1 Topic by joan

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Giving this its own topic.

Alexander wrote:

I am not quite sure if this idea fits in here, but I would very much like to "time stamp" and save images from a streaming video.
Example: I am streaming a finish line of a crosscountry race. When competitors cross the line, I click and save an image with a running clock timestamp. All the timestamps are recorded in a file and can be opened later with Excel/OpenOffice etc. to match with corresponding images.
In this way I have a backup and documentation of the runners.

2 Reply by joan

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Interesting… The timestamp part might be covered by the existing naming scheme feature. Have you tried that ? From the capture tab in the main preferences you can have the snapshots named automatically with a timestamp. If it needs to have more precision it would probably be simple to integrate.

Then the second part would be to collect the list of files/timestamps in a text log, csv or spreadsheet file.
This could be done entirely in an external program I guess, monitoring the output directory and collecting info on the fly. Or it could be added as an internal feature, but it sort of feel a bit specific…

Another way that might be interesting would be to be able to define an external command to be executed after each snapshot is saved. That would leave the possibilities open and allow for many other uses. The external program would be fed the file name, time stamp and other variables as parameters.

It's more advanced on the user side and would need a bit of programming to get it working but we can probably create scripts for common scenarios as the requests come.

3 Reply by Alexander (edited by Alexander 2013-04-23 12:10:28)

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Thank you Joan for catching on to my idea smile!
Using a defined external command would make it a lot more versatile.  One could build a racetiming system that updates to the web directly online through smartphones etc.?



Well. Now that I am thinking "crazy": would it be possible to make KINOVEA react on outside trigger signals?
A person carrying a RFID or bluetooth approaching would make the program act...take a snapshot...read in the signal and stamp the video/picture...

More simple: using movement detection with grading of change in the screen:   X% changing pixels trigger the function?


And a third idea: using the videodelay, Kinovea would make a short recording of the 3-5 second BEFORE the snapshot. The snapshot finish and this video would be saved dually.

And a fourth, extra complicated idea: could Kinovea at some stage have a picture "reading" function to extract data from QRCards or identify numerals (1,2,3,...45....567) in the picture.

This way Kinovea could be used on-the-fly  as a racetiming device.

4 Reply by Alexander

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Joan:"From the capture tab in the main preferences you can have the snapshots named automatically with a timestamp. If it needs to have more precision it would probably be simple to integrate."

Yes. This worked, but the precision should probably be down to 1/10 second, as times are recorded in full seconds in road races.