Recording videos from web cams - Please post your favourite

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Fleur
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Re: Recording videos from web cams - Please post your favour

Post by Fleur »

oh, I've already looked at but it seems difficult to me. If I ever have more time then I will try Potplayer. Thank you ame. ( and also Liz for the explanations. )

Time......I have to knitting too :rotf:
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Post by ame »

is it Mrs Santa's work, the knitting? :whistling: :rolleyes:

the Potplayer first looked difficult to me, too, but i just forced myself to start to learn how it worked. it's different than VLC and different from Realplayer, too. i never learned to use Realplayer. i tried it once. :blush: :slap:
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Post by ame »

i made a few pictures to illustrate how to find the most important controls of the Potplayer.
unlike in VLC there is only one drop-down menu (1 in the picture below). everything (= a lot!) is hidden under it.
what is most often needed can be found in Video (2).
clicking Video capture (or K for shortcut) will open a control window for taking screen shots.
clicking Video recording (or Alt-C for shortcut) will open a control window for recording videos.
usually i open these two windows when i follow a live camera.
Image

in the following picture are the control windows for screen captures and video recording. these i open and drag on the side of the camera window.
i have created separate folders for storage of videos and screenshots. i give unique names for the pictures and videos (they start with M or Meri for merikotkas). picture names will contain system (=PC) date and time in the screenshot's filename. it's practical (although J-E time is lagging a lot but i usually correct the time).
video files are split every 60 min and the names will also have the system date and time in the name. 60 min of video is not too big to be handled practically.
taking 10 pictures with 0.1 s intervals often give me better chances to get a good shot among the 10.
Image

earlier i described how i take snapshots for for example making gifs:
viewtopic.php?p=503966#p503966
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Post by ame »

the window size of the streaming video (live camera) or during playback can be changed during streaming and it will not influence the recording of the video.
Image

the playback of a video can be paused and resumed by tapping the space-bar on the keyboard.

the playback speed can be slowed down by clicking x on the keyboard and the speed an be increased by clicking c on the keyboard during playing a video.
(these don't naturally work with live stream.)

these few tricks are practically the only ones i use normally. don't be discouraged by the multitude of choices in the Potplayer menu. there is a lot of stuff which are not necessary to know. :laugh:
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Post by Fleur »

:hi: Ame and Liz.

Maybe one of you can help me?
I'm looking for the tool in Potplayer to make the movies "shorter" ?
I can't find it :blush:
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Post by ame »

Fleur, neither can i. i think there isn't such a tool in Potplayer. :puzzled:
i think that the only way with Potplayer is to play the video, look for the piece that you want to get and then record it. i have used this method for short clips.
edit: there's a drawback in the re-recording method! i realized that the quality of the re-recorded video is worse than the original. if you are making a video of sounds then it is not important. if good visual quality is needed then you'll need to trim the video with some other program.

for longer ones (over about 1 min) it's not practical though. for short clips (like a little visiting on a nest) this trick is quick. all you need to do is to record the clip, then rename the video and it is ready for uploading to the Tube. :D

for longer clips and more complicated videos i use the Solveig AviTrimmer. (it can handle also mkv-files).
with Solveig you can set the start and stop point on exact seconds of the long video. Solveig also shows a graph of the sound intensity. this makes it possible to find loud sounds in the video (but not an eagle call among the noise of other birds if it is not calling quite near.) loud sounds appera as peaks in the sound profile.
with Solveig it is possible for example to do make a video of the Moon rising for 15 s, then skip over 10 min, then again 15 s of the Moon, another pause, then Moon etc. 8-)

i have written some advice about how to use Solveig AviTrimmer:
viewtopic.php?p=440888#p440888
i hope this will help you.
- Liz might have some other tricks. :dunno:
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Post by Fleur »

Thank you for the effort Ame. :thumbs:
But then I will only use my own program. I do not really know any advice with potplayer and wanted to try it out. Maybe later in winter if there is more time for it. :mrgreen:
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Post by Liz01 »

Good morning :hi:

Today I found a way to watch Latvian cameras without youtube chat and advertising. You only see the camera

https://dabasdati.lv/site/kameras/kamera05-a.html

if you like to change the camera, you have to change the letter.

in this case ..../kamera05-a.html you have to replace by b and you can see Black Stork :laugh:
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Post by Liz01 »

Fleur wrote::hi: Ame and Liz.

Maybe one of you can help me?
I'm looking for the tool in Potplayer to make the movies "shorter" ?
I can't find it :blush:
Fleur :hi:
You have to use another program.
I use OCam (it is a very easy programm) http://ohsoft.net/eng/ocam/download.php?cate=1002 (it is freeware)
You can press the Pause button during the recording, then you can move the youtube slider to the point where you want to continue. Then you press the button again and the recording is continued.
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Post by ame »

can the OCam make recordings 'independently', not like aTubeCatcher? the aTubecatcher also has the pause-function, but it's a screen recorder and recording is so much more difficult with it. one has to remember to select 'stereo mix' for audio source and mute all other sound sources except the source that one is recording. one also has to take care not open any other thing in the screen where the source video is playing. one has to be so careful while recording with it. i make so many mistakes with it, especially in the mornings. :mrgreen:

i use Solveig AVItrimmer for editing my videos. there one can select the pieces to keep and cut unwanted pieces away from a long recording.
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Post by ame »

i just realized that i had the wrong notion about recording Youtube stream in lower resolution would make smaller video files that recording in full resolution. it doesn't! one hour of 4.7M video is 915 MBytes and so is 2.6M, too. i remember that i made test recordings when i started to use Potplayer with the J-E stream. i made a mistake in some way... :banghead: :faint:
from now on i'll record 4.7M all the time and in that way i'll get much sharper images for the same cost. :D
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Post by mogga »

Hello to all :hi:

I'm unsatisfied with VLC player.
I mainly watch the ospreys/kalakotkas2.

If I choose Netzwerkstream öffnen and insert rtmp://193.40.133.138/live/kalakotkas2 I can watch the stream properly but when recording the audio isn't synchronous with the video.

If I choose Netzwerkstream öffnen and insert http://tv.eenet.ee/hls/kalakotkas2.m3u8 I can't watch the stream (very discontinuous) but the recording is ok.

Do I handle something wrong?
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Post by Liz01 »

Liz01 wrote:The sound is not in order. :slap: That's why I don't like VLC Player. Unfortunately the link doesn't work in potplayer. And now archive!
mogga wrote:
Liz01,

I'm unsatisfied with VLC player, too.

If I choose Netzwerkstream öffnen and insert rtmp://193.40.133.138/live/kalakotkas2 I can watch the stream properly but when recording the audio isn't synchronous with the video.

If I choose Netzwerkstream öffnen and insert http://tv.eenet.ee/hls/kalakotkas2.m3u8 I can't watch the stream (very discontinuous) but the recording is ok.

Do I handle something wrong? Is there a good alternative to VLC player?

I'm surprised! this link works with the potplayer

http://tv.eenet.ee/hls/kalakotkas2.m3u8

Potplayer is freeware:
https://potplayer.de.uptodown.com/windows
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Post by mogga »

Thanks, Liz01, I will download potplayer and give it a try...
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Post by mogga »

Liz01,
i have downloaded potplayer now.
In the other thread (Irma and Ivo) you wrote that you record with potplayer.
I don't find a recording function. There is no recording button or something like that...
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Post by Liz01 »

mogga, here you can find the instructions. Maded by Ame and me :laugh:

it statrs here:
viewtopic.php?p=499450#p499450

move with the mouse over the potplayer window and open the menu with a right-click
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Post by mogga »

Liz01, thank you for the link, but it's not about recording. It's about snapshots and streaming.

I think potplayer is not made for streaming AND at the same time recording. The pictures of ame I can't see (they were uploaded to photobucket which no longer works), but I think ame and you are explaining snapshots and streaming, not recording.

My search in the internet didn't bring a result, too. Either potplayer ist not made for recording or I am stupid... :D
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Post by mogga »

I found it! I got it!

ame wrote somewhere:
ame wrote:clicking Video recording (or Alt-C for shortcut) will open a control window for recording videos.
Thank you... :)
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Post by Liz01 »

thats good, that you find out, how works it mogga :2thumbsup:

you can streaming and you can take snapshot with the potplayer. You also can open the LK Archive files with it.

This program is better than VLC. It synchronized video and sounds.
I am very happy with this program.
And I was happy, when I found out that it can stream youtube! VLC can not!
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Post by mogga »

Yes, it's definitely better than VLC. :2thumbsup:
The functions are hidden well, but once you have detected them the advantage over VLC player becomes clear...
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