Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Baby-buntu


As opposed to the traditional baby monitor, I've decided to put together something of my own system, in that Linux hacker do-it-yourself sort of way :-)

Here was my check-list:
  1. Cobble together a little desktop machine from some scrap hardware laying around
  2. Install Xubuntu 11.10 with automatic login
  3. Add a Logitech C910 HD web camera
  4. Install Skype
  5. Create a new Skype account
    • Set it to automatically accept calls from Kim and I (only!)
    • Set it to automatically enable video
    • Disable all of the annoying notifications and sounds
  6. Add this new user "babyroom" to my Skype contacts, as well as Kim's; obscure it as much as possible
And there we have it ... a high definition baby monitor that Kim or I can check from my Laptop, PC, Android phone or tablet!  I would prefer using Google+ Hangouts for this, but I haven't quite figured out a way to have it auto-answer incoming hangout requests...ideas?

In any case, the high-def video monitor in the room sparked another idea -- to create the time-lapse video of us putting the finishing touches on the baby room you see above :-)

I recorded this in 1280x720 webm format using Cheese, over the course of about 35 minutes, while we assembled a simple crib and rearranged some furniture.

I then spent 4+ hours trying to figure out how to resample the frame rate and fit it down to a 1-2 minute video.  I struggled and fought (violently) with:
  • OpenShot - slowing it down rendered it very choppy
  • Pitivi - doesn't support modifying the frame rate
  • Avidemux - should have worked, but the result wasn't very smooth and the colors were painfully distorted
  • SlowmoVideo - never got it to work
Alas, all I needed was a trusty old command line utility that I hadn't used in years (not since my Mythbuntu days)...mencoder!

This command rendered the video you see below in about 5 seconds:

mencoder -fps 195/1.001 \
  -ovc copy \
  -audiofile soundtrack.mp3 \
  -oac copy input.webm \
  -o output.webm

My input file was 32:59, and I wanted my output file to be exactly 2:14, to match up with my chosen soundtrack, so I used a frame rate multiplier of 195/1.001.  It look a little toying to get it right, but it worked out very well, I think!

Special thanks to one of my oldest friends, and college roommate, Derek Bergeron who composed and performed the soundtrack.  This was a recording of his from several years ago that I borrowed as it just sounds perfectly frantic for the video :-)  In case you can't tell, Derek is one ripping shred guitarist!

Enjoy!
:-Dustin

5 comments:

  1. A similar setup I had tried with Yahoo Messenger when I had XP on my PC. It never worked good. For 2 years now I'm using Ubuntu and have a Skype account and want to try again. My question is why you want to use Google+Hangouts.
    Thanks,

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why would you use Google+Hangouts, can I use FB ?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks Dustin and congrats to BOTH of you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for sharing this. I've been trying to figure something out but I was looking at streaming with icecast on our local LAN or something like that.

    ReplyDelete
  5. One other note: API for G+ hangouts apparently became real today. Not sure if that helps with your need for auto-answering byobaby, erm, baby-buntu but it might:
    http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/moving-google-hangouts-api-out-of.html

    Hmmm, maybe it doesn't help (looks to be designed for within the hangout, not getting into the hangout.)

    ReplyDelete

Please do not use blog comments for support requests! Blog comments do not scale well to this effect.

Instead, please use Launchpad for Bugs and StackExchange for Questions.
* bugs.launchpad.net
* stackexchange.com

Thanks,
:-Dustin