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looping video recording. is it possible?

It occurred to me the other day that when on a windscreen mount the camera in the hd2 could be useful for in car video footage.
Seems to work fairly well but what would REALLY be great would be if you could set it to record a continuous loop so it only uses a fixed amount of card space unless you tell it save the file and start a new file.
Any idea if there are any apps that could do that?

Anyone?
Would be super useful to have. I nearly witnessed a nasty crash today and wished I had video to report the moron that nearly caused it, but can't just leave it recording at about 500-600mb per 15 minutes or so!!

+1 - Good idea, soon we're all going to have in car recording

Well I want to be able to show that if I'm ever involved in an accident exactly what happened and so on.
But kinda mainly because I just want to be able to do it to see if we can.
I suppose it needs to record to a set file size, then once that is done, to use an extra buffer amount of storage briefly while it deletes the file it just finished and begins recording again over the same space. Or something.
If you want it to keep anything you stop it and save it, then it starts from scratch.
Might be better if it actually keeps the current and previous file before deleting anything, then that way it's less likely to immediately/accidentally delete anything useful before you tell it to save. For instance you could maybe have a video screen overlay with a couple of large basic controls for save current recording and a couple of other bits.
Basically the important bit is the automated control over only using a specified file space then re-using it once it's used it up.

search forum... already discussed topic
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=597003

Yep. Shame those options don't seem to work that well....

No other options for this then?

[Mortscript 'App'] One Touch (ish) Video Recording

Following on from another thread where people were asking about availability of apps to start a looping video recording app, I've started work on this, and have made some promising initial progress.
I'm having to do this with Mortscript since the only language I can code in is not suitable for writing phone/pc apps sadly, but so far it looks to be quite suitable.
If you're interested in this I'm afraid you'll have to be quite patient as I can't promise it will be complete by any date and I might even fail to complete it, but I'm posting up now because I believe that it's still useful at its current state.
Basically what the code does at the moment is as follows:
Tells you how much memory is spare on your SDcard
Asks you what you want the minimum remaining memory (in MB, ie when your remaining memory reaches a certain point the script stops recording)
Opens the camera in video mode
Begins recording
Once recording, the remaining memory is checked every 5 seconds
When the remaining memory dips below the amount you specified the recording stops, the camera turns off, and a message confirming remaining memory is displayed.
If you add the script to the appropriate start menu folder then you can add it as a home screen shortcut like any other app, so that just one touch will fire it up.
At present I have not started working on the actual looping functionality of the video, so it records until it reaches the memory limit you specify, or until you stop it manually, but I think this is still useful.
Now for the 'funny' important stuff:
Please understand this code comes with absolutely no promises/guarantees etc - if you choose to use it, you do so entirely at your own risk and I am not responsible for any outcome of doing so. I've run it several times and it has worked well for me, but there's no guarantee that it will behave the same for others.
I'm not going to be answering questions about the most basic stuff in relation to Mortscript. Please read up on the basics of what it is and what it does, and how you implement it before using this script. It's nothing personal, just that my free time is extremely limited so I can't afford to spend it answering potentially lazy questions.
Do as you wish with the script if you want to modify it and improve it, or just tailor it to your own needs. For instance, you may wish to do away with the question about minimum remaining memory and set a fixed amount so the recording begins from just one shortcut press. I've set it like that really for ease of testing but it may be handy for people who want to keep a certain amount of their card empty.
You may have to change minor bits of this script to make it work for you. Main example I can think of is depending on where the default location is for video recording files on YOUR phone (ie storage or card - it should be card for this script to work), and also the name of your card. On mine the card is called "Storage Card" - yours may be different and would therefore affect the script.
Other stuff I've not thought of yet but that people might whinge about.
In a nutshell though, I hope some of you find this useful, and at some point hopefully in the not too distant future this might be a bit more automated and do exactly as some of us wanted on the other threads about looping video.
If others want to use this as a base and finish the job I'm not going to be upset shall we say.
Script in post #2

Either download the zip file, unzip and place the script in an appropriate folder on your memory card, or copy this script code into a notepad file & save it, then change the files extension from .txt to .mscr & place it where it needs to live.
Script contents/zip download:
Code:
Free1 = FreeDiskSpace( "\Storage Card")
Freemb1 = Free1 / 1048576
Message((Freemb1& "MB left") , "Memory remaining:" )
Min = Input( "Remaining Memory Cutoff Limit(MB)?")
MinMem = Min * 1048576
set Mem, MinMem
Run( "\windows\camera.exe", "-v" )
WaitForActive "Camera",5000
mouseclick(240, 700)
set Delay, 5000
while wndActive "Camera"
sleep Delay
Free2 = FreeDiskSpace( "\Storage Card")
Freemb2 = Free2 / 1048576
if (Free2 le Mem)
# end recording & close camera
mouseclick(240, 700)
close "Camera"
Message((Freemb2& "MB left free") , "Memory Info:" )
#to do - delete the file just created
#to do - start recording again:
#mouseclick(240, 700)
endif
EndWhile

Reserved in case I need it for anything else....

This is interesting, will try after I read up on mortscript. One thing cought my eye, it seems with mortscript you are able to do software clicks on the screen (#to do - start
recording again:
#mouseclick(240, 700)
Would this mean we could have a way to asign a hardware key to take pictures in camera mode? I know this has nothing to do with your app, it just came to my mind after seeing your code. It would be nice to have a hardware key to take pictures with our HD2's.
Anyway I will be following your thread for updates on loop recording. Thanks for your work here.

Thanks for your comments mate.
I'm not sure about the hardware button in camera mode. It might be possible but I'm only a novice at Mortscript myself so I don't actually know. I would guess that if MS is capable of registering the activation of hardware buttons and distinguishing between them, then it should be possible but don't quote me!
A script to do that would I think have to effectively listen for the camera being activated, then once it is launched, listen for hardware key presses from a specified key which would in turn trigger the on screen mouseclick command.
Something for another thread I think but an interesting idea anyway. If you search through the mortscript examples thread (approx 70 pages!) you might find something that helps.

After a quick look at the manual this morning I think it's going to take me a little while to figure out how to delete the last created file in the DCIM folder, but once I have it sorted I will post up the amendments.

Run into a problem tonight with timestamps.
The time a file was recorded is showing up exactly 1 hour wrong from when it actually was made, so I have to try and figure this out. It's not the phone clock since the timestamp for the current time is spot on.
Go figure!

Thanks for posting updates for us. Hope you will find a solution, could it have something to do with summer/winter time? Or with local time? Don't know for sure of course, just trying to help.

I think there's a very good chance that's what it's linked to yes, but no idea how to get around it.
The dates where the clocks move forwards/back are not the same each year, so I can't hardcode it in. If there's a way I can get the script to check whether the phone's clock is using GMT or BST then that would likely solve it but I've no idea if that's possible.
Have raised a thread elsewhere to ask for help but no luck so far.

Well - I'm going to be struggling with this a bit guys.
I've not had any replies to the thread (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=690134) asking about this time difference (I'm wondering if I have posted in the wrong subforum perhaps?) so I'm not really going to be able to get past the issue anytime soon. Kind of scuppers the project until I can work around that.
There is another way potentially of finding the correct file to delete, which would be to go through the mp4 files in the video folder, and create a list of them, sort it by time created, then delete the latest one.
But I don't know how to do that and there isn't any useful info that I can see in the Mortscript manual about sorting data, or even creating simple lists of data objects (unless this is the 'array' functionality?).
So I'm a little bit stuck sorry.

[APP] Motion detector with recording abilities

Hello everyone,
I am new to this forum. I decided to register here after I completed my android project.
I created a program that can detect movements and save pictures of the moving objects. Phone has to remain static in order to work properly. The program also features separate address book. Address book keeps phone numbers for SMS notification. In order to activate that you have to create a new contact then long press the item in the list. The program creates folder on memory card where it saves the pictures. The speed is very high on Galaxy S. You can throw something fast and phone still snaps the flying object if it passes by the camera.
The program has many settings that can dramatically alter the performance. Settings have to be adjusted in accordance with the lighting conditions.
I tested app only on 2.2 Vibrant. I am really curious to see how it works on other 2.2 devices.
ARMv7 processor is a must!!
Please give me some feedback!
App is called Motion Recorder

this sounds like a great app. gonna try it now on my incredible.

My app MobileWebCam also does this (simpler detection algorithm I suppose) and can automatically save, upload the pictures or send email:
Development Thread is here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=950933
Are you interested in sharing your motion detection code? Possibly we could combine functionality of both apps?

dirtsky, If you have any questions or if you find any bugs please write in this thread.
The program is little hard to use so feel free to ask.
_miha_, Mine detects motion by analyzing color. What about yours?
How do you send e-mail without the annoying pop up?

theandre said:
_miha_, Mine detects motion by analyzing color. What about yours?
How do you send e-mail without the annoying pop up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My motion detection is three steps: Image is converted to grey, then I max every pixel with the ones around to remove the flickering pixels (especially needed for night/low contrast situations) and calc the difference between the last and this new pixels. Some magic value (which should better be configurable later decides about the motion. Problem is this is very slow (should use the ndk but only began working with it recently) so I have to scale down the image before which is bad for small/distant moving objects.
Email: Is not sent with Android/Intent. I use JavaMail. I had some difficulties with the libs but got it working somehow (and even more difficulties with proguard which I needed because file size is getting too large without using it).

_miha_, did you test my app? How does it stack up against yours in terms of performance?

I cant seem to find where the images are being saved on my SDcard. Epic 4G Froyo ec05 midNight Rom
I looked for the folder "Motion Recorder" and i dont see it. and theres nothing in the Gallery

zman519, since your device is basically Galaxy S type it will save in internal memory(aka 14 GB "SD card").
Please let me know if you find the folder there.

I have total 105 installs out which 35 are active. Is it considered as bad result?

UPDATE: 59 active installs out of 109 which makes it >50%. Is it good?

theandre said:
zman519, since your device is basically Galaxy S type it will save in internal memory(aka 14 GB "SD card").
Please let me know if you find the folder there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Epic does not have an internal sdcard. That must be the problem. I looked around with root explorer and did not see the folder.
Sent from the Drivers Seat of my Suby txting and Driving doing 100MPH+ in a school zone! Ha.

zman519, thank you for feedback, I will fix that and let you know once the update is ready. It should not take more than half an hour.

Question to developers:
My program saves pictures to the following path:
String path = "/sdcard/Motion Recorder/TakenOn" +...
Why does it not automatically save to external sd card in the case when there is no internal sd?
UPDATE. I figured out myself. Working on update that allows user to choose between internal and external memory.

Hello dev,
I tried it on my DHD - it crashes and don't save settings.

I just updated to v0.42 which adds support for the external storage. Just go to settings and tap the checkbox. Unfortunately I have not tested the new feature on the actual hardware because I do not have one at the moment. So please, those of you who can test it please let me know if it does not work.
drast-x, Thank you for the feedback. Please give me some more details. When does it crash? After you hit the start? When you hit the start do you get the preview from the camera? Unfortunately settings do not save after the exit except contacts...
Did it happen on:Jun 11, 2011 9:32:07 PM ? I ask you this because Developer console shows me one crash that occurred at that time:
java.lang.RuntimeException: Fail to connect to camera service
at android.hardware.Camera.native_setup(Native Method)
at android.hardware.Camera.<init>(Camera.java:294)
at android.hardware.Camera.open(Camera.java:271)

Does saving pictures work on any of the phones except Epic 4g?
Thank you

I updated to v0.45
Now settings will save. Motion Recorder 0.45

Many thanks to the user of my app who sent this feedback:
"force close when start button clicked in nexus".
It turns out Nexus One (or S?) does not support either VGA or QVGA preview frames. So I had to fix this issue by requesting the supported resolutions. Very surprised by this issue. I expected that Android OS would figure this out on its own...
Thus new version 0.45.5 is supposed to fix the issue. I do not have Nexus One so I am not 100% about the fix. Those of you who are reading this and have Nexus One, please try new version!
Thank you!

Have you tried first reducing your image resolution to something ridiculously small like 32x32 and apply a DCT to keep only the low frequencies?
This might offer much better performance.
You can perform very good
_miha_ said:
My motion detection is three steps: Image is converted to grey, then I max every pixel with the ones around to remove the flickering pixels (especially needed for night/low contrast situations) and calc the difference between the last and this new pixels. Some magic value (which should better be configurable later decides about the motion. Problem is this is very slow (should use the ndk but only began working with it recently) so I have to scale down the image before which is bad for small/distant moving objects.
Email: Is not sent with Android/Intent. I use JavaMail. I had some difficulties with the libs but got it working somehow (and even more difficulties with proguard which I needed because file size is getting too large without using it).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

My MicroSD card is starting to corrupt

My /Removable/MicroSD is starting to corrupt. I've been editing scripts on my MicroSD with ES note editor. It started today with files not overwriting other files with the same name, then progressed into edited files saved with corrupt or no data at all, then a few files disappeared, then a directory became corrupt and I could not see a file that ES told me I was overwriting with another file with the same name, and now I am loosing full directories. Is this a partition issue or is the whole card going/gone bad? The card is as factory shipped. I have never formatted or partitioned it.
I have unmounted and remounted the card. That allowed me to edit and save for a few hours. Then another corrupted file happened. I just took the card out and reinserted it as this fixed a similar problem I had a while ago but it only happened once and went away until now, so we'll see if it just wasn't seated properly. One of the 2 directories that disappeared came back after reinserting the card but the second is still missing. I had already backed up my scripts, and now I will back up the entire card to disk.
Does this sound like its going or gone South, or will pulling all the data off, formatting the card, and putting it all back on work to fix it? Is it safe to trust this card anymore or should I RMA it as it should still be under warranty? Its a Sandisk 64 SDXC and not "officially" compatible and was wondering about that as well. I've had it for about 6 mos. I had hoped by spending the little extra $ and picking a name brand it would be more reliable but I guess I got a bad one despite the on-average Sandisk quality. Any advice would be appreciated.

So far, I've only once suspected my microSD (as in yoru case a 64 GB Sandisk UHS-1 Class card) to have gone bad. (Re)formatted it with Gparted (was running data2sd at the time, kicked that out, too) and it has been going strong since without a single hitch.
I'd try and format it, doesn't hurt, only takes time, and it satisfies your tinkering needs at the same time.

MartyHulskemper said:
So far, I've only once suspected my microSD (as in yoru case a 64 GB Sandisk UHS-1 Class card) to have gone bad. (Re)formatted it with Gparted (was running data2sd at the time, kicked that out, too) and it has been going strong since without a single hitch.
I'd try and format it, doesn't hurt, only takes time, and it satisfies your tinkering needs at the same time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply. What is interesting and seems far-fetched to be coincidental is the corrupted directories are the directories that I am constantly editing and saving files to - My scripts dir and its sub-directories. Guess they mean it when they say flash was not designed to be constantly written to. I can't *believe* I have cycled it to its limit just editing scripts over a 6 mos span. I couldn't have saved files more than a couple thousand times if that.
Waterproof**, x-ray proof**, temperature proof**, shockproof**, but NOT write-proof**

Double directories? This is getting out of hand!
Well I am backing up my MicroSD now, and I just ran across two directories with the same name in the same folder? Two "Scripts". How is this possible? One had files, the other was blank? How can the OS allow this to happen? When it copied to Windows, a (1) was appended to the directory name of the second duplicate.
Just for S&G, I tried to copy a file from one into the other and Windows errored saying something like "device is busy or has been disconnected."
If I had files in both directories and I cd to that directory, which one would I get (trick question)? I believe the dups are only on Windows. I don't think the device actually sees both directories. At least it doesn't show them to me in ES. Bizarre corruption. That surely might explain why files in this directory were getting corrupted. Or maybe the corruption of the files was responsible for the double directories. Time for a format (and a beer) for sure.
Let this be a word to the wise:
So yes I am going to format this, but I wanted to play with this problem a bit and see what I could figure out. As I predicted, and made about my 5th backup just in case, here's what just happened.
1. When there were Script dir duplicates, I could copy from the one with files.
2. I deleted the one without files (predicting it may delete both, but it only deleted the blank one as intended but...)
3. The remaining Script dir could not be copied from, nor a new sub-directory created inside. File names could not be changed. Actually it did allow me to make a copy, but the target directory was blank.
4. Deleted the second Script directory. Now the B2R script is lost forever (no just kidding, I have 5 backups at least)
5. Copied one of my backup copies of Scripts back to the card
6. Now its fine (until I can format it), I can copy from it and create sub-dirs inside it, etc. But I will be working off another copy in Internal storage until I format this card.
7. So the lesson here is ALWAYS make a backup before something glitches out on you because it eventually will and you will need it, or choose to be SOL; life is full of choices. And if it has already glitched out on you, make a second backup of your critical files just in case something like this happens to you and you've made incremental changes. Without my backups I would be loosing about 3 months work in just this one folder alone. It contains every script I have ever written and a bunch of example scripts to learn from.
@_that to comment, but this is what I think happened: This must be some kind of corrupt FAT problem. Very similar to the recovery blob not being found by the bootloader issue from a recent post, but instead of a partition problem its a file allocation table problem, as they reside on the same partition in my case, quote _that below:
"I have a new theory about why this happens: partition tables mismatch. In other words: The location where the recovery writes the blob is not the same as where the bootloader expects it. Thus the bootloader ignores your blob."
It seems the empty directory was the directory the system thought the files were in. Once that directory was removed, the actual one (as the human perceives; as seen in ES) containing files no longer contained them, as far as the OS was concerned. So by deleting the one you effectively deleted the other because its impossible that can can coexist and both be functional. I thought something like this would happen and it did. Like I said earlier, its Miller time.

elfaure said:
7. So the lesson here is ALWAYS make a backup before something glitches out on you because it eventually will and you will need it, or choose to be SOL; life is full of choices. And if it has already glitched out on you, make a second backup of your critical files just in case something like this happens to you and you've made incremental changes.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good advice. Always make one backup more than you think you need.
elfaure said:
This must be some kind of corrupt FAT problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably. ExFAT is a proprietary and patented Microsoft filesystem, and support for it in our TF700 is through a proprietary closed-source third-party kernel module that contains this licensed "technology".
You could try running chkdsk in Windows on the card to detect and fix filesystem errors.

_that said:
Good advice. Always make one backup more than you think you need.
Probably. ExFAT is a proprietary and patented Microsoft filesystem, and support for it in our TF700 is through a proprietary closed-source third-party kernel module that contains this licensed "technology".
You could try running chkdsk in Windows on the card to detect and fix filesystem errors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny how they don't even support exFAT in XP without an extension. Maybe it was developed after XP was released. I would assume it is supported by default in W7 and above?
Question: Do you know what is the su password for the terminal app in GParted Live? Or is this limited to GNU staff use??
Do I "sudo gparted" or "sudo passwd root" and set a new password??

elfaure said:
Funny how they don't even support exFAT in XP without an extension. Maybe it was developed after XP was released. I would assume it is supported by default in W7 and above?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good guess. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
elfaure said:
Question: Do you know what is the su password for the terminal app in GParted Live? Or is this limited to GNU staff use??
Do I "sudo gparted" or "sudo passwd root" and set a new password??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gparted+live+root+password
GParted live is based on Debian live, and the default account is "user", with password "live". There is no root password, so if you need root privileges, login as "user", then run "sudo" to get root privileges.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can run "sudo -i" to just get a root shell if you want.

_that said:
Good guess. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExFAT
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gparted+live+root+password
You can run "sudo -i" to just get a root shell if you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks like my windows\system32 dir has a 2004 date on it. So just before it came out. Nice they have a patch now.
lmgtfy.com is very cool! I've never seen _that before. Really a good way to say "why can't YOU just Google it YOURSELF". Yes, I already followed the same link to get the commands I asked about.
I couldn't figure out a way to get a Logitech bluetooth mouse working in Gparted Live. Probably need linux drivers?

elfaure said:
I couldn't figure out a way to get a Logitech bluetooth mouse working in Gparted Live. Probably need linux drivers?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a live distro for partitioning stuff, not for supporting all kinds of exotic hardware. Most likely it doesn't even have any bluetooth stack. Use a full desktop distribution like Mint if you want support for bluetooth input devices.

_that said:
That's a live distro for partitioning stuff, not for supporting all kinds of exotic hardware. Most likely it doesn't even have any bluetooth stack. Use a full desktop distribution like Mint if you want support for bluetooth input devices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I figured as much but I thought you possibly have a trick.
Cinnamon or Mate desktop? Live iso version available somewhere (couldn't find one)? Never mind, I think I got it. I don't need you to send me another lmgtfy link. But still, Cinnamon or Mate desktop?
Ok, here's my problem. I need to make a bootable CD (not DVD). The iso for Mint 15 Cinnamon is 923MB. It won't fit on a 700MB CD, and my PC can't boot off DVD or USB. Any suggestions besides having to partition a HDD to install a dual-boot configuration which I don't want to have to do just to run Linux once in a while. I would like a Live CD instead. Reduced size minimal distro somewhere to be found?
Ok, found one here for Linux Mint 13 Maya. Hope its not someone's hack. But I think its a better option than Plop. I don't want to start hacking my Windows PC all up just to get Linux. If its any more hassle than burning a CD I'll just use GParted with a corded mouse.
Only 7 available seeds for this torrent, and only 1 is up now. Popular item! (ha). Had it going with 4 but I was hogging too much bandwidth and had to pause fpr a bit then restart. When it restarted, looks like 3 of my seeds blew away in the wind. Looks like tomorrow then...I was hoping to burn the iso and play with it tonight. Oh wait, just got another 1 back. Now were up to 100kB/s. Whoopee
**********************************************************************************************************
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=110933 (last link goes to next link)
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=103449&p=604069

elfaure said:
Ok, here's my problem. I need to make a bootable CD (not DVD). The iso for Mint 15 Cinnamon is 923MB. It won't fit on a 700MB CD, and my PC can't boot off DVD or USB.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have a strange PC. Or no DVD drive?
All PCs that I know (that have been produced in this millennium) can boot from DVD or USB with correct BIOS setting and a correctly formatted bootable medium.

_that said:
You have a strange PC. Or no DVD drive?
All PCs that I know (that have been produced in this millennium) can boot from DVD or USB with correct BIOS setting and a correctly formatted bootable medium.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes I know. I'm cheap and old school with PCs, what can I say. The rest of my devices are current offering. I haven't bought a new PC for over 10 years. Its an older "failed" CAD station that was slated for the dumpster about 3 years ago, then being about 3-4 years old, because our admin was too lazy to test for a simple problem - a failed RAM SIMM. I resurrected it, replaced the failed 512 SIMM and added two more, added a scavenged drive (now 3), and now its my home $100 desktop (replacing the free Pentium I had but was too slow to use). It already had the Quadro FX 3800 video card with a dual core Xeon CPU @ 3.33 GHz. But no DVD drive, only CD drive. BIOS does not support boot from USB either.
Its faster than my old work Dell Precision 690 before I got my new 6-core Xeon T3500. So those were my limitations to work with. And I think I found the best possible solution with Mint 13 Maya iso CD. Looks like Mint 15 just was released. Beautiful OS by the way, I checked out some uTube on it last night. Can't wait to test drive it. Might even make an MS defector out of me. Linux seems to run well on older hardware with slower CPUs vs Windows on the same hardware, so I'm hoping it can breath new life into this semi-archaic box I call my desktop. Now you see why I'm on the tablet so much.

Hey @_that
You were right again. It is a DVD drive. In XP Pro SP2 it was just a CD but after installing SP3 it shows up now as a DVD/CD. Getting Mint 15 32 bit now instead. The DVD drive bay load door is scratched and faded, so I couldn't tell just by looking at it, and was going off what Windows device manager was showing in its tree. I did initially pop a DVD in and it couldn't read it which further substantiated that it was a CD and I never questioned it. Turns out the DVD I tested it with was a DL, and this is only a SL DVD drive. Now I have a 1.7GB limitation, not 700MB which opens up most iso options. But I still have no boot from USB option in my BIOS. I'll look to see if there's an updated BIOS available to open up that option. It would be very nice to have a few thumb drives with different Linux distros to test drive, and a puppy Linux on my key chain.
Sent from my ADR6350 using xda app-developers app

Live Mint 15 Mate
Hey @_that-
Coming to you live from Linux Mint 15 Mate. I guess when running this off a live CD, there is no way to copy a file to /etc is there? I opened it as administrator, and it still wouldn't let me copy the file because this directory is on the CD, not the HDD, correct? I was trying to get my Synergy connected between my MS PC and my other PC running live Linux so I can share my mouse and keyboard seamlessly without my KVM switch. I'm impressed with how easy this is to setup. Also with your ability to see me as a Windows transitional user, and point me to Mint and not Ubuntu. I like it.

elfaure said:
Coming to you live from Linux Mint 15 Mate. I guess when running this off a live CD, there is no way to copy a file to /etc is there?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about the live environment - it's normally only used to install the OS to a real hard drive. I find it still strange that your PC doesn't support booting from USB. Maybe that's a sign that you really should install Linux on a HDD.
elfaure said:
I was trying to get my Synergy connected between my MS PC and my other PC running live Linux so I can share my mouse and keyboard seamlessly without my KVM switch. I'm impressed with how easy this is to setup. Also with your ability to see me as a Windows transitional user, and point me to Mint and not Ubuntu. I like it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
2 monitors, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse? Yes, Synergy is nice.
And why Mint: I simply don't agree with Mark Shuttleworth's direction where he is taking Ubuntu - fortunately there are alternatives in the OSS world. I consider Mint as the "sane", i.e. actually usable, version of Ubuntu.

_that said:
I don't know about the live environment - it's normally only used to install the OS to a real hard drive. I find it still strange that your PC doesn't support booting from USB. Maybe that's a sign that you really should install Linux on a HDD.
2 monitors, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse? Yes, Synergy is nice.
And why Mint: I simply don't agree with Mark Shuttleworth's direction where he is taking Ubuntu - fortunately there are alternatives in the OSS world. I consider Mint as the "sane", i.e. actually usable, version of Ubuntu.
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Yes, this is my work environment now. I have two Dell Precisions, one a 690 and the other a T3500. You got it, two monitors, 1 kb, 1 mouse. Downloading and installing Wine now. I am interested to see if I can run Solidworks on Linux thru Wine. Wow, Linux had come a long way. "sudo apt-get install synergy". All the terminal commands I learned for Android are very useful now, thanks!
ps-"sudo -i" works like a charm.
[Edit] Doesn't look like SW wants to run on Linux loaded thru Wine. I figured as much, but it was worth a try.
Video is not bad at all, despite all I've read. They really must have clean it up for 15. Picture is good, sound is good, seeking is a bit slow, and my biggest complaint is there is no stretch or zoom to fill the entire screen. You have to select from predefined aspect ratios and get as close as you can. Android has better tools in this area than Mint, or maybe it more closely matches a standard aspect ratio like 16:9 for 1920 x 1200 is close (1.77 vs 1.6). Ok, _that's it for the day. Got to get some real work done here now.

Regarding the live environment, its used all the time to test drive different Linux distros before deciding which one to finally install. That's the beauty of a free open OS and a 50 cent DVD and its advantage over a flash card in this case, if you wanted to test 3-5 different ones (back and forth, not sequentially) before deciding on *the one* to finally install to HDD.

elfaure said:
Video is not bad at all, despite all I've read. They really must have clean it up for 15. Picture is good, sound is good, seeking is a bit slow, and my biggest complaint is there is no stretch or zoom to fill the entire screen. You have to select from predefined aspect ratios and get as close as you can. Android has better tools in this area than Mint, or maybe it more closely matches a standard aspect ratio like 16:9 for 1920 x 1200 is close (1.77 vs 1.6).
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I have no idea what you are talking about. There are lots of media players to choose from, and all that I know have a fullscreen mode.

_that said:
I have no idea what you are talking about. There are lots of media players to choose from, and all that I know have a fullscreen mode.
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What I mean is by toggling full screen in Mint, its less than full screen because the movie aspect ratio of its recorded resolution is preserved in the scaling function. So there are still black bands either high/low or left/right if you don't play with the player aspect ratio (4:3 vs 16:9) to best match that of your movie in the distros fullscreen mode with the stock player. Which ever limits to extents first in the scaling horiz or vertical DPI defines the "fullscreen" size you get which is less than a full screen. A zoom function does not but a stretch function does override the recorded aspect ratio to fill the full screen (I'm talking about TV's and Dice/BS/MX Player features now, not what's in the Linux default distro player) so with stretch you can get a distorted picture (disproportionate scaling) but not with zoom. These are not included in the stock distro player.

elfaure said:
What I mean is by toggling full screen in Mint...
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I am using mplayer for video playback - I don't know if that is still included in end-user-focused distros like Mint, but it's one of the most powerful video players that exist. Mplayer has no GUI at all (everything is controlled via the keyboard) - and the "f" key toggles between fullscreen and window.

[REQUEST] MP3 Quality/Bitrate Modifier

Okay. Allow me to elaborate on what exactly it is I am asking. And before anyone says, "make it yourself", let me just say "been there, read that".
Now, I've had conversations with many Android users who have large music collections and have purchased devices that have dropped SD Card support. Yes, I do have a Meenova, but I also have a Nexus 5 and the battery life goes pretty quickly when I'm listening to music in the car. Data packages aren't cheap. Even if you have a Straight Talk Unlimited Plan (like myself), you aren't actually receiving unlimited data.
I am simply asking that someone create a tool to alter the bitrate of the tracks on my Android Device. I'd pay for an app like that. There are a couple of apps on the Play Store that perform this task, but they are lacking in features. There is no batch editing tool and conversions stop after closing out the apps that I have tried. I could use the program on my computer, but then I have to leave my device at the computer in order to copy converted tracks back over to my device.
Anyway, I'd appreciate it if someone took the time to read this post.

Duckie1217 said:
Okay. Allow me to elaborate on what exactly it is I am asking. And before anyone says, "make it yourself", let me just say "been there, read that".
Now, I've had conversations with many Android users who have large music collections and have purchased devices that have dropped SD Card support. Yes, I do have a Meenova, but I also have a Nexus 5 and the battery life goes pretty quickly when I'm listening to music in the car. Data packages aren't cheap. Even if you have a Straight Talk Unlimited Plan (like myself), you aren't actually receiving unlimited data.
I am simply asking that someone create a tool to alter the bitrate of the tracks on my Android Device. I'd pay for an app like that. There are a couple of apps on the Play Store that perform this task, but they are lacking in features. There is no batch editing tool and conversions stop after closing out the apps that I have tried. I could use the program on my computer, but then I have to leave my device at the computer in order to copy converted tracks back over to my device.
Anyway, I'd appreciate it if someone took the time to read this post.
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use any audio convertor desktop application . The app will allow to change the bitrate and also other stuffs.