NI Vision Support for multiple Video Formats

[ChrisReed]

Currently the NI Vision Toolkit can only read AVI movie files (and not all AVI's either ).

I would like to see support for all (or as many as possible) of the other formats including:

The Windows Media Format (*.wmv)

The MPEG Format (*.mpg, *.mpeg)

The Quicktime Format (*.mov)

and perhaps even the Shockwave (Flash) format (*.swf)

[GriffinRU]

I think what you are looking for is additional VI which would give us ability to tweak CODEC settings, i.e. compression filter - in LabVIEW world...

Maybe 2 VI's

Basic options.vi:

• frame size [i32;i32] - in case frames are not the same size or you would like to resize them with codec
• fps [i16]
• bitrate [i32]
• resolution [i16]

Advanced options.vi:

• interpolation type [enum], key frames [i16]...
• Codec specific options [variant] - check with online documentation

-Artur

[ChrisReed]

I think the ability to tweak (additional) CODEC settings is also a very good idea, and I assume changing the compression filter will allow the user to play the different video formats mentioned in the original idea.

Chris

[X.]

Shouldn't you in principle be able to use an ActiveX Windows Media Player container and read files with it? My simple test does not tell me how you would get the individual frames from it though, but that may be worth investigating further since you have access to a "current position" in media property... However, that would not replace a built in access to various codecs (which would depend on which computer it is installed on).

[ChrisReed]

Well in principle, yes, you could use ActiveX Windows Media Player, but I had a bad experience with ActiveX and vowed never to use it again in a LabVIEW Project

Chris

[GriffinRU]

To X-):

No, Windows Media Player is not the answer, and you won't be able to use for video editing, playback sure.

To Chris Reed:

"I think ability to tweak..."

You already can do that, just CODEC tweaking cannot be done easily in LabVIEW environment, you need to preset it outside (with CODEC GUI or programmatically) and you cannot run it simultaneously with different presets, at least not easy.

You can perform video editing with third-party software (ActiveX or .NET) but it would be either not free (i.e. Quick-time) or not well documented or efficient.

LabVIEW has "Ok" tools for video editing but not for streaming, and I think that is what you are asking for.

-Artur

[ChrisReed]

Yes that's right Artur, certainly I'm more interested in better and wider compatibilty streaming tools than video editing, but better support for editing would also be appreciated.

That is why it would be convenient (but not essential) to have LabVIEW be able to adjust the CODEC settings rather than have to explain to the user how to use another application (ie. CODEC GUI) to alter the setting.  Plus some of these interfaces are pretty complicated with lots of settings, where as in LabVIEW we could customise the interface with only a few of the more important settings available to the user (eg. Quality or Compression ratio).

Chris