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Easy Time-Lapse Video

My family got me a Brinno time lapse camera for Christmas that I've been experimenting with to document my build.

It's a piece of cake to use - set it, forget it, upload the fully-processed video to your computer. . I'm still tinkering with which combination of pre-set capture & playback framerates is best.

One of my clips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGX6-2VM2XA&feature=player_detailpage

The camera: http://www.amazon.com/Brinno-TLC200-Lapse-Video-Camera/dp/B00CBNZC2K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1392056300&sr=8-5&keywords=brinno

Biggest benefit: saves me time while proving I'm actually building this thing!
 
Very cool! I was thinking of rigging something up using a PC and some cron jobs in Linux for when I start my build. I like this camera much better. Bookmarked it for future reference.
 
Very cool! I was thinking of rigging something up using a PC and some cron jobs in Linux for when I start my build. I like this camera much better. Bookmarked it for future reference.

Based on your Avatar you've probably got the 31337 skills (you are 'leet aren't you) to whip something together with a Pi and an inexpensive camera and automatically upload/post to your NAS or build web site :D
 
Negative, I am no where near "leet". I stay far far away from the script kiddies of the world. I do love Linux though, and I am pretty proud of my Red Hat certifications, I am working my way towards RHCA with only two exams left. Then I guess I could consider myself amongst the elite, as there are only about 1200 or so active RHCA's across the world.

But since you mentioned it, I do have a few Raspberry Pi's (4 to be exact) and I have my own home brew NAS using many of the Open Source tools....hehe. I had considered rigging up a Pi to take a snap every few seconds using Crons, and save them to my NAS, which would rsync itself to my co-located server that houses my Wordpress instance, and update the pages.

But honestly, I am lazy when it comes to my own stuff (like the mechanic driving around a beater), and buying this camera would be much much easier, and allow me more time to do other things. I guess taking care of several hundred systems at work every day makes you not want to get behind the command line when you get home at the end of the day.. heh. I much prefer cracking open an Angry Orchard and tinkering with the laser engraver than I do exercising my leet skills when my 9-5 is over.

Based on your Avatar you've probably got the 31337 skills (you are 'leet aren't you) to whip something together with a Pi and an inexpensive camera and automatically upload/post to your NAS or build web site :D
 
Very cool! Can I suggest moving the cam to the end of your table so you are not blocking the view of the work sometimes?
 
Your videos look great! I especially like the timestamp at the bottom.

If people are looking for a cheaper option, it's pretty easy to capture nice timelapse videos with a webcam ($20-40) and free software. This is how I've captured every second of building on my RV10.

Videos can be seen here

The other advantage is that I can use these videos to track my time. I don't need to look at the clock when I start or finish. The duration of the video tells me how long I was working!

Here is my process:

I have a full desktop PC on my main workbench (with a 32" HDTV for a monitor ) running Windows 7. A laptop would work just as well. Not sure about other operating systems, as I use Windows Live Movie Maker... which comes pre-loaded on Windows 7.

The webcam is a Microsoft LifeCam HD-5000, but any webcam that the PC recognizes will work.

I also have a 30' USB extension cable from monoprice.com ($9, LOVE MONOPRICE!!!)

The program I use to capture pictures from my webcam is called Booru (http://lumai.se/bc.html). The extent of the configuration is telling the app which webcam to use, how often to take a picture, and where to store the pictures. Mine is set to take a pic every 5 seconds. There are other apps that do the same thing, but I haven't investigated them.

My process is this:

1. Put the webcam somewhere it can get a good view of the work area. Mine is normally clamped to a shelf somewhere.
2. Open Booru (it starts recording as soon as it opens)
3. Build an airplane.
4. When finished building the airplane, quit the Booru app.
5. I move the captured pictures to another folder, but only because I'm going to keep them all. If you're only interested in the video, you can ignore this step... and delete the pics when you're done.
6. Open Windows Live Movie Maker
7. In WLMM, click "All Pictures or Videos"
8. Browse to your pictures folder, right click > select all, then click "open".
9. In WLMM, hit the edit button.
10. There is now a field to choose how long to display each pic. I use .05 seconds.
11. Hit "Save Video" You now have a WMV Video file that you can save or upload to YouTube.


It looks like a lot all typed up, but it takes me about 20 seconds from start to finish (except the "build an airplane" step)
 
Low budget cam

My trick is a low budget action cam (eg. Eken H9) and set it to repeat photo every 2 or 3 seconds. Then use the following command (Linux, Windows is probably similar).

Code:
ffmpeg -r 10 -framerate 20 -start_number 1 -i FHD%04d.JPG -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -s 1280x720 20170920-1.mp4

Where start_number is the first photo
FHD%04d.JPG is the filename format
and 20170920-1.mp4 is the output

The result is nice time-lapse video, you can tweak with the frame rate and resolution.

Results: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2um0667xGuH284TJOFYvSA
 
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