Camera And Sound Servo Help

Question

Hi guys! I have a camera on my robot, and I was wondering if you can record with it. If so, how do I do it? Also I really like using the sound servo, but every time I pause it, it breaks and I have to restart Ez builder to get it to work again. Is that something you are working on, or is it my computer? Thanks!

Dunning-Kruger · Answer

Use talk servo instead of sound servo.... The record video function is in the camera control...

Kab_Art · Answer

The talk servo works fine. I use it all the time. With the recording video.. I have tried it, but it seems to have trouble saving it to my computer once I stop recording. It's weird because he takes snap shots, and saves them just fine. I like the sound servo because the robot lip syncs to music or people's voices. It seems to break though when I pause it.

thetechguru · Answer

Are you on the latest version of ARC? Video recording was broken a while ago, but was fixed ~last month. Alan

Kab_Art · Answer

Yes I have the latest version.

DJ Sures · Answer

Are you using Snapshot to take photos, or pressing RECORD to record video? Do you know where the videos are being stored? In the media folder - you can find that folder by looking in the Camera Config menu. It always defaults to your My Pictures\My Robot Pictures folder. But you can see that in the Camera Config. I will take a look and see if there is a bug with the Pause for Sound Servo and release a fix if there is.

DJ Sures · Answer

can you tell me which Sound Servo you are using? There are three of them. Sound Servo PC or Sound Servo EZB or Sound Servo EZB Playback

DJ Sures · Answer

nevermind, found it. Here's the fix: https://synthiam.com/Community/Questions/9111

Kab_Art · Answer

Yay! The sound servo works! Thanks! With the camera though. The robot takes snap shots just fine, and it saves it where I told it too. However when I click record under video recording, an error comes up and says: AVI writer error: cannot open the video file. It does this when I click both start and stop under video recording.

DJ Sures · Answer

Sounds like a corrupt installation OR the path is incorrect OR the filename extension does not match the selected codec.

Kab_Art · Answer

If that's the case, how would I fix it?

DJ Sures · Answer

Good question. Localized issues are troublesome because every Windows issue is different. Let's start by sharing your project. That way I can see what settings are configured as a first step.

Use the attach file button to upload your project to your forum response.

Kab_Art · Answer

Ok! I hope this goes though.

Kab_Art · Answer

I had to lighten the file. Here it is.

Kab_Art · Answer

oogie3.EZB Ok now here it is.

DJ Sures · Answer

Thanks - i loaded the project without any issues recording video - although i did notice the video delay is set for 3fps, which won't effect the recording but it sure is slow. I'm unsure why you receive that error message while attempting to record video. I will add additional debug information to the recording method to see if we can get a better error out of your experience for the next release of ARC.

In the meantime, i can suggest you can perform the following...

uninstall ARC
reboot the PC
download and re-install ARC

see if that process helps. It's really difficult to identify localized issues like this. But we'll figure it out

Kab_Art · Answer

Ok. Yeah it must be my computer then. Does it save the video anywhere?

DJ Sures · Answer

As stated previously, it saves the video in the specified media folder. The media folder can be located by viewing the MEDIA tab of the Camera Config Menu. I recorded a few videos using your project of my goofy face looking around at the screen lol

DJ Sures · Answer

Oh - something else to consider. You can change the Video Media Type to WMV2 instead of MPEG4. You may not have MPEG4 codecs installed on your PC. The default compression is WMV2, which i recommend you use. WMV2 is built into windows as well, which is why it's ARCs default value.

Kab_Art · Answer

Yeah I played around with that too. I do have it set to a folder for it to save videos and pictures. It saves pictures just fine. Which is why I'm confused on to why it doesn't save videos.

DJ Sures · Answer

Are you certain it doesn't save when you select WMV2 as the media type? i'll see what i can add for more debug information regarding the error. It's a mystery as well.

Kab_Art

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