Ok----someone please educate this non-computer savvy member: How do you guys run the video, then stop it frame by frame, and get a good enough picture to find all of this stuff?
Tom
...post identifiers in screenshots to defend your position and your analysis.
Bob, I'd love to be able to do this. Tell me where I can learn how to place arrows and baloons on a picture. Perhaps hou could give me a tutorial.
Tim, I gave a simple tutorial on this thread. General discussion / Re: Wire & Rope entire.mov
« on: November 08, 2012, 07:56:55 AM » If you need more help, you are free to PM me for a more in depth tutorial.
Tim/Tom,
(Note: Tim, I saw a recent post of yours showing annotated frame grabs. I decided to post this anyway as the video viewer described below makes it so much easier to analyze the TIGHAR Youtube videos).
An alternate, slightly more complicated, but very useful way to grab/annotate a frame:
- Step 1: Download the Youtube video to your computer
- Step 2: Find the video location using the scroll bar, short jumps in the video using the middle mouse wheel, then finally zeroing in on a frame by frame basis
- Step 3: Take a frame grab (to the clipboard) or snapshot (to file)
- Step 4: Annotate the image
for a PC is below. I like to do it this way because I have a lot more control over video playback (and enhancements) than with Youtube.
Step 1: Download the Youtube VideoI use the Firefox "Easy YouTube Video Downloader" to download Youtube videos. You can find it by searching under Tools/Add-ons/Get Add-ons for "Easy YouTube Video Downloader". It's quite easy to use. There is likely a similar add-on for internet explorer. See the image below to see where to click to download the Youtube video after the Add-on is installed. You'll have to select the download resolution and specify a file location.
Step 2: Find something interesting in the videoVLC is a really good FREE audio/video viewer that makes it easy to navigate to specific frames, take snapshots, or loop continuously over a segment of video. You can download it at
http://wiki.videolan.org/. I've used it for years. It's very good and provides a lot of control over moving around in the video. Note that Richie used it to create the
first snapshot here.
After downloading and installing VLC, to set it up for TIGHAR video viewing:
Go to Tools/Preferences
Click "All" under Show settings at the lower left.
Go to "Hotkeys settings"
Set your "Jump Sizes". These are the lengths of time you can jump forward or backwards through the video. I use:
- Very short jump length = 1 sec (controlled with center mouse wheel)
- Short jump length = 5
- Medium jump length = 10
- Long jump length = 25
Now look at the hotkey settings in the scolling box. Useful keys:
- f Go to full screen mode
- ESC Leave fullscreen mode
- Space Pause/restart
- = Normal speed
- [ Slower
- ] Faster
- jumps Shows various ways to jump forward/backward in the video
- e Advance forward one frame
===> Make sure to "SAVE" when you're done.
I use the image scroll bar to position the image just before where I want it, then use the mouse wheel and "e" single frame advance to find a specific frame.
You can create a bookmark via Ctrl-B or via Playback/Custom Bookmarks/Manage. If you click a bookmark you'll jump to that bookmark.
You can loop over a segment of video by clicking the loop icon. I find this useful to view something interesting over and over again at slightly different angles.
Step 3: Grab a screen snapshotAlt-Print Screen (i.e., hold down the Alt key then press Print Screen) will copy the current screen to the clipboard.
Or, you can take a snapshot from the control panel at the bottom (the icon looks like a camera) or "Take a snapshot" under the "Video" command set at the top of the screen. You'll have to tell VLC where to store the image.
Step 4: Add your annotationsAn easy way to do this is using the Microsoft Paint program. See Programs/Accessories/Paint. It's very easy to use. You can either paste a screen grab into Paint (Ctrl-V) or import your video snapshot.
I find Powerpoint or Photoshop to be more useful because you have better control over image enhancements and moving shapes/text around the image.