Posm Software Video Setup


Posm Software Video Setup allows the user to adjust all settings for live video viewing in Posm. Starting in the upper left section of the Setup Page is the Enable options. To disable video completely in Posm uncheck Enable Video. Posm’s Software Clips, Pictures and Long Clips can be enabled and disabled by selecting their checkbox. The user will still have the ability to add a picture, clip or long clip before the observation is added because these check boxes are also on the main form of Posm. The options on this page simply auto check or uncheck the values for the user.
The Clip Length sets how long a Software Clip will record after pressing the Add Observation button. Make sure this time isn’t too short to ensure that the person viewing the report can fully see the observation. If the pre-defined time is not long enough a Long Clip can be used which will run until the operator presses Stop Clip. The operator can also pause the Long Clip if need be (such as pausing while launching a lateral launcher into the lateral). The user can also add pictures to the newly added observation while the Long Clip is running by left clicking on the observation in the Data List, then right clicking on it and pressing “Add Picture” or “Add Picture and Clip”. In either mode Posm will just take a picture while recording the clip. This is useful in the case of a Lateral Launch and the operator wants to have one video for each lateral without stopping the session. The user can just take a long clip of the Lateral code and add pictures of any defects (with remarks) as they are found in the lateral. When the lateral inspection is done the operator presses Stop
clip and the mini movie stops. When the report is being reviewed the end operator just clicks on the picture of the lateral to open the entire lateral inspection.
The Viewing Source option lets the user change if Live Video from a capture card is being used or if the hardware whole run video capture is being used as a source. Typically for office users the viewing source will be set to Captured Digital Video. In Digital Video mode the user can add pictures from the previously taken video but clips can not be taken from captured digital video. For TV inspection vehicles this setting is usually on Live Video allowing the operator to see the video coming from the camera.
To configure software devices look at the Settings frame.

The Device drop down will list all compatible video capture sources that Posm can use. Select the appropriate Video Capture device for your system (Typically ATI or Kworld DVD USB Maker). To see the advanced features of a Device, press the Device Dialog. If the preview does not appear at first, press the Preview Video button to force Posm to display the currently selected preview.

The View Size drop down sets the resolution for the capture device. Most systems use 640x480 to have a large high quality full screen video.

The capture size allows the user to choose if captured video is to be captured in the full, half or quarter resolution selected in the View Size. If the system being used is a high performance system full size resolution can be used. If the video capture fails in Posm while adding observations or the video is very jerky and low quality, a smaller capture size may need to be used. Check the processor time while recording a few test clips to see how well the system is performing to determine if this setting needs to be changed. If the computer is running over 95% processor time to run Posm and record a clip then the video resolution for clip recording is to high.

The Video Renderer allows the user to specify which windows video render engine should be used to display the video. If you are not sure of the capabilities of your machine, leave this setting on Auto. VMR9 and VMR7 both use Microsoft DirectX to overlay graphics and video. Standard is usually the last option to be used and the most processor time will be required to render

the video. Overlay uses the computers video cards overlay pin to directly overlay the video onto the screen. Depending on your computers specifications and drivers trying different video render settings may use less processor time to render the video, which leaves more processor to encode video and run the Posm application.

The Audio Device drop down lists all compatible audio capture devices on the system. Select the appropriate Audio Capture

Device for your system.

The Audio Input selects which input Posm should used to listen for Audio.

The Audio format specifies the recording frequency, bits and mono or stereo options.

The Audio Input Level sets the recording audio levels. If the audio is hard to hear slide this slider to the right to increase the recording gain. If the audio is to loud or distorted slide this level to the left to decrease the recording gain.

The Audio Play Level sets how loud Posm will play back recorded audio in Posm Video Edit and Edit Pictures and Clips.

The Video Compression dialog lists all compatible Video Compression codecs available to Posm. There are many choices for Video Codecs, each has its own advantages and disadvantages. On factory install Posm systems we install the Divx ( http://www.divx.com ) codec for use with Software Video capture. Once a codec has been selected its properties can be set by pressing the “Settings” button next to the drop down. When encoding video it is important to set an appropriate video Bit rate, Quality and many other options as this will all contribute to the size and quality of the software clips in Posm.

The Audio Compression dialog lists all compatible Audio Compression codecs available to Posm. There are many choices for Audio Codecs. PCM is the standard audio codec used in most windows AVI videos. MP3 is another very popular audio format for its small size and high quality sound. The LAME Audio Encoder is a freely available MP3 encoder that can be installed on the Posm system for MP3 audio encoding. It can be downloaded from: http://www.elecard.com/ftp/pub/directshow/lame_dshow.zip

The Aspect Ratio drop down allows the user to change the aspect ratio of the video viewed in Posm. The options are Stretch, No Resize or Box.

o Stretch: The video is stretched as needed to fill the control.

o Box: The video appears in full within the control in a letterbox (bars on the top and the bottom) or pillarbox (bars on the left

and the right).

o No Resize: The video appears in its "native" size. If the native size is larger than then control, it appears centered within the control. If the native size is larger than the control, the video appears truncated.

The Video Input source will list all of the available video inputs for the selected Video Device. The choices are normally Tuner, Composite, or S-Video. If the live video is connected to the composite input, select composite. If the live video is connected to the S-Video input, select S-Video.

The Analog Video Std will force a regional video setting. North American users almost will always use NTSC_M.

The Video Subtype drop down allows the user to force Posm to use a specified video Subtype. For most installations, the default setting will be fine.
The brightness slider will increase the brightness of the video by sliding the bar right and decrease the brightness by sliding it left.

The contrast slider will increase the contrast of the video by sliding the bar right and decrease the contrast by sliding it left.

The hue slider will increase the hue of the video by sliding the bar right and decrease the hue by sliding it left.

The saturation slider will increase the saturation of the video by sliding the bar right and decrease the saturation by sliding it left.

Deinterlacing the video is a technique to remove the horizontal black lines seen on screen and in pictures during high motion. If the resolution is below 640x480 there is no need to deinterlace the video as the lines will not show, 640x480 and 720x480 users may want to experiment with these options. Half-Size will reduce the quality of the video to half of the resolution. 640x480 video would effectively become 320x240 video blown up to 640x480 size. In this mode the quality suffers. Full Size Deinterlacing will remove either the even or the odd scan lines from the video. The video will still be 640x480 but will be missing half of the video data which also affects the quality of the video. DeScaler is an open source video processing tool that uses different techniques to remove the horizontal interlacing lines and maintain high quality video. Anytime Deinterlacing is used more cpu processor

time is required to view the video. Unless the interlacing is effecting the picture output of the system, it is suggested to leave the
Deinterlacing off.

Snap Shot settings tell Posm to open images that were taken by pressing Print Snap Shot in the main observation form with either Internet Explorer or MS Paint. Opening the images in IE does automatic scaling of the image forcing it to print on one piece of paper. Opening the images with MS Paint allows the user to draw or write on the image before printing it.

The Image Compression setting allows the user to choose been uncompressed BMP images or compressed JPG images. JPG images are typically much smaller yet still high quality. If quality of the image is of the utmost importance, BMP images should be used.

The Path to Internet Explorer by default is “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe”. If your system uses another Drive letter or has IE installed in another folder it must be specified in order for Posm to correctly open Snap Shots.

The Path to MS Pain by default is “C:\WINDOWS\System32\mspaint.exe”. If your system uses another Drive letter or has MS Paint installed in another folder it must be specified in order for Posm to correctly open Snap Shots.