Capture Devices

[yuzo]

I am a noob and was trying the capture options.

I tried capturing from the screen and the iSight camera, but I don't seem to be able to.

I was thinking that setting the capture device to say screen and selecting the save option would pipe the output to a file, but I have been unsuccessful.

Can you capture input from the camera or screen and save/stream it?

[kolloquial]

I have the same questions. Just want to keep this thread going.. Any help anyone?

[sveardze]

I have the same problem. It shows the iSight in the list of capture devices, and I even specify the filename that I want the captured video to go in, but it doesn't do anything when I hit the OK button. There is no "record" button that I can find. I can't find anything in the VLC help files or in the wiki about how to capture video from the iSight. Does anybody know how to make this work?

MacBook Intel Aluminum Unibody (early 2009)
OS X 10.5.7
VLC version 0.9.9a Intel

[The DJ]

The latest iSights use a new ID for the video they output. This ID is added to 1.0.0, and those new iSight camera's should work with VLC as well then.

[sveardze]

I have Windows XP running on the aforementioned MacBook since I have a particular brand of editing software the is XP-only. Will the Windows version of VideoLAN also be able to record from the built-in iSight?

[fkuehne]

If you have a VideoForWindows / DirectShow compatible driver for the iSight, yeah, sure. It is supported like any other webcam in that case. However, I don't know right now whether Apple's iSight driver (included within Bootcamp) includes this feature.

[sveardze]

Don't mean to hijack this thread, but one more question... I'm in OS X using VLC 1.0.0 to capture the iSight and save it as an MPEG-4; the capture seems to come in only at 160x120 instead of the iSight's native 640x480. Also, I'd like it to be in AVI instead, but I don't see this as a big issue compared to the small resolution of the output.

[fkuehne]

We will add options to the QTCapture input in later versions, which will allow you to select a video size of your choice. Regrettably, that's not possible right now. Will come either in 1.0.x or 1.1.

You probably noticed that you can save your input stream to all file formats VLC supports save to. AVI isn't one of them, because it is a really bad and old and outdated format (it doesn't even support B-frames correctly not speaking of MPEG4 video tracks). If you need Windows Media Player support, use ASF. It got everything you need.

[dddvision]

I just want to mention that it would be tremendously helpful to my open source project if VLC/qtcapture could get frames at a variety of resolutions supported by the MacBook built in iSight camera. I would probably select 320x240 if that option were available.

We are using the MacBook built in accelerometer and camera to estimate the trajectory of a laptop. For more information about the project...

Introduction:
http://code.google.com/p/functionalnavigation/

Documentation:
http://code.google.com/p/functionalnavigation/w/list

[trimalchio]

I'm also wondering how to improve the resolution of the capture from an iSight. Right now I've got the problem with 1.0.5 for powerpc and its not allowing me to capture in a reasonable resolution, it seems to default to 160x120 which is extremely poor quality. Is there another way to address the camera so as to get specific capture resolutions? Does anyone have any insight on this isight problem?

[fkuehne]

This is just a limitation of our access module. It would be quite easy to add an option for different resolutions. We just need anyone to do this. Regrettably, there is no way to change the current behavior without recompiling VLC.

The currently provided size is 320x240 px btw, which definitely isn't the best quality current iSights can provide.

[ajmas]

Felix, can the camera be interrogated to find the resolutions it supports and then make it use the most appropriate in the modue?

[fkuehne]

Absolutely. This was just limited for speed reasons by the time it was developed (early 2008). Since then, nobody effectively updated the module to make it more complete. Perhaps, I find the time for that in the next few weeks.