ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Video page

The Video page

Unlike the pages on the left side of the ribbon bar, you can access the Video page without having to open an experiment first.

Introduction

The Video page provides some useful utility functions in ANY-maze. It lets you:

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View images from a capture device

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Record images from a capture device in ANY-maze video format

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Record images from a capture device in a standard video format

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Play a video file

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Play a DVD

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Convert an ANY-maze format video to a standard format

Viewing images from a capture device

Although you will normally use the images from a capture device to track animals in an experiment, there may be occasions when all you want to do is simply view the images - for example:

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You might just want to use a camera to observe an animal.

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You might be testing a device; or adjusting its zoom, focus etc.

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You might want to monitor the images from a shared device that's being used in an experiment on another computer.

To actually view the images from a device is very simple - just click the name of the device in the left-hand side bar of the Video page; the live image will then appear. To disconnect from the device, just click its name again.

The ability to view images from another computer on your network (which is sharing one of its capture devices) can be very useful, as it makes it possible to remotely monitor an experiment that's in progress - see the diagram below.

Figure 1. On the office computer, you could use the Video page to view the experiment that's in progress in the Lab.

Recording images from a capture device in ANY-maze video format

As you may know, you can record the images from any camera or digitizer using the VCR buttons on the Tests page. However, a drawback with this is that you must first set up an experiment in order for the Tests page to actually show the images. In many cases this won't be a problem, but there may be occasions when all you want to do is record a video.

A classic example of this is when you want to run two experiments at the same time, but you only have a single ANY-maze licence. In this case you could run one experiment on your licensed copy of ANY-maze, while at the same time recording a video of the other experiment using an unlicensed copy of ANY-maze on a second computer (remember you can install as many unlicensed copies of ANY-maze as you like). At some point in the future, you would simply copy the video to your licensed computer and then actually perform the tracking.

In situations like this, where all you want to do is record a video, then the easiest place to do it is on the Video page. You simply need to connect to the appropriate video capture device (see Viewing images from a capture device, above) and then use the VCR buttons shown above the image to make the recording.

By the way, if the intention is to track animals in the video you're recording, then the best format to use is ANY-maze video format; otherwise you can use either MP4 or Windows Media Video (WMV) format.

To record a video in ANY-maze format, you should:

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Select the video source you want to record from the left-hand side bar of the Video page - so the images are shown in the main section.

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Click the

(Record) button at the right-hand side of the toolbar above the video image.

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Click Save.

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The recording will start, and the toolbar above the image will show the recording progress (i.e. the size of the file and the time it's been recording for).

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To end the recording, click the

(Stop) button in the toolbar. This button has a drop-down arrow at its right-hand side; if you click this, you'll be given the option to

Stop video recording (which will stop recording and save the video) or

Cancel video recording (which will stop recording without saving the file). Just clicking the main body of the

button will stop the recording and save the file.

If you switch to another page (such as the Protocol page or the Tests page) while recording a video on the Video page, the video recording will stop.

Recording images from a capture device in a standard video format

As well as recording images in ANY-maze's video format (which is best for subsequent tracking), the Video page can also be used to record images from any video source in the standard MP4 or WMV formats. This has the advantage that the videos can subsequently be played in software such as Windows Media Player, or included in PowerPoint presentations.

To record a video in a standard format, you should:

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Select the video source you want to record from the left-hand side bar of the Video page - so the images are shown in the main section.

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Click the

Record a standard format video button in the ribbon bar.

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In the window that opens, enter the name of the file you want to record the video to.

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Click Save.

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The recording will start, and a flashing red dot will be shown in the bottom right-hand corner of the video picture to indicate this.

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To end the recording, click the

Record a standard format video button again.

Note that this feature can also be used to convert an ANY-maze format video to a standard format - instead of using a file, you can open and play an ANY-maze format video, saving it to a standard format as it is playing. See Converting ANY-maze format videos to a standard format for more details.

Playing a video

The Video page can be used to play a video of any format supported by ANY-maze and for which you have a video codec installed. This will usually include ANY-maze's own format videos, AVI videos, MPEG videos and Windows Media Video (WMV) videos. This just provides a handy way to quickly and easily view a video without having to open an experiment.

To view a video, you should click the Browse for a video file... option in the Video files section of the left-hand side bar on the Video page. The Choose video window will open, where you can choose the video you want to play.

You'll notice that ANY-maze maintains a list of the videos you've recently played in the Video files section of the left-hand side bar. To play one of these videos, you simply need to click its name. Clicking it again will stop playback. If you no longer want to see a video in this list, right click on the video's name and select Remove this video from the list.

ANY-maze will only display videos in black and white, even if they're recorded in colour. Also, it won't play the video's sound track, even if it has one.

Adjusting video playback speed

When you play and ANY-maze format video (i.e. a .szv file), you'll find that a playback speed button is included in the video controls. Clicking this button opens a menu of options for faster and slower playback speeds - you can change the playback speed in any way at any time.

Moving through a video a frame at a time

Also, when playing an ANY-maze format video, you'll see that the playback timer shows the normal hours, minutes and seconds but also includes milliseconds. As you may know, if you roll the mouse wheel when the mouse pointer is over the playback timer, the video playback will jump forward or backward by one unit - for example, roll the mouse wheel forward when over the minutes and the video will jump forward by a minute, roll it backwards when over the hours and the video will jump backward by one hour, and so on. This also applies to the milliseconds; however this isn't really useful unless you first pause the video playback - then it becomes very useful, as it allows you to move backwards and forwards through the video a frame at a time.

Figure 3. In a paused video, rolling the mouse wheel when the pointer is over the milliseconds part of the video playback timer will move through the video a frame at a time.

Playing a DVD

If your computer has a DVD drive, then you can use the Video page to play the DVD, provided you have a suitable video decoder installed on your computer. For full details about playing DVDs, refer to Playing DVDs in ANY-maze.

ANY-maze help topic T0929