Welcome to Synthiam!

The easiest way to program the most powerful robots. Use technologies by leading industry experts. ARC is a free-to-use robot programming software that makes servo automation, computer vision, autonomous navigation, and artificial intelligence easy.

Get Started
USA
Asked — Edited

Camera And Sound Servo Help

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!:)


ARC Pro

Upgrade to ARC Pro

ARC Early Access will give you immediate updates and new features needed to unleash your robot's potential!

#1  
Use talk servo instead of sound servo.... The record video function is in the camera control...
#2  
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.
#3  
Are you on the latest version of ARC? Video recording was broken a while ago, but was fixed ~last month.

Alan
#4  
Yes I have the latest version.:)
PRO
Synthiam
#5  
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.
PRO
Synthiam
#6  
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
#8  
Yay! The sound servo works!:D 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.
PRO
Synthiam
#9  
Sounds like a corrupt installation OR the path is incorrect OR the filename extension does not match the selected codec.
#10  
If that's the case, how would I fix it?
PRO
Synthiam
#11  
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.
#12  
Ok! I hope this goes though.
#13  
I had to lighten the file. Here it is.
PRO
Synthiam
#15  
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...

1) uninstall ARC
2) reboot the PC
3) 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:)
#16  
Ok. Yeah it must be my computer then. Does it save the video anywhere?
PRO
Synthiam
#17  
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
PRO
Synthiam
#18  
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.
#19  
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.
PRO
Synthiam
#20  
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.
Login to post a comment