Developing new software - here comes Stillflick

magusperde · **Posted:** Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:42 pm

So I'm really getting into this weather data collection and forecasting and I've got myself a cheap webcam as well. This got me thinking, I'm using Yawcam which is working really nicely now and putting up an image every 30 seconds onto my website BUT, I want to use these images to create a movie of the days' weather. Now Yawcam is supposed to do this (or something similar) but I can't get it to work properly nor can I get it to do exactly what I want so I'm in the process of developing some new software that WILL do exactly what I want.

I have decided that if I have a need for it, others may too and so I intend to make it available to all weather watchers. All I can tell you at the moment is that it is called Stillflick and V1.01 is working. As soon as I have a version that is suitable for release I will let you all know...

ironeagleuk · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:02 am

Sounds interesting....I look forward to seeing this

Solorize · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:44 am

I would also be interested in this too, as have been wanting to create
a daily movie from my webcam images for a while now, but not found
anything that would do this successfully.

captzero · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:57 am

Count me in.

robynfali · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:20 am

That would be great, would you be thinking about a daily upload feature within the program?

I think what would be great if you could go all in, take the usual pictures, upload them, and then the daily one, but hell that's just my wishful thinking, nice to see someone doing this, well done

magusperde · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:28 am

Actually it does have daily upload. It will also do a weekly, monthly and yearly movie. What I'll do is provide a feature list later today so you can see what it will do

magusperde · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:27 pm

Ok, so here's the specification I laid down for the software:

Software to convert webcam captured still images on a PC to a movie file and upload it to a specified website.

It should convert the images to a number of movie files. Once converted it should then upload the movies to a directory on a web site. Movies should be daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. It will also have an option to just run locally and convert images into movies without uploading them but store them on the PC.

The daily movie will be a fresh conversion of images from the local PC to a movie file and will be named yesterday.ext (where .ext is the chosen extension e.g. .mpg etc). Once the movie has been created the individual images should be deleted ready for new images the following day.

The weekly, monthly and yearly movies will be the summation of each daily movie. I.E. Tuesday's movie will be appended to Monday's movie to form a two day movie called thisweek.ext. Wednesday's movie should be appended to the two day movie to give a three day movie called thisweek.ext etc. Once we have a seven day movie, that will be named weekXmovie2012.ext, e.g. week1movie2012.mpg, and the individual daily movies then deleted. The week1 and week2 movies will be added together to give a two week movie and so on until a monthly movie is completed which will be called, for example, august2012.ext.

The weekly movies will remain on the server until the end of the current year when they will all be deleted and the process starts again. Each monthly movie will be added together to give a yearly movie e.g. 2012.ext. Each monthly movie will remain on the server and never be deleted. The yearly movies will never be deleted. The year is from 1st Jan to 31st Dec and the months will follow the normal calendar months, e.g. august2012.ext will contain 31 days of movies, september2012.ext will contain 30 days of movies.

Software user configurable options:

It will accept and store the source folder for images on the local PC.

It will accept and store the destination folder for local output.

It should have an option for deleting or keeping the completed video from the local PC after uploading for each video type in which case a numbering system will be used e.g. yesterday00001.ext, yesterday00002.ext etc (note the 5 digit numbering allowing for 99999 files) .

It should have the option to overwrite any existing video on the web server or add another video to the directory with 0000X appended to the filename. E.g . videoname00001.mpg, videoname00002.mpg.

It should accept .jpg, .gif and .png files for processing into a movie.

It should accept and store FTP details (for uploading movies to a web server).

It should accept and store a time for the process to run. I.E, a user will launch the software, it will then sit in the background and perform the requested functions at, say, midnight each day. There should also be a "run now" menu option.

It should contain a help file.

It should function on Windows Vista and Windows 7 both 32 and 64 bit.

It should create and store an activity log that will tell the user what the software has done and when (including date and time).

It should create and store an error log that will tell the user where the software has failed and when (including date and time).

There should be a menu item to clear the error log.

There should be a menu item to clear the activity log.

The software should have an installer and uninstaller.

The software will have the following menu items: Settings - View - Help .

Under settings will be:
Source folder
Destination folder
Input file type with a drop down to select .jpg, .gif or .png.
Delete or keep video after upload?
Keep existing video on web server or overwrite?
FTP - clicking this will produce an input form that will collect this data:
- FTP server
- Port
- Username
- Password
- Directory
- 4 checkboxes for stay connected? Silent retry on connection error? Silent retry on authentication error? Use active FTP mode instead of passive?
Process time?
Run at specified time?
Run now?
Run on windows startup?

Under View will be:
View error log? - on open there will be a further Clear data button.
View activity log? - on open there will be a further Clear data button.

Under Help will be:
Contents - will open a url
Visit web page- details to follow
About - details to follow

So that's what it is and what it will do. At this stage I really just want to get a working version out, but if you can see any glaring ommisions it would be foolish not to include them during development!

gemini06720 · **Posted:** Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:02 pm

magusperde wrote:

The daily movie will be a fresh conversion of images from the local PC to a movie file and will be named yesterday.ext (where .ext is the chosen extension e.g. .mpg etc).

You only briefly mentioned the movie extension as (possibly) being '.mpg' - will your program offer different encoding formats or will it use only one (standard) encoding format (such as Motion JPEG or M-JPEG) and thus producing the movies with only one extension (.mpg)?

It is my understanding that one must buy a license before one can include an encoding formats in a software, such as MPEG-4 (or MPEG-4 Part 2 or MPEG-4 Visual), or H.264 (which is quickly becoming the video standard of choice because the H.264 encoder can, without compromising image quality, reduce the size of a digital video file by more than 80% compared with the Motion JPEG format and as much as 50% more than with the MPEG-4 standard).

Would it be possible to allow the user more flexibility in the naming of the files (I prefer to use a numeric date format such as YYYY-MM-DD rather than month-name format which does not sort properly). Would it also be possible to allow the user more flexibility as to which files can/should be deleted after processing (if any).

magusperde · **Posted:** Thu Jul 12, 2012 6:44 am

It is my understanding also that these formats require a license and, at this stage, I'm not really willing to pay for it. Something like H.264 would be the codec of choice since that's one of the formats used for HD and Blu-Ray but any software product that encodes H.264 video has to pay a royalty per use or purchase a block royalty which makes it very expensive indeed. After much thought it is inevitable that the format will have to be .mpg because it offers the best quality for the highest compression.

The filename naming convention is not yet fixed since development has not reached the stage where it needs to be. In that case I think it's entirely reasonable to allow for filenames to be either automatically created using a DTG format or named. I'll include that option - good call. I have also decided to leave all files on the server and let the end user decide what, when or if to delete.

gemini06720 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:55 am

It would really be nice if I could say/write my 'thank you for your efforts' to someone with a first name in his (or it is a her) signature... :mrgreen:

Indeed, over the past year, the registration costs for some of those codecs (encoding formats) have gone up so much that many software developers (including Microsoft) are refusing to pay for the codecs (and their registration rights)!!

The best this for a software is flexibility - if you can give flexibility in the file naming, that would be great - as I wrote, for years I have been using the date/time format for my files, such as '2012-07-13_01-23-45' for a file created at 01:23:45 on July 13th 2012 - place many of those files in the same directory and they can be sorted quite easily...

I, as well as a few others, will be closely watching your progress.. 8-)

mcrossley · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 11:39 am

gemini06720 wrote:

for years I have been using the date/time format for my files, such as '2012-07-13_01-23-45' for a file created at 01:23:45 on July 13th 2012 - place many of those files in the same directory and they can be sorted quite easily...

Welcome to the world of ISO date/time formats!

Now if we could just get our 'merican chums to adopt it widely... :roll:

magusperde · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 6:46 pm

So now we have a (sparsely populated) website: www.stillflick.com. No content as yet, just the framework but it's getting there...

gemini06720 · **Posted:** Fri Jul 13, 2012 9:30 pm

mcrossley wrote:

gemini06720 wrote:

for years I have been using the date/time format for my files, such as '2012-07-13_01-23-45' for a file created at 01:23:45 on July 13th 2012 - place many of those files in the same directory and they can be sorted quite easily...

Welcome to the world of ISO date/time formats!

Now if we could just get our 'merican chums to adopt it widely... :roll:

Mark, please, please, do not associate me with my cousins of the south (those american chums you are referring too)... :evil:

...those cousins cannot even 'grab the meaning' (understand) the basis of the metric system ... "what the fu.. is a kalomitor' :mrgreen:

First, nice to meet you 'again' Rob - and thank you for your efforts in producing Stillflick.

magusperde wrote:

So now we have a (sparsely populated) website: http://www.stillflick.com. No content as yet, just the framework but it's getting there...

Indeed, a new and 'sparsely populated' web site ... but, hey, at the very least, there is now a registered domain for the name 'Stillflick'... 8-)

I understand that this is a 'work in progress', but may I suggest that the 'Home' tag be moved to the left followed with the 'About', then the 'Screenshots', then the 'Help', then the 'FAQ', then the 'Download', and finally the 'Contact' tabs - the 'Donate' tab should be removed completely but a 'donate' icon/image or message should be placed on each pages.

magusperde · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2012 2:46 pm

Well Ray, I've re-jigged the menu to take into account most of your suggestions - thanks for that, it does provide a better layout 8-)

Production moves on apace although it's difficult to find the time to create Stillflick, finish the building work in my garden, attend to other websites that I play with, be a part time tree warden, run my charity, have a family life and go to work to earn a living! However, Stillflick is now being developed to allow for "projects" - something that has not yet been mentioned. It'll get there in the end

gemini06720 · **Posted:** Sat Jul 14, 2012 11:08 pm

Rob, you need more hours in your days and more days in your weeks... :mrgreen:

I have the feeling your private life is not busy enough...

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Developing new software - here comes Stillflick

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