in order and in the right file name format for virtualdub.

After that, just upload to youtube and you are done.

FYI, I believe 101stPathfinder used Itunes Slideshow to stitch his captures together into a video file, so that might be another option for folks out there.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Very Kewl! Thanks for sharing

That is very neat. You sir, are a creative genius!

Thanks for sharing your genius with us.

I'd like to claim to be creative. However, someone else is the creative one. I'd seen it done before, and just sat down and figured out the technical side to accomplish it on my own. I'm really just a techie copy cat. Thank you for the compliment though.

Either way, thank you for taking the time to explain it all to us. You the man!

No problem! I've learned enough, and don't often have good knowledge to share back, so if I can contribute in this way, all the better.

Very nice write up,,,,,,thanks for sharing Jasen

Nicely done, sir.

This year's rig ready to go.



So, some things have changed since the last IBR. Namely, I've changed jobs twice. I no longer have access to shelves of used hardware so it was time to dig around in the drawer for an old laptop I can put into dedicated use for a few weeks.

Last time around, I had to cross my fingers every time I went home and hope that nothing happened while I was off work that could mess up the system. This time it's worse. As it turns out I'll be headed out of state for a whole week and will have to trust that it'll work. This means I had to do a few things, and it means I won't be releasing segments as they complete. I'll break them down afterwards but you'll have to wait.

So...since I just set it all up, here's the skinny.

Hardware:

Dell Inspiron 1501 with an AMD Semperon processor and 2GB RAM.

Crappy by today's standards but still, more than sufficient for our needs here.

1TB WD My Passport external HDD.

I had it sitting around and it has more storage than the laptop.

OS:

Lubuntu 15.04 Desktop

Chosen for two reasons.

1. Lots of support for the Ubuntu platform so lots of info out there to help me get where I want.

2. LXDE desktop environment is lightweight enough for the old laptop to manage. Not so with the standard installation.

I did run into a small roadblock. I usually use CrunchBang on my old crappy hardware, but they stopped development of it. This meant researching and learning a few new tricks to get this going.

Browser:

Google Chrome.

Chrome has the plugins I've used previously as well as the ability to launch from the command line in kiosk mode, with no windows around it and full screen.

Plugin:

Auto Refresh Plus plugin for Chrome again.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/auto-refresh-plus/hgeljhfekpckiiplhkigfehkdpldcggm?hl=en

Software:

"Scrot" screenshot utility being used again as well. Works well with scheduling via CRON

"Unclutter" is a nifty bit of software I found that will hide the mouse after 5 seconds of inactivity ensuring the mouse is not in my screenshots.

To avoid any complications with an unexpected reboot, Lubuntu is set to auto log in and automatically launch chrome into kiosk mode. Auto Refresh Plus is set to auto start and load the IBR 2015 page. It's a laptop so it can handle short periods of power outages but that old battery ain't what it used to be. Auto Refresh Plus will handle any temporary issues with spowalla crashing due to too many users as I've seen in the past.

Jason has added a zoom feature so the videos will feature the entire US without jumping all over the place. I wish google had a bit more granular zoom to it because if someone heads to Alaska we'll see them disappear off the map and hopefully come back, but for now Alaska is cut off. It was a judgement call based on where the majority of the action is going to take place and getting a good clean unjumpy video.

That's about it...here's hoping it all goes well and I can spit out some more cool videos this year.

Sample screenshot:

Looks to be another highlight of tracking the IBR here on the forum! Thanks!

No problem. I might be able to get the first leg video out, we'll see.

Most of this is really notes for me. I had to come back and find this thread to remember how I did it all. I had a few more challenges to solve this time around and realized I wasn't specific enough the first go around so I decide to be more detailed on this attempt, so I'll have good notes for two years from now.