The VideoLAN Forums

we use vlc for recording incoming networkm streams from surveillance cameras. as the stream comes in, it is written to disk. It would be great if VideoLan supported video overlays so we could specify say the data, time, timecode and some text over the video while it is being recorded to disk.

If someone has done this, let us know.


Mark

What you asked for is provided by the logo, time, marq video subfilters.
Logo is a variable transparency .png bitmap.
Time is a variable-format time/date string, and can also hold some free text.
Marq is another general-purpose free text string.

Marq and, I believe, logo, are already exposed -- accessible for on-the-fly changes. I forget, but don't think callbacks are in for time yet -- the camera name and timedate code aren't the kind of thing you normally want/need dynamic (they're static for a given source).

If using time, use a monospace font, not proportional, so the time/date doesn't jitter. (there are several public domain mono .TTF out there)

(Monospace also lets you use marq cleanly, if you happened to have something that you might want to have update without jitter)

Dear Mark,
Would you please tell me how I can use the marquee filter when VLC is sending different streams to different clients? I mean when there is just one client, every thing is OK, but when VLC is serving multiple clients, how I should specify to which one the data should go?
( It seems that the rc interface does not provide any special solution for this. )

Well, that's because it's not really possible. A stream gets send/is being received by a set of clients. In order to stream different things to different clients you need to send different streams.

(You can use the duplicate parameter of VLC output, to split the source material to two different internal destinations. Then one can go to the normal clients, trough a std element, whilst the 2nd can go into something like a transcoder and be overlayed with a soverlay subfilter, and chain that into another std element)

It's a bit more complex, but possible.

hi,

Marq and, I believe, logo, are already exposed -- accessible for on-the-fly changes.

logo overlay is imo not accessible for on-the-fly changes...but it would be great: I use VLC for a DBox-Netstream and can watch the video...but I miss the OSD-Framebuffer which can be periodical/action triggered stored as a *.png
Display the OSD-Frambuffer as a logo overlay works very fine but how can I force VLC to refresh the logo? I have to restart VLC to read the logo..

example VLC-screenshot with a transparent logo/OSD overlay:



so it would be very great if its possible to force VLC to refresh/read the logo (periodical) without to restart VLC...and if the path to the logo.png could be a networkpath..e.g. http://*** or ftp://***

cu,
peter

I wonder how to get that runtime info to stick as a on screen display timeline. I figured that something similar to subfilter "Time" could be used?

When you fast forward using hotkeys (Alt+right/left arrow) the current time and runtime shows, works perfect, but how to make it show all the time?

I need this to work when I use second monitor (TV) in fullscreen mode.

I think if you call the VLC variable in which the path to the logo is saved, then the callback attached to it, can update the logo.

I think if you call the VLC variable in which the path to the logo is saved, then the callback attached to it, can update the logo.

sorry, I dunno how to do that...I would prefer a more user friendly VLC integrated solution e.g. with a slider for update intervall time

I think if you call the VLC variable in which the path to the logo is saved, then the callback attached to it, can update the logo.

what is the name of the 'VLC variable'? I am still looking for that feature and if the path to the logo.png could be a networkpath, it would also be possible to view eg. live Webcam Pictures...

is it really so hard to realize a 'Live-Logo' function?