Video files mysteriously deleted

[Tammy]

Hi
I have a problem with vitamin D concerning the automatic deletion of video files.

1) I have set the size of the clip and temp video to a very big number, and for them to be kept for 2 days. I recorded about 2 hours of video, and have them saved in C:\vitaminvideo\archive\room\13114. I then created a subfolder "store" in "13114", i.e. C:\vitaminvideo\archive\room\13114\store and exported some clips into it. As I am also interested in the full 2 h videos, i cut-and-paste the raw mp4 files (i.e. those with names such as 1311405558-187500rrrrl.mp4) into the folder "store". I think i then turn off and on the camera, which led it to record a few more minutes of video. I also deleted the broken links from Search View. Eventually, i closed Vitamin D. When i searched for my exported files and also the raw video files, they were mysteriously gone! "Store" becomes an empty folder. I had to use file recovery software to locate them. What did I do wrong?

2) I would like to join individual mp4 files into a big clip and also to convert them to avi. May I know how this can be done? I have tried some free file converters (mp4 to avi), but the video speed were messed up in the process. Any recommendations?

Thank you
tammy

[Semper Vaporo]

I am not sure if I can be of much help, but let me try one suggestion. Instead of a "Cut and Paste", do a "Copy and Paste". This will take longer to do and requires twice as much disk space, both of which are undesirable things, but it seems (and I am in no way sure about this) Winders (in an apparent attempt at being helpful) sometimes remembers when you "Move" a file and later when you attempt to access the file where it "was", it will redirect the access to the new place where you moved it "to". Thus when VDV was building the list of clips, it may show the file no longer exists because it did not "know" that you moved it, but when you direct VDV to delete the clip, it may be using a function of Windows that knows of the "move" and thus goes and finds the moved file and deletes it. (Now, ain't that helpful? )

If you do a "Copy and Paste" then VDV will find the original clip and you can then tell it to delete it (if you need the disk space) and Windows will just delete that file and not the copy.

I suppose you could also do a "Copy and Paste" and then Delete it all using Windows and then clean up the VDV databases, but I'd recommend not deleting the files outside of VDV. VDV does seem to cleanly handle the "user deleted files scenario" without later repurcussions, but why take the chance of confusing it?

Another thing to try is to use VDV to "export" the files to some other place. Right click on the desired clip, either in the list on the left side of the View mode or the large display in the View mode and select "Export Clip" from the Context menu.

It is a little more work, but you can even export clips where there has been no motion at all. if you have more than one camera you must select just a single camera from the "Camera" drop down list and then select a clip where motion was detected (by rule or not) adjacent to the time you want and then drag the time thumb button to one end and then click the FWD or REV buttons (the ones directly adjacent to the RUN button in the middle, not the arrows in the circles at the extreme ends) to move the time to the next clip, and you will get the clip that is next in the time sequence, whether there was motion or not. If it is a non-motion clip the highlight in the left hand list will be between the clips saved because of motion. You can then right click on the large display section to get the Context menu and select "Export Clip".


To convert the files to WMV I use Windows Live Movie Maker without having a problem with playback speed. What programs have you tried to convert MP4 to AVI? Maybe they could handle WMV to AVI better... although first using Media Player would entail that additional intermediate step, at least with Movie Maker you have the option of trimming the output to just the relevant portion.


Hopefully, the folk at VDV that really know this stuff, will come along soon and provide better info.

[Tammy]

Hi Semper Vaporo
Sounds like a reasonable hypothesis. I'll take your advice.

I used "Any Video Converter". Will give movie make a try. I now noticed that in the original VDV captured video, the speed is also not quite exact. The scenes seems to be slower than what is actually happening. Is this possible? If so, how should one get around it?

thank you
Tammy

[Semper Vaporo]

I'll have to see if I can find "Any Video Converter" to give it a try myself. Thanks.

Question: Does the video playback at the correct speed when using VDV? Or is it only when exported/copied and played back in some other player?

As to the question of what is happening... well, in my experience there seems to be a misunderstanding of what Frames Per Second really means amongst those that created the various formats and software developers that use them, nobody seems to be able to come to a consensus.

Oh wait, that is "why", not "what"... I will try to stay off my soapbox about "Standards" that aren't.

It is possible that the camera is reporting some number of frames per second, but actually sending something different, or somewhere in the chain of hardware/software, something is altering the numbers or the frames being output and the next program is getting false info. Or possibly the video display driver/hardware is a wee bit slow, but is set to show every frame even if it is falling behind the time-line.

Fixing any of this may be easy or impossible.

Every step of the chain of hardware and software MIGHT have a setup parameter that you can alter to improve things. Or, screw it up worse! So if you start making changes, be sure to write down what you are changing and what the setting was (and how you got to the setting to make a change) before you make a change. And, most importantly, make only ONE change at a time to see what the effect is. (Not that I follow my own advice in any of that!)

This ranges from the camera's internal setup, to the drivers in the computer that interface with the camera, to VDV, to the converter programs, to the playback programs, to the display hardware/drivers. Lots of places where something can be screwed up.

Which of those places in that chain of hardware and software that CAN be changed depends on the hardware and software in particular.

Most "Net Cams" (cameras that connect via a network cable) have a method of logging into the camera via a web browser (like Internet Explorer, Chrome, etc.) and most have parameters you can change, such as the resolution and the frames per second (FPS).

"Web Cams" (those that connect via USB) sometimes come with a utility program where you can change the camera's parameters. I use a program that Microsoft used to provide with Windows but is now only available if you go looking for it on the web (Microsoft and several other "Download" sites can provide it). It is named "AMCAP.exe".

I can explain AMCAP in more detail if you wish, or you can wing it and see what you can do with it. Note: AMCAP and VDV cannot share access to a camera, you have to Disconnect the camera in VDV before AMCAP can access it to make changes, then either terminate AMCAP or connect it to some other camera before you have VDV Connect to it again. The settings that AMCAP can change will usually be remembered after a reboot, but sometimes they will be forgotten and you will have to do it again. I cannot find a reason for the sometimes forgetfullness.

You might check the software used in the various intermediate steps to see what each thinks the FPS is. See if they all agree with what you think it is supposed to be. Also check what FPS it is outputing when saving/converting the file.

[ryan]

Thanks for the replies Semper!

With regard to the disappearing video files, VDV treats the /archive/... folder as it's private storage, and tries to manage disk space according to your specifications. If it sees files inside that directory that it doesn't have in its database it will remove them. If you want to back up video clips from that directory you will need to place them somewhere else on your hard drive.

In reference to the speed of recorded video, VDV should be relatively accurate compared to the actual event. There will be minor variations frame to frame due to the way video is encoded, but overall a 1 minute real time event should result in a 1 minute realtime video.