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Audio recording with Backyard EOS


dcbrown73

Question

Is there a way (or maybe it does it by default) to record the audio when recording video with Backyard EOS?

 

My astronomy club wants to record occultations.  To do this, we need to give exact times of the recording and we can do this using audio during the recording process, but I'm not sure if audio is recorded during the video recording using BackyardEOS.

 

Also, is it possible to have the time/date displayed on screen in the video during video recording?  If so, would that time come from the PC or a time configured on the camera. (camera time probably isn't accurate enough)

 

 

 

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BYE doesn't actually "Record Video", but rather records large sequences of Short Exposure JPG Images derived from the LiveView Output Stream.  The bulk lot of JPG Images is then assembled into an AVI File at the end of the "Image Capture Run".  This might make it difficult to either record and append a synchronized Audio Track, or to assign Timestamps with sufficient accuracy to serve your Occultation Timing requirements.

 

It would be interesting to understand a bit more about how the Canon ESDK provides BYE with data during the LiveView "Recording" process.  Does the ESDK provide LiveView as an actual Video Stream, of which BYE extracts individual Frames ??  Or does the ESDK actually provide LiveView data as individual Frames - JPG or BMP or other - which BYE simply "stashes" on disk until it is time for VirtualDub to assemble an AVI ??  If the former, how does this lead to the rather wide variations in Frame-rate experienced across various Laptop Configurations or across different CPU Load conditions on the same PC ??  If the latter, does BYE simply execute a Loop requesting a Frame at a time from the Camera that is then Displayed and Stored and looped for another Requested Frame - and how evenly timed are these Frame Requests ??

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It is definitely the latter.

 

I believe that the SDK client app (in this case, BYE) tells the SDK that it wants to be notified when a new LiveView frame is available.  The app will receive that notification and respond; usually by downloading the frame and displaying and/or saving it to disk.

 

How steady the actual frame rate is will depend on how busy the computer/USB hub are over time.

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Your camera may support HD video recording with audio...My T5i does.  However since Canon has not made that functionality available to PC applications, by providing the needed control methods in the EOS SDK, BYE is not able to control that process.  For that matter, no 3rd party application that relies on SDK can provide that functionality.

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Most all Canon DSLRs past the 400D can record MOV Video.  However, the Canon ESDK doesn't afford any routines to Control or Access those Video Functions.

 

I have a T2i, which offers a GREAT 640x480@60FPS 1:1 Center-Crop Movie mode, which I can only use if I manually set the Video Mode and trigger the Record Button - unfortunately BYE cannot provide any aid (other than LiveView Frame&Focus) when I choose to use that Mode.

The T3i has a similar 3x Zoom Video Mode that captures at 30FPS.  

Canon removed both Video Offerings from the T4i (for some unexplained reason), leaving owners such as yourself with BYE LiveView 5X recording as your best Planetary (or Occultation) recording mode.  The "FullHD" and "720p" Video Modes offered by most DSLR Models are rather poorly suited for Planetary Imaging, both because the FOV and Images scale are wrong and More Importantly because all of these Video Modes involve Interpolation of multiple Actual Pixels into single Video Pixels.

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This is correct.  The Canon SDK offers no control to access the audio... and if it did it would slow down recording fps because some of the bandwidth would be allocated for audio instead of images <_>

 

Regards,

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