Author Topic: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available  (Read 17886 times)

Weatheraardvark

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #15 on: March 24, 2018, 09:39:39 PM »
Oddly I do not see the error either. I do have version 3 and I just don't see it.  Other than the time interval being different than yours, perhaps if you would tinker with the interval, making it further apart in time,  there  is a sweet spot that would identify the problem.
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Blicj11

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #16 on: March 24, 2018, 10:04:56 PM »
Just to make sure we are all talking about the same thing here, Felix and I saw this only on the date and time that we first uploaded the production build, WeatherCat 3.0.0 Build 2224. We did not see it prior to loading this build and haven't seen it since the one time it occurred.

Weatheraardvark, I assume you loaded the new production build for the first time yesterday afternoon, as that is the time period of the sample you posted.
Blick


Weatheraardvark

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #17 on: March 25, 2018, 03:50:35 AM »
I have had it for a few days. no problems.  I did have to re assign names to stations and then get stations to show up and agree. good now
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xairbusdriver

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2018, 06:09:59 PM »
Just upgraded to WC3. Thanks!
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Blicj11

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2018, 06:47:55 PM »
XAir, time lapse movies are a whole lot simpler when they are built into WeatherCat than the method you previously employed. Congratulations on the upgrade.
Blick


xairbusdriver

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2018, 07:29:07 PM »
Yeah, I can hardly wait for the first one to complete! [cheer]

I had at least three launch daemons running Applescripts and a video formatter running to grab the .mov file, change it to MP4, change the name to match what the web page expected, clean out the secondary directory, etc., etc. Hopefully I won't need any of those, but I'll have to see if WC creates a 'standard' or unchanging name before uploading. I guess I could read The Manual, but they don't even make those on paper anymore!! [roll]

Actually reading The Manual is not difficult, although I had to do such searching to find where it actually resides! I moved a copy to the iMac for easier reading.

Found what I was hoping for, I think.
Quote
MOVIE$ will upload a 1 hour movie covering the previous hour on the first upload after the hour. The file uploaded by this tag is called ?WeatherCat1hrMovie.mp4'.
DAILY_MOVIE$ will upload the current daily movie on the first upload after the hour. The file uploaded by this tag is called 'WeatherCatDailyMovie.mp4'.
I think that answers the 'standard' name question.

I also think the following is great!
Quote
For images captured from a local file or URL, WeatherCat will use the image size as it finds it.
There have been some comments about the image sizes offered by a camera don't always match up with the choices in WC. The text above takes care of that question. It may work the same way in WC2, I never looked for that info and was happy with what I was given!

I doubt I will use the Daily movie as that will get to be a pretty huge file by the end of the day (or until the Sun sets). I will use the "inter-frame dissolve" just because we now can! Whether I continue will be determined by how much this increases the size of the 1hr movies. Stu has already warned that it may be significant! It may also depend on how often the snapshots are captured.

Anyway, I'm off to edit my web cam page to handle the 1hr movies ASAP! Thanks, again for all the work that has been put into this new version! [computer] [cheer]
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elagache

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Sorry X-Air! . . . . (Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0)
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2018, 11:30:36 PM »
Dear X-Air, Blick, and WeatherCat feature-o-holics,

Just upgraded to WC3. Thanks!

XAir, time lapse movies are a whole lot simpler when they are built into WeatherCat than the method you previously employed. Congratulations on the upgrade.

It was really tough to be a WeatherCat "sekret" agent while you were struggling with your .mp4 solution X-Air.  The best thing I could imagine was trying to be as helpful as I could be given that you wanted your solution "now" and Stu wasn't ready yet to "let da' cat out of da' bag!" . . . .  [cat]

Sorry that you had to struggle like that!  :-[

Cheers, Edouard

xairbusdriver

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #22 on: April 07, 2018, 01:28:24 AM »
The only struggle was creating several launch daemons to do the work after a third-party app did the converting. Also had a couple of AppleScripts/Automator apps that changed the names so they would simply over-write the files already on the web space. Other daemons deleted the converted vids so the directory never had more than one file in it and deleted even that file after it was uploaded. I could have made things simpler by creating one daemon that did multiple things, of course. But I do well to walk and chew gum at the same time. And I never even tried chewing gum and flying!!! cmu:-)

I can't tell you how much simpler and easier it is to have WC3 do all this work for me!!! [cheer] [rockon] ThU5:-) I certainly appreciate the care and skill of The Dev and the faithful work by the many Beta Testers! Thanks, guys!! :)
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jsnell

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #23 on: April 09, 2018, 09:53:24 PM »
Hi folks, I'm noticing 90% CPU load on WeatherCat 3.0, the older version definitely didn't hit the processor this hard and I don't see any reason for it. Is this a known bug in 3.0?

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #24 on: April 09, 2018, 10:11:57 PM »
Just heard back from Trixology support, who suggested I enable Webcam in Settings, then disable it. That solved it!

Blicj11

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #25 on: April 13, 2018, 07:09:04 PM »
I doubt I will use the Daily movie as that will get to be a pretty huge file by the end of the day (or until the Sun sets). I will use the "inter-frame dissolve" just because we now can! Whether I continue will be determined by how much this increases the size of the 1hr movies.

I ran every combination to see how the time lapse movie settings impacted file size. I ended up with some huge files. I currently have my images capture set to 30 seconds and am creating an 800x800 image. Movie length per hour of capture is set to 5 seconds and I have inter-frame dissolve turned off. This creates a daily movie that is 27 MB and I delete the movies every few months.
Blick


xairbusdriver

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #26 on: April 13, 2018, 07:32:24 PM »
I'm capturing only every 3 minutes. That's one sixth of your potential file size right there. But I set the dimensions to 1280 x 1024 which is as close to what my camera can produce. I'm getting 1920 x 1080 from the camera, I assume that WC is 'clipping' the extra width and a bit of the height if I understand its operation. And I also have the length of the hourly movie at 30 seconds. Both of those settings should increase file size. They are ~11Mb right now. I forgot to check the "Disable video between Sunset and Sunrise (+/- an hour) yesterday, so my Daily movies is much larger than I intended! [rolleyes2] [lol]

I'm not seeing any changes by using the "Inter-frame Dissolve" function. I've had it on 40% for a little over an hour and I may need to wait for the next 1hr vid to see any changes. I had tried a much smaller value days ago and didn't see any changes then either, but I didn't have a stable camera connection then.

I was going to create a new thread, but I guess this one is suitable for these questions and Stu is probably more likely to look here. [cheers1]
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elagache

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Your mileage will definitely vary. (Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0)
« Reply #27 on: April 13, 2018, 11:42:21 PM »
Dear Blick, X-Air and WeatherCat weather cinematographers,

The sizes of the daily movie files will definitely vary depending on the size of the images you choose to upload.  I'm still using my venerable Logitech 9000 which can only do 640x480 pixels.  That ends up generating daily movies in the neighborhood of 15 MB.  That isn't too costly in my book.  Of course as you increase the resolution, you increase data storage roughly as the square - not linearly.   So modest increase in resolution could make the files get much bigger.  Even so, you can use a high resolution webcam and throttle the size using WeatherCat's own post-processing to reduce the resolution.

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

xairbusdriver

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #28 on: April 14, 2018, 12:10:49 AM »
Dear Edouard and WC3 web cam video producers,

Have any of you used the inter-frame function?

I have mine set at 40% and I think I am seeing a n ice, smooth fade between images. I had thought, embarrassingly, that there would be a fade-to-black/white between images. Now that wouldn't be particularly "professional"! Instead, I'm seeing, barely, a fade from one image to the next, with no black/white mess. It's been very windy today and I'm only capturing an image on a 3 minute interval but it is obvious in the swaying trees that the fading is working. The last true* 1hr video is still just short of 11Mb.

* We had a leaking transformer between our house and a neighbor. I called the electric company and reported it. They were here within 45 minutes and it took only another 45 for a new transformer to arrive (they don't usually drive around with these above-ground, but ground-level transformers) and be installed! I should have called months ago! I can still not believe how quickly they responded! Fortunately, the leaking one was built after they started using mineral oil instead of the highly toxic oil used before 1980.
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Blicj11

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Re: WeatherCat Version 3.0.0 Now Available
« Reply #29 on: April 14, 2018, 12:20:45 AM »
I tried inter-frame dissolve. The effect is more pronounced on the larger sized files, where you are capturing larger images and creating a longer amount of of video per hour captured. I stopped using it because it doesn't have much effect on shorter video clips. I am of the opinion that the probability of someone watching a timelapse webcam video of weather for more than 60 seconds is highly unlikely unless you are capturing a flood or massive snowstorm. Just watching clouds stream by gets old fast.
Blick