I just realised by the look of the log text that you are using version 0.8.7.
The log is actually more complete in the recent experimental versions. It contains the inner exception text, which will be more precise than just "Configuration system failed to initialize" and that will greatly help understand the actual problem.

I should upload version 0.8.11 in a few hours, please try to install it and paste the error text again. Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience!

edit:
0.8.11 is available up here.

1,442

(24 replies, posted in General)

Phalanger wrote:

Is the display drawn on a direct 2D/3D surface?  I guess this would have great speed benefits and could help with doing slow motion.

No, the image is drawn on a regular GDI+ surface. Indeed, the slowness of this is causing issues with full HD footage sad
I have tried several performance tweaks, including native bitblt, but nothing has been particularly helpful.

I have no experience with Direct 2D though, maybe it could help make the rendering faster…
If you want to try something, the painting is done in /ScreenManager/PlayerScreen/UserInterface/PlayerScreenUserInterface2.cs in method SurfaceScreen_Paint and FlushOnGraphics (there are some comments at the top of this one).

1,443

(1 replies, posted in General)

Hi,
It sounds like a pretty cool project smile
Unfortunately, currently there is not much way to control Kinovea from the outside other than by keyboard/mouse.

Also, this would only be interesting on the live video, and currently the capture screen does not allow to replay the recent history of the live stream at slow motion. (You will be able to browse it manually in 0.8.11 though).

So there is still a long way to go before your project can be implemented, but exposing an interface to the outside world is something that may open many interesting perspectives.

In a related topic, to implement a generic remote control interface, the program will have to expose itself like that to the outside world (on network interface). Maybe the same interface can be used by other programs. In this case, a third party program would simply have to send the right command line on the right socket. That would be nice.

1,444

(3 replies, posted in Bug reports)

Gustav wrote:

I used version 0.8.7 which is the version downloadable from the start page. Are the later versions stable?

Yes, I would consider them relatively stable. Most regressions have been fixed, and the other remaining bugs were either already there in 0.8.7 or are due to new functions.
Once the capture screen is fixed and polished, this should turn into a new official version.

Well, the codecs are not obviously already installed. A freshly sold computer does not come with the DivX/Xvid codec. You have to install it manually at some point.
I'll try and check again what is the minimum stuff to be installed on a virgin Windows to replay the videos.

edit:
So after some tests,

To play back AVI files generated by Kinovea in Windows Media Player on a fresh Windows XP machine:
- For Kinovea versions prior to 0.8.11, you need to install the FFDShow Tryouts codec.
- For Kinovea versions 0.8.11 and later you can either install the XviD codec or the FFDShow Tryouts codec.

The XviD codec is a single codec (small download), the FFDShow Tryouts is based on FFMpeg and will help decode many files. Although it works out of the box, if you need to configure it, the interface is more complex.
Both are open source software.

Oh, it looks like this was reported earlier in bug 217.

Can you please re-confirm that you do have the .NET 2.0 still installed on the machine, because it would seem that it is mandatory to have it installed.
The .NET 4.0 or .NET 3.5 alone are not sufficient.
(Currently the installation program only checks for 2.0 or later, it should be updated to mandates 2.0).

Ok, if it never worked it might not change anything but could you go to:

C:\Documents and Settings\[your user name]\Local Settings\Application Data\

(note that this is not the same place than the log and preferences files, it's under Local Settings.)

- Do you have a Kinovea folder there ?
- If so, does it contain one or more subfolders ? something like "Kinovea.exe_Url_zp3dzp…"

You can safely delete the whole "Kinovea" directory there, it will be generated back. Try to launch Kinovea again.

This folder contain a "user.config" file with some more info like the recent file history.
A problem with this file is the most likely cause of "Configuration system failed to initialize" error.

If it still doesn't work and the directory actually exists, try to get a hold of the user.config file (inside subdirectories). 
Please attach it to the bug 225 ("Upload File" section) or post the content here, thanks!

Newer webcams are capable of HD resolution, 720p or even 1080p… Maybe that's the way for the future…
However it would be interesting to know if they give good focus when the person filmed are more than a few meters away.
I see that logitech have some with Carl Zeiss optics.

I am also very interested in gathering as many comments as possible on this subject!

The trick is that the camera must be able to do direct streaming to the PC, which is a feature that is almost not included anymore in the new camcorders based on Hard drives or DVD storage.
I can see two options, DV / HDV with a Firewire connection to the PC (inbound Firewire on the PC also tend to disappear :-(), or a Webcam with a USB connection to the PC. (Maybe IP cameras should be considered too?)

I'm starting to wonder whether HD webcams are the future of capturing live direct to the PC. Not sure how their lens behave with outdoors scene with big depth of field though…

I'll look deeper into this later but as a start can you provide the Kinovea and .NET version ?
You may find this at the top of the log.txt file.

It is a strange error since Kinovea doesn't use a .NET config file.

1,451

(24 replies, posted in General)

Ah yes. Motion perfect slow motion, I've always been very impressed by their demo video.
On the suggestion / todo-list, I have referred to this as "Smooth slow motion".

This type of extreme slow motion by reconstructing missing frames from adjacent frames content would definitely be a killer feature and quite a challenge!

As far as I can tell this is extremely tricky to implement.
Also in the same vein, the Re:vision Twixtor set of plug-ins¹. Some say it's the best in the industry at this type of stuff.

I'm not too confident that I can code this all by myself to a usable result though hmm I have a few leads and reference papers but it's quite a long shot. Very interesting though.

¹ Some Twixtor videos on vimeo.

1,452

(3 replies, posted in General)

Great, thanks for reporting smile
Note that the "official" target is still the 2.0.
Happy hacking tongue

1,453

(3 replies, posted in Bug reports)

Hi,
Thanks for the reports.
Which version of Kinovea are you using ?

Gustav wrote:

The other problem is that it seems like comments are not saved unless I change the title of the comments.

This sounds a lot like bug 207 which should be corrected in version 0.8.9 and above.

I'll try to reproduce the crash.
Thanks

edit:
Reproduced the crash, added as bug 223

1,454

(4 replies, posted in General)

Yes, please send it smile thanks.

Best is a < 1.0MB file, without sensitive content, so I can eventually post it on the bug tracker for future reference.
(Please state if it's ok to publish it on the bug tracker or not.)

1,455

(1 replies, posted in General)

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