Let the great cable "cord-cutting" begin!
I, like many others, have slowly grown tired of growing fees for cable companies while the service is not at all comparable to the quality, choice, and convenience of what I get from Netflix Instant Watch for $8 a month. Pair that with Netflix's Blu Ray rentals and the occasional purchase of an episode of Breaking Bad on Amazon Instant Watch, and that leaves next-to-no reason why I am still paying for cable TV.
Now of course I'd love to still get local news and my main local stations: Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, CW. That should do it. I pay now about $30/month for basic cable, and that's all I'm getting from it anyway. Enter the amplified HDTV indoor antenna. For $40 I can plug in a flat antenna and I should, ideally, get all of these channels in crystal-clear HD for a grand total of $0 per month :) Seems like a worthy and long-overdue attempt at reducing unnecessary monthly payments on something I don't even make good use out of anyway.
I read this consumer reports review: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/07/indoor-hdtv-antennas/index.htm and decided to get the RCA Antenna that they suggest on there. I'll post some thoughts if this works out!
Monday, September 23, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
XOFilmmaker: Audio re-saving via Python
Wahoo for progress!
Tonight I just spent about an hour and a half (a short session tonight!) aiming to solve one specific problem for XOFilmmaker. Good news: problem solved!
I had taken my iPad back home to Canada a couple weeks back and read a bunch of the code for the existing OLPC Activities "Record" and "Jukebox", both of which use GStreamer a lot. This is the same library which I am employing for this XOFilmmaker activity.
Anyhow, as you might expect from previous blogposts, I've been running into a stack of problems with GStreamer and the learning curve is pretty steep, and the documentation hasn't been the most glorious. So I found some nice examples inside of these two existing activities. In Record specifically, I found a pretty fabulous function called "gst.parse_launch()" which appeared to let you just run a gstreamer command-line option directly in Python and it would "run the pipeline" for you... a GREAT way to splice together my final edits in the XOFilmmaker Activity, I reckon!
So my goal tonight was to see if I could get this to work... and the answer is... YES!!!!!!!!!
I started with the line I knew I had working last time:
On first attempt, it didn't work. It seemed like nothing was happening.
So I simplified it, reducing the line so that it worked on the command-line first, and it just outputted audio:
> ogg123 audioOut1.ogg
And it worked!
Now, to convert to Python. At first I still got nothing from the pipeline and there was a file being created on disk, but it was 0 bytes. After some googling, it looked like I needed to launch the gobject MainLoop -- otherwise I wouldn't get any code launched. Duh (I guess?!) So after some digging and experimenting, I got this to work!!!!!!!
=====================================================
#!/usr/bin/python
import gobject; gobject.threads_init()
import pygst; pygst.require("0.10")
import gst
class Main:
def __init__(self):
'''
# Express this gst-launch code in a Python call
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink \
demuxer. ! queue ! theoradec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! autovideosink
2nd try, audio only with re-convert
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! vorbisenc ! oggmux ! filesink location=$PWD/audioOut1.ogg
'''
mainLoop = gobject.MainLoop(is_running=True)
filePath = "/home/mjutan/Downloads"
muxline = gst.parse_launch('filesrc location=' + filePath + '/high_1.ogg' + ' ! oggdemux name=demuxer demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! vorbisenc ! oggmux ! filesink location=' + filePath + '/pythonAudioOut2.ogg')
muxline.set_state(gst.STATE_PLAYING)
while mainLoop.is_running():
try:
mainLoop.run()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
mainLoop.quit()
start=Main()
=====================================================
And here is my audio file, finally a non-zero size!
So why is this awesome?
The GREAT news here is that now I can work on the command-line to try to figure out how to splice Audio and Video correctly using GNonLin/GStreamer. This gst.parse_launch command removes the extra overhead of trying to set up a pipeline and catch pads and do all this other crazy crap. I just want to open up the input files, splice them together with the timings specified by the user, and output a single file all cut together correctly. It's probable that I can just programatically create a big long gst parse line which will generate a "Pipeline" for me. Then, I just run the pipeline and BOOM, the completed, edited video is written to disk. (Aside: I tried the original audio and video playback line again after I had this final version of the code with the MainLoop run() method, and that worked too, and played back my video and audio together on the screen. Awesome.)
How does this move me closer to getting video editing?
Good question. Well, it means I can now focus on getting the syntax for gst-launch correct on the command line, and try to just splice 2 videos together. If I can get this to work, then I've already solved doing the same thing from Python -- I just need to copy-paste the line into this parse_launch() command and I'm all set.
What's next?
My goal for the next OLPC session will be to try to get GStreamer on the command-line splicing 2 videos together successfully using different in and out points. If I can get that to work, then the large majority of the "unknown" section of this project will be COMPLETE!!! AHHHH man I can't wait.
From there, then I need to build a nice simple UI that kids in developing nations with next-to-no instruction about how to use this software will need to be able to understand. There will ideally be no words on the app. For this app to be a real success on the XO Laptop, my feeling is that it needs to be extremely intuitive and simple to use. Once I've got this particularly troublesome part of actually cutting videos and audio splicing together finally sorted out, then I can move onto the exciting parts of starting to build the UI and getting a playback widget figured out so kids can set the "in" and "out" points of each clip they want to use.
After that, I'll need to actually integrate it with the XO look-and-feel and with the files in the XO Journal. But that's for a later date. First I'll need to get the standalone GStreamer app working well. It's awesome to see this finally moving along though. I'm really happy with tonight's progress.
Tonight I just spent about an hour and a half (a short session tonight!) aiming to solve one specific problem for XOFilmmaker. Good news: problem solved!
I had taken my iPad back home to Canada a couple weeks back and read a bunch of the code for the existing OLPC Activities "Record" and "Jukebox", both of which use GStreamer a lot. This is the same library which I am employing for this XOFilmmaker activity.
Anyhow, as you might expect from previous blogposts, I've been running into a stack of problems with GStreamer and the learning curve is pretty steep, and the documentation hasn't been the most glorious. So I found some nice examples inside of these two existing activities. In Record specifically, I found a pretty fabulous function called "gst.parse_launch()" which appeared to let you just run a gstreamer command-line option directly in Python and it would "run the pipeline" for you... a GREAT way to splice together my final edits in the XOFilmmaker Activity, I reckon!
So my goal tonight was to see if I could get this to work... and the answer is... YES!!!!!!!!!
I started with the line I knew I had working last time:
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \This line successfully opened an ogg video file (created with the Video Camera on the XO Laptop), demuxed the audio and video, and then sent them out to an "audiosink" and "videosink" -- basically, playing the video file (with audio attached) to the screen.
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink \
demuxer. ! queue ! theoradec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! autovideosink
On first attempt, it didn't work. It seemed like nothing was happening.
So I simplified it, reducing the line so that it worked on the command-line first, and it just outputted audio:
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \Trying this again in Python, I still got nothing. Weird. So I tried a command-line save-to-disk operation... essentially unpacking the audio from the audio/video ogg file, and then saving the audio track only back to a new file. This was a success on the command-line:
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink
# Audio demux, then mux again and save as a new fileThis gave me an audio file on disk that I could run.
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! vorbisenc ! oggmux ! filesink location=$PWD/audioOut1.ogg
> ogg123 audioOut1.ogg
And it worked!
Now, to convert to Python. At first I still got nothing from the pipeline and there was a file being created on disk, but it was 0 bytes. After some googling, it looked like I needed to launch the gobject MainLoop -- otherwise I wouldn't get any code launched. Duh (I guess?!) So after some digging and experimenting, I got this to work!!!!!!!
=====================================================
#!/usr/bin/python
import gobject; gobject.threads_init()
import pygst; pygst.require("0.10")
import gst
class Main:
def __init__(self):
'''
# Express this gst-launch code in a Python call
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! autoaudiosink \
demuxer. ! queue ! theoradec ! ffmpegcolorspace ! autovideosink
2nd try, audio only with re-convert
gst-launch filesrc location=$PWD/high_1.ogg ! oggdemux name="demuxer" \
demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! vorbisenc ! oggmux ! filesink location=$PWD/audioOut1.ogg
'''
mainLoop = gobject.MainLoop(is_running=True)
filePath = "/home/mjutan/Downloads"
muxline = gst.parse_launch('filesrc location=' + filePath + '/high_1.ogg' + ' ! oggdemux name=demuxer demuxer. ! queue ! vorbisdec ! audioconvert ! audioresample ! vorbisenc ! oggmux ! filesink location=' + filePath + '/pythonAudioOut2.ogg')
muxline.set_state(gst.STATE_PLAYING)
while mainLoop.is_running():
try:
mainLoop.run()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
mainLoop.quit()
start=Main()
=====================================================
And here is my audio file, finally a non-zero size!
 |
| pythonAudioOut2.ogg, suckas!!!!!!!!!!!! |
So why is this awesome?
The GREAT news here is that now I can work on the command-line to try to figure out how to splice Audio and Video correctly using GNonLin/GStreamer. This gst.parse_launch command removes the extra overhead of trying to set up a pipeline and catch pads and do all this other crazy crap. I just want to open up the input files, splice them together with the timings specified by the user, and output a single file all cut together correctly. It's probable that I can just programatically create a big long gst parse line which will generate a "Pipeline" for me. Then, I just run the pipeline and BOOM, the completed, edited video is written to disk. (Aside: I tried the original audio and video playback line again after I had this final version of the code with the MainLoop run() method, and that worked too, and played back my video and audio together on the screen. Awesome.)
How does this move me closer to getting video editing?
Good question. Well, it means I can now focus on getting the syntax for gst-launch correct on the command line, and try to just splice 2 videos together. If I can get this to work, then I've already solved doing the same thing from Python -- I just need to copy-paste the line into this parse_launch() command and I'm all set.
What's next?
My goal for the next OLPC session will be to try to get GStreamer on the command-line splicing 2 videos together successfully using different in and out points. If I can get that to work, then the large majority of the "unknown" section of this project will be COMPLETE!!! AHHHH man I can't wait.
From there, then I need to build a nice simple UI that kids in developing nations with next-to-no instruction about how to use this software will need to be able to understand. There will ideally be no words on the app. For this app to be a real success on the XO Laptop, my feeling is that it needs to be extremely intuitive and simple to use. Once I've got this particularly troublesome part of actually cutting videos and audio splicing together finally sorted out, then I can move onto the exciting parts of starting to build the UI and getting a playback widget figured out so kids can set the "in" and "out" points of each clip they want to use.
After that, I'll need to actually integrate it with the XO look-and-feel and with the files in the XO Journal. But that's for a later date. First I'll need to get the standalone GStreamer app working well. It's awesome to see this finally moving along though. I'm really happy with tonight's progress.
Monday, September 09, 2013
Dave Matthews Band: Shoreline: Sept 8, 2013
I've kindof lost track of how many DMB shows I've been to now... I think the grand total so far is 22 as of last night :)
It was an awesome show as usual. It's particularly amazing to witness the way that Jeff and Rawshawn (Sax and Trumpet players) mesh with the band now as compared with when they first joined-- they have always been awesome, but man the band plays together sooooo tightly now. It's pretty amazing to experience :)
Great solos, especially on Jimi Thing and Two Step. Awesome times.
Check out this set list!
1. Louisiana Bayou
2. Belly Belly Nice -->
3. You Might Die Trying
4. Proudest Monkey -->
5. Satellite
6. Squirm
7. (Dont Fear) The Reaper
8. Crush
9. Mercy
10. The Song That Jane Likes
11. Warehouse -->
12. Typical Situation
13. Why I Am
14. Snow Outside
15. Jimi Thing
16. Grey Street
-------- ENCORE --------
17. Drunken Soldier -->
18. Two Step
SHOW NOTES:
--> indicates a segue into next song
1. Louisiana Bayou
2. Belly Belly Nice -->
3. You Might Die Trying
4. Proudest Monkey -->
5. Satellite
6. Squirm
7. (Dont Fear) The Reaper
8. Crush
9. Mercy
10. The Song That Jane Likes
11. Warehouse -->
12. Typical Situation
13. Why I Am
14. Snow Outside
15. Jimi Thing
16. Grey Street
-------- ENCORE --------
17. Drunken Soldier -->
18. Two Step
SHOW NOTES:
--> indicates a segue into next song