1 picture every X minutes with VirtualDub

[trantsyx]

Hello everyone,

I have a silly question, but I didn't find the way to solve it.
I use VirtualDub to capture video, and I would like to not use another software because of the filters. But I would like it to take one picture every 2 or 5 minutes, to record during 5h at good quality and avoid to have a file of 12 terabytes.

Do you know if it is possible to setup Virtualdub for that?

Thank you!

Trantsyx

[TreeTops]

Web cam or external camera or screen capture?

[jagabo]

You can set the frame rate to less than 1 fps but it's appears to be arbitrarily limited to about 0.01 fps (1 frame every 100 seconds).

[Bernix]

Hi,
just curious what is your device resolution. And what quality expectation. Because at normal condition 12TB is very very huge space. I think if you disable sound (don't know if you need sound) You can achieve very good picture quality even with 1fps with several GBs. Probably you exchanged TB and mean GB.



Bernix

[ronmaz]

Bernix, if you read the OP's post again he says he wants to avoid a file that is 12TB size, he doesn't want to achieve a file that is 12TB size. I think he was saying rather sarcastically that he doesn't want a really huge file, but he's not going to get one anyway. 5 hours is 300 minutes. Taking one frame every 2 minutes gives 150 frames,or approx 5 seconds of video at normal frame rates. The file will be quite small. Even at virtual dub's minimum of 1 frame every 100 seconds, thats 180 frames in 5 hours, so approx 6 seconds of video at normal frame rates.

[Bernix]

Hi ronmaz,
at very first moment I though he thinks it ironically. But why he then didm't say roughly filesize he expecting and also resolution of his device. Because resolution matter asi is in close relation to filesize. I do not think that it is hubble telecsop pictures and quality is subjective. So using lossless codec for this capture will have very different size in 576p, 1080p or higher. So if the size of frame is 40MB (this is typical filesize of high quality raw photocameras) * 300 you get 12GB. Probably coincidence. Probably not.
So source can be wide range of quality from sd web cam to time lapse with HD photo cameras. And I don't think it is same.
Also different size lossless codec or lossy codec, but quality can be almost same at coast of very huge filesize difference.



Bernix

[trantsyx]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for your answers!
@Treetops: it is an external webcam: PK-910H HD 1080p webcam, A4Tech

@Bernix and ronmaz: I use 1712x960, 1080p as resolution. I can't really decrease the quality, I need to see a quick small animals.
I am very sorry, I was highly ironical when I said 12TB. I wanted to say I would like to avoid a huge file because of a permanent recording during 5h. Because I don't know if it is normal (yes, noob here), but my previous recordings of 15min took almost 4GB each time. And since I have to do many recordings, it fulfill very quickly my external drives.

I will try to decrease the fps as advised by jagabo. But in capture mode, when I go in Capture ->Settings,.... the default value is at 15.0000 frame rate, and it never saves the value I enter. Am I at the wrong place?
I will also try different codes, as suggested by Bernix

Thanks a lot for your help!

[Bernix]

Hi,
just for curiosity tested in painting program to store as TIF. 8bit/channel. This depth is most common for video. Also TIF is format that is same in filesize (with no other lossless compression is used) whatever content is on picture blank, noise the size is always same. So I used no compression no predictor. Just file contained color profile ICC profile. File size of this 1920x1080 picture is 7,91 MB. Whatever content is on picture. Even gaussian, salt and peper or Poisson noise is aplied on picture (harder to compres with zip or LZW you get not much smaller size). So you shouldn't get bigger picture in video. Even lossless codecs used for video are using compression. Using lossy format like H265 can make file even much smaller. Also I recall that x264 lossless is more effective than x265 lossless. Probably wrong as usual.

Conclusion. Taking picture each minute for 5 hrs = 300 frames. 300x7,91MB = 2373MBs. Also not sure how good is your cam and probably lossless video compression can be much more effective. So you shouldn't get over size 7,91 per frame at 24bit (overal bith depth). If yes there is something wrong.
Wish you luck


Bernix

[jagabo]

I will try to decrease the fps as advised by jagabo. But in capture mode, when I go in Capture ->Settings,.... the default value is at 15.0000 frame rate, and it never saves the value I enter. Am I at the wrong place?

That's the right place. It won't let you specify 0.01 or less (you can't close the dialog box). But it will accept a value slightly larger, like, 0.010001, or 0.011.