Software to try: Video Resource Manager

[Richard Coffey]

Everytime you guys send out email, I think, wouldn't it be nice if this were
on a website? If this is, could you please point me in the right direction? If
not, maybe it would serve us well to setup a email archive that was published
on the website...

Just a thought,
Richard ;-)


Robert Olson wrote:

> I've packaged up a first cut at some chunks of framework for configuring &
> running the video capture for an AG node.
>
> It's a pair of Java apps. The first is setup-config. You run it on the
> video capture machine (with no vic's running) like this:
>
>         /usr/local/ag/apps/vrm/setup-config config-file
>
>  and it probes the machine to see how many video capture cards the machine
> has and what device names they are. It then brings up a GUI with a panel
> for each card, on which you can select the input port you wish to use and
> the purpose of the video (presenter/audience/main).
>
> The test buttons fire up a vic set to transmit with the parameters you've
> chosen. This is so that you can figure out which video is which for
> multiple cameras, without tracing cables and figuring out the slot to
> capture card device mapping.
>
> There is also a field for the AG node name.
>
> When the configuration is as you like it, press the Write Output button.
> This will write the configuration to the file you specified on the command
> line. The configuration file contains XML text describing your capture
> machine. This is one input to be fed to the resource manager itself.
>
> The second app is the video resource manager. It reads the XML file
> generated above, and generates a GUI with which you can start and stop the
> vic sessions for capture.
>
> Invocation is:
>
>         /usr/local/ag/apps/vrm/vrm -c config-file -t ttl address
>
> For instance,
>
>         /usr/local/ag/apps/vrm/vrm -c video-config.geode.mcs.anl.gov -t 127
> 224.1.2.3/12000
>
> You should see a GUI with a pane per card and the address info. You can
> start individual captures via the start buttons in the pane, or all at once
> with the start all button.
>
> Installation:
>
> These apps require jdk1.2 and a couple XML packages. I've repackaged the
> vendor tars as Linux RPMs to ease the installation process. All it should
> take to install the tools is the following script (that can be found at
> http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~olson/AG/Software/Linux/install-ag-0 )
>
> #!/bin/sh
>
> rpm_base=http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~olson/AG/Software/Linux/RPMS
>
> rpm -i $rpm_base/jdk-1.2-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -i $rpm_base/gmd-xql-1.0.1-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -i $rpm_base/xml4j-2.0.11-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -i $rpm_base/java-getopt-1.0.6-1.i386.rpm
> rpm -i $rpm_base/ag-vrm-1.00-1.i386.rpm
>
> Let me know how this works for you. Keep in mind again that this is
> completely untested outside the ANL AG environment, and is very roughly
> release engineered (hardcoded paths, etc). It will work on an SGI, but not
> in the RPM form. Source RPMS are available at
> http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/~olson/AG/Software/Linux/SRPMS/.
>
> --bob