Hello, I built my first Recur a couple of days ago and overall I’m really impressed! It does some amazing things to video and I hope a couple of these can become the centre piece of my live setup.
I found some issues in V2_0_2 that may have been resolved in the latest firmware, but I can’t get that version to work. I’m hoping someone may be able to help with some of my issues below? (Apologies for the number of questions!)
- On V2_1 - RasPi asks for a password then I get a blank screen after 5 seconds or so.
On V2_0_2:
- My numpad mapping is wrong - n/4 & numlock don’t work.
I briefly managed to remap numpad key ‘n’ to load slot 4 but this setting didn’t save on reboot - Cannot remap numlock (trying w/ key code 144 but…)
- RasPi may need numpad to be unplugged and replugged for remapping to take effect, but numpad becomes unresponsive if this is done. Requires reboot to work again.
- RasPi always reverts to wrong key mapping on external full keyboard - replugging solves issue but annoying to do every time to get working!
- WiFi seems to be disabled (error - “cannot communicate with wpa_supplicant”) - was hoping to test out SSH or r_e_m_o_t_e ?
- Is there a full list of key commands for Recur? (I saw somewhere that “.” quits the program. I also managed to get the HDMI video output showing on the small IPS screen with another key but unsure what that was! And pressing again didn’t seem to undo it)
- Is there a way to boot Recur program from the RasPi if it’s been quit, without rebooting? (On Mac/Windows there is usually an icon you click to open the app but I can’t find anything within the folders)
I found some limitations of the different video players:
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With my HDMI to USB capture card, Captur Preview only works in ofvideoplayer and is basically unusable due to low frame rate and large delay. I couldn’t successfully record a video using my USB capture card.
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Using a HDMI to CSI adapter though, the quality is very good and the preview is almost real time. It runs at 1080p/25fps from my GoPro but in theory you could run any HDMI source through it! Almost all shaders work well and I can apply them to the video input using ofvideoplayer. I also had some success merging live video capture with pre-recorded video.
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In Playback Mode:
Omxplayer works best for playback - very smooth but has no shader support or sound (sound not needed by me)
Ofxomxplayer stutters and also has no sound
Ofvideoplayer doesn’t always play videos, and sometimes has sound. Also rotates portrait videos to landscape, but allows for shader fx.
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Is there an easy way to rotate/fit videos to screen? As some players (ofvideoplayer in particular) stretch or rotate the image to fill the screen. The rotate feature is cool though if it can be controlled.
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Not all tested shaders work and some stall the Raspi.
Restarting OpenFrameworks command sometimes helps
FX shaders look great!
I’m most interested in distorting video and live camera feeds, so more of these would be amazing! (I plan to try making some in near future) -
I’m using ofvideoplayer for the shader fx, but would be great to improve playback lags. Any tips to improve video playback response?
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On loop, often videos go black for a split second at end of loop (in ofvideoplayer).
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Any way to eject USB while Recur is on? (I think this was added in V2_1?)
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It looks like video speed/direction controls are available within the various video players (more info below). I plan to map these to controls in near future but wondering if anyone has had success with this previously? (William Kong mentioned on Facebook he had it working on OMXplayer, but then you can’t use shaders…)
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Plugins sound cool but I have no idea where to start at present… Are there any good ones worth checking out? How hard is it to make your own?
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Is it possible/easy to play videos simultaneously or crossfade videos together?
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Is it possible to Hold “<” or “>” to move up & down selection in pages? Rather than having to keep pressing the buttons?
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Stability issues - sometimes playback stops working. CPU & Memory don’t seem to be maxed out so wondering if problems could be with the Recur code or if the video player it’s running on is stalling? Sometimes restarting OpenFrameworks helps. Other times it needs a reboot.
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I saw 2 or 3 forks on Github from the original code that had interesting ideas in. I managed to download them, but I have no idea how to turn these into an image for the RasPi. Can anyone help?
FYI I’ve been using this wired USB numpad for my Recur.
Recur is certainly a great tool but has a few bugs and is let down by poor documentation.
I’d be happy to contribute time to improve documentation for users but I don’t have all the information necessary to do so. (This info seems to be scattered across various forum posts or known only to certain individuals who have figured it out for themselves)
Video speed control info:
In the code for each player, it looks like it’s possible to adjust the playback speed. (This would be amazing to implement and something I’m planning to play around with if I can get it working.) It’s referred to as speed or rate depending on the player:
ofVideoplayer
ofOMXplayer
OMXplayer
Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer!