Hi, Does anyone export their movies from iMovie under the "MPEG-4" setting and code in openSHAPA? MPEG-4 is the only video setting that allows us to successfully code in openSHAPA. However, this setting leaves the movie quite pixelated. Are there any video exporting alternatives that would allow us to upload videos and code in openSHAPA? |
We use MPEG-4 (.mp4) in our lab when running openSHAPA datavyu and haven't had a problem with the quality of the videos. Have you exported videos from iMovie in other formats and they weren't as pixelated as when you export them as .mp4s? If that's the case, there might be a setting that ayou can change that is compressing your .mp4 files specifically. Have you tried using .mov files in openSHAPA? It uses quicktime to play videos, so .mov files should play fine in them and are easily exported from iMovie. |
Hi, Thank you for your advice. When we open movies saved as ".mov" in openSHAPA we can no longer jog frame by frame (which is very important to our study) rather it skips by 1 whole second. I have tried downloading g-streamer (a program noted as successful in regards to this type of issue -- which I found through your forum), however, I am not sure how to add this plug-in into openSHAPA and our movies. Do you happen to know what steps I should take next? Any advice is very much appreciated! |
If you've installed g-streamer on your computer, it will already be available to OpenShapa - no extra steps needed. When you add the movie to the data controller, simply select g-streamer instead of Quicktime from the drop-down menu on the dialogue box while adding the video. However, you might want to try the latest release of the software (Datavyu 1.0), available from the download page. It's still in beta and has some known issues (which are detailed in the release notes). It may be better at automatically detecting the frame rate of your videos, which is the problem you're having if OpenShapa is jogging by 1 second. And even if Datavyu can't guess the frame rate, it will pop up a dialogue box allowing you to manually enter it. |