Guide to videotoblc?

So did you compile videotoblc? Is there a videotoblc.exe there?
Did you compile it in a linux environment like the POV stuff?
(If so, you may need to run it from a linux environment too maybe?)
Unfortunately I have never used the linux environment within windows, so I don’t know how integrated it is.

Wait, something converted. Not a exe file, but it converted it to a blc file. I’m not entirely sure when that happened but I’m gonna try to recreate it real quick.

Ok so it turns out that for some reason it says C:\Users\orang\OneDrive\Desktop\proffieos\OS7.X ALPHA\ProffieOS\videotoblc> videotoblc robotaki.mp4 >robotaki.blc 'videotoblc' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

BUT it actuall converts it? I’m really not sure… I’ll have to test the .blc to see if it actually functions.

looks like the file is blank in notepad tho…

I just saw the file list you posted before, and it doesn’t have a videoblc binary in it, so it’s not going to work.

If you have a linux environment installed, you should be able to open that up and compile videotoblc by going to that directory and typing make.

and by ‘that’ you mean the .blc file?

No I mean the linux environment command prompt. (bash)

I’m really not familiar with linux at all, I might need some help with the whole directory thing. What exactly do i need to do?

Hold on… booting up windows.

this is looking like a learning experience for us both i guess. appreciate the help

so it looks like I have my ffmpeg pathed correctly to the folder, but because it isn’t actually compiled it just spits out an empty .blc file and calls it finished because its trying to run a program that doesn’t really exist yet. But at least ffmpeg works

it is the videotoblc.cc file that needs to be compiled, correct?

I’ll have to come back to this tomorrow, it’s getting late.

Unfortunately windows hates me, and WSL doesn’t want to work.
I’m running some updates to see if it helps.

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How goes the windows updates

Didn’t help. WSL is still non-functional on my main windows machine.
(Also, it gives zero indication of why, it just doesn’t start. This is exactly why I don’t use windows very much.)
I might give it a try on my laptop later today.

Universal windows experience. Hopefully you’re able to get it running.

I’m working for the next 6 hours so I won’t be able to do anything on my pc anyway, so no rush

Well, WSL seems to work on my laptop at least.

Ok, step-by-step:

(Note, step 1,3,4 are setup and only needs to be done once)

  1. Install WSL wsl --install (instructions elsewhere)
  2. Open up an ubuntu shell (this happens automatically first time you install WSL, after that you’ll need to click the ubuntu icon in your start menu)
  3. sudo apt-get update
  4. sudo apt-get install build-essential gdb netpbm ffmpeg
  5. cd to the videotoblc directory, in my case this is: cd /mnt/c/Users/hubbe/OneDrive/Desktop/ProffieOS/videotoblc
  6. make
  7. ./videotoblc ./somevideo.mp4 >output.blc This assumes that somevideo.mp4 is in in the videotoblc directory, if not, either move it there or modify the command line accordingly. Note that the video can be in any format that ffmpeg supports, which is almost all of them.

Done, now put the BLC file on the sd card and set up a blade style to use it. (Which may require it’s own instructions btw.)

If your video has sound, you may want to dump that into a wav file (44100Hz, PCM, mono) and use it either as hum.wav or as the audio track. (which can be done with ffmpeg…)

Sweet, I’ll give that a shot when I’m off work.

Also, for the video, how does it get ‘sliced’ for the blade? Does it take general data from the whole thing and kinda put it all into a line, or does it just slice it horizontally?

Just curious because I’m doing an audio visualizer which is a straight line, so if it misses the middle it’s not gonna work lol

It samples across the diagonal. (top left is near the base and right bottom is near the tip)
That way, it would work for both tall-slim and short-wide input videos. (Although I suppose tall-slim videos will be kind of upside down…)

Just make sure your visualizer covers the whole video (no black bars anywhere) and you’ll probably be fine. :slight_smile:

WSL installed correctly, and I was able to cd to my videotoblc but when I try ‘make’ it says

orangesockninja@LAPTOP-16K7990H:~$ make make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found. Stop.

And when I attempted to do ./videotoblc ./somevideo.mp4 >output.blc without the make command working, it said I had no permission. But when ubuntu is run in admin mode it doesn’t function correctly, and won’t allow pastes.

I think maybe the ‘makefile’ is having issues, but I’m not sure. Is it supposed to be a .make file or something? I’m unfamiliar with makefiles.

Edit: Nevermind, it didn’t cd into the right folder. Keeps telling me either ‘no such file or directory’ or ‘too many arguments’

Having some difficulty, no matter what I do it will not cd to the file. I’ve tried various different spellings but no matter what, any variation of the current

C:\Users\orang\OneDrive\Documents\proffieos\OS7XALPHA\ProffieOS\videotoblc>

will not cd. I’ve tried other locations, such as just users but the only thing ive gotten it to cd is cd /homewhich is really not helpful

Paths are slightly different in linux, try:

cd /mnt/c/Users/orang/OneDrive/Documents/proffieos/OS7XALPHA/ProffieOS/videotoblc

Although it’s actually easier to do it one step at a time, like:

cd /mnt/c
cd Us<tab><enter>
cd On<tab><enter>
cd Doc<tab><enter>
etc....

that did it. Trying conversion now