Capturing Video From 450D/1000D

George · (#1)

Found this on the Yahoo DSLRmod user group, looks very interesting.
Thanks to Gary Honis for passing this on :thumbright:

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In case you haven't already seen this, a Russian guy, Alexey Chernov, has written free software to allow the Canon 450D, 1000D

(and 40D?) to capture video at 25 frames per second and save it as
an avi file. It could come in handy for doing planetary, lunar and solar imaging. I hope to compare it using the modified 450D to the results I get with modified Fusion and Pro 9000 webcams. I got it working inside today. Here are some directions if you want to give it a try:

1. Downloaded the software from here:

http://valexvir.narod.ru/

On January 26, 2009 the version of the software was 0.5 and the file

name was:

eos_movrec-0.0.5.exe

2. After the download is complete, double click on the file and runthe install program. It will create a directory named "eos_movrec" where it will place all files. Note its location.

3. Connect camera uSB cable to computer. Set Camera to Manual Mode and turn camera on.

4. Canon's "EOS Utiltiy" software window will open. Select "Camera settings/Remote shooting" icon.

5. In the EOS window that opens, set the shutter speed to 1/30 second.

6. Click the "Remote Live View Shooting Icon" to put camera in live view mode.

7. Adjust focus, focal ratio and ISO for photo quality. Exit the "EOS Utility" program when you are satisfied with the video image.

8. Open the directory "eos_movrec" and double click the file "eos_movrec.exe" to run the program.

Click "Write" to start the capture and click "Stop" to end the capture.

9. Video will be saved as "out.avi" in the "eos_movrec" directory.

10. To process it in Registax 4, you will first need to convert the "out.avi" file which the program saves in Internal Motion JPEG Decoder (MJPG) avi format to an avi format that Registax 4 will recognize. I use Virtual Dub software to open the avi file and do "Save as old format avi" file and it will open in Registax 4.

The planned new version of Registax (5) is expected to work with MPEG avi files.

Enjoy

Psychobilly · (#2)

Cheers George

blinky · (#3)

If only that would work with a 350d.....

NickH · (#4)

That's wicked and just saved me a shed load of cash...

thanks!

Reggie · (#5)

I saw this but deliberatly didn't post about it, not sure if it brings anything new to the table, as far as I can see it requires you to be tethered to a PC, so is no better than a stream capture application? Unless I missed something.....

beamish · (#6)

Reggie, I'm guessing chip size and pixels over a w/cam for luna/planets/solar ?

Doc · (#7)

Wow interesting.

Cheers George.

Psychobilly · (#8)

Quote:

I saw this but deliberatly didn't post about it, not sure if it brings anything new to the table, as far as I can see it requires you to be tethered to a PC, so is no better than a stream capture application? Unless I missed something.....

Which you would also be if you were using a webcam as well? Unless I missed something.....

Billy....

Might give this a go soon

Psychobilly · (#9)

Works a treat under Vista you get a 768x512 21fps AVI at 35441 kbps

Virus free checked with a few different scanners

barkis · (#10)

Gary Honis? Is he the guy who provided an Illustrated guide to webcam conversion. I'm sure it was his guide to doing the Logitech Fusion I used.? The name rings that bell.
Ron.

Psychobilly · (#11)

Frame rate seems very pc dependent...

On my obs laptop i can only get 12 fps at 768x512 at 10230kbps compared to 21 fps on the ever so slightly more powerful desktop

Billy...

Sam · (#12)

Wow! what a great find. This is going to make quite a bit of difference to my moon shots I think! Thanks for that

Reggie · (#13)

I would say if anything the fps will be usb chispet dependent

I should've qualified my statement a little better, I spotted the eos_rec but didn't think it was doing anything that hadn't already been done in firmware without the need for a PC to kickstart the recording (although as yet unreleased), in fact, this does nothing to the camera and is just hooking straight off the output stream that liveview gives you like a stream ripper or avi capture software.

NickH · (#14)

Quote:

I saw this but deliberatly didn't post about it, not sure if it brings anything new to the table, as far as I can see it requires you to be tethered to a PC, so is no better than a stream capture application? Unless I missed something.....

ASUS 900, works like a treat... and that is hardly being tethered....

Thanks again for the link

Psychobilly · (#15)

lets face it just about any imaging involves a "PC" so its hardly and issue... what sort of frame rates are you getting with the Asus 900 Nick?

Sam · (#16)

Does the avi format that it uses introduce compression artifacts?

George · (#17)

Quote:

lets face it just about any imaging involves a "PC" so its hardly and issue... what sort of frame rates are you getting with the Asus 900 Nick?

Be pretty hard to autoguide without a PC, unless you go back to the good old days and guide manually :laughing2:

Psychobilly · (#18)

Using a webcam without one would also be interesting... perhaps Reggie has other ideas

Got to have a PC around or you have to use one of those "EP" thingies...

Billy....

NickH · (#19)

Quote:

lets face it just about any imaging involves a "PC" so its hardly and issue... what sort of frame rates are you getting with the Asus 900 Nick?

60 fps with the skynyx...

it's SSD...and I can setup a 400MB ram disc according to lucam recorder as well, which is enough for a 1500 frame run. Connected to my external USB2 HDD, 60 FPS constant, no issues at all..

Reggie · (#20)

Not all imaging has to involve a PC where a dslr is concerned. Granted, you can't autoguide without one but then again George's post wasn't about webcams and guiding, and the software wasn't written for astronomy work either. I've seen plenty of people break hardware testing unknown hacks so I thought I'd wait until more was known about it before I said anything.

You guys have found a use for this software and I'm not knocking anyone for that, it's part of what makes this forum a good place to be, I can't wait to see what you guys produce.

The PC may well be there for guiding, but there may be issues for someone with a low spec pc/laptop where it would be nicer for the camera to do the capture rather than have another resource using device and software connected to their computer.

How does the avi resolution being low compared to the actual sensor resolution affect things? Is it binning the image?

Going back to my comment about the fps being USB chipset dependent, the avi produced is M-jpg so I wonder what type of compression is going on and is that affecting the fps depending on where the compression is being done? The video I saw on the net doesn't seem to suffer from any frame dropping so I'm wondering where the lag in fps is happening.

Psychobilly · (#21)

It's well worth keeping an eye on this guys site as the app is developing fairly quickly

http://translate.google.com/translat...ir.narod.ru%2f

Latest version works fine and is virus free... with some useful extras in there...including a somewwhat strange zoom mode which may be handy for planetary...

Billy...