Tag: video

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Recording Video and (Line-in) Audio to the iPhone

I record audio & video of all my musical jams on my iPhone. I plug all my synth devices into a Bastl Dude mixer, then out to a splitter, one side goes to headphones so I can monitor, the other goes to a USB audio dongle with 1/8″ input, then into a USB to Lightning adapter plugged into the phone. It’s a little weird but it works great for me. I’ll try to describe the setup in detail below.

I’ll start by saying this. I’ve worked in media production a long time. I’ve worked on commercial video shoots, I’ve worked as a sound engineer, I subscribe to Tape Op, and I know there are a million ways to record things. This is the method I use because it’s easy for me, and a simple workflow for recording music means I can focus on actually making music and capturing it easily. Also, and this is important, I want to record audio and video together into one single file.

Not including the mixer and phone, here are the other components.

Here’s what it looks like all connected together. (Click the image for a larger version.)

Are there other ways to do this? Yes. Are some of them better? Probably. This works for me with the equipment I had on hand. I didn’t buy anything special for this because these are all components I had for other purposes or projects. Chances are if you’re already making music you have most of these things. If you’ve got an iPhone but still need the USB Audio Adapter and Lightning to USB Adapter you can get them both for under $20 USD.

For the actual recording I just use the iPhone’s built-in Camera app in video mode. It does the right thing with regards to grabbing the audio. This solution also allows for monitoring, since the audio signal splits before it goes into the phone. (Monitoring audio from the phone is… tricky.) Is it perfect? No, but it works. Audio levels are where they should be, and I don’t need to sync a separate audio file to a video file when editing the video.

I did try a bunch of other methods when I started. Including a Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Jack Adapter, a Zoom recorder (great for audio, but no video), recording directly to a computer (video was not great) and… probably others I forgot about. Yes, I know about the Headset Buddy, and I tried a lot of different apps on the iPhone. Again, this works for me. If this is helpful to you. You’re welcome!

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VIDEO FACE [AVM-312]

video-face-01

One of the projects I built for Maker Faire Milwaukee in 2019 was VIDEO FACE [AVM-312] which is a companion piece to AUDIO FACE [APC-320].

This piece came about because my sister gave me a box of old security cameras. Specifically, analog video cameras. I brought them to Brinn Labs and hooked them up to one of my displays, and they worked fine. They just need a 12 volt power supply and they have composite video out. If you mix the two signals from two cameras together into one output you get a garbled and mixed signal, but if you add in a resistor and potentiometer, you have a way to control the amount of signal that the second camera leaks into the stream to mix with the first camera! (It’s an analog video mixer.)

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I considered adding resistors and potentiometers to both cameras but for a standalone exhibit that would have allowed people to dial it down too much and the projector that was connected would probably have gotten confused and lost a recognizable signal and just shown “NO SIGNAL”, so I went with one camera full strength and the other variable.

Construction of this was very slapdash, using scrap wood I found at Milwaukee Makerspace one night. As yes, it’s supposed to look like a face, I mean, it’s in the name, it’s got two eyes looking at you, a nose with controls and a mouth, sort of…

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During Maker Faire I had it hooked up to a projector that had analog video input. (Yeah, those are probably getting harder to find, but I have some interesting old equipment.) For other events I just used one of the small television sets I have on hand.


I loved doing these quick and dirty interactive projects, back in the old days, you know, before the pandemic.

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Create Standard Definition Video files for Raspberry Pi

low-res-video

For the past few years I’ve been creating weird videos that (often) celebrate retro-computing with modern day low-power computing by making a Raspberry Pi connected to an old Apple display monitor play videos. You may remember Apple Watch and Apple Wait from past years of Maker Faire Milwaukee.

I’ve struggled a bit with the process of using modern software to create low-resolution videos, and I’m sure there is more than one way to do it, but I thought I’d document my process so that the next time I do it I’ll have a simple guide to follow. I’m calling this my “Guide to creating Standard Definition Video files for Raspberry Pi”.

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When I create a new video file in Final Cut Express (yeah, I’m still using it) I just pretty much assume I’ll want an HD version, so that’s what I create, even if I plan to have a standard definition video as my final output. Video files get created at 1920×1080, also known as “1080”, for short. Let’s make a 1920×1080 file in Photoshop.

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Our final file will be 640×480, but since SD is 4:3 versus HD which is 16:9, we need to adjust for that. If we put in 480 for the height of the file, we see it proportionally scales down the width to 853. (I remember this number from my video editing days!)

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853 isn’t what we want… we want 640, so subtract 640 from 853 and what do you get? Well, it’s 213. Maths, duh! (Remember, we’re going from 16:9 to 4:3 aspect ratio, so we need to lose some of the image.)

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Divide that 213 in half and we get 106.5, but since we need an integer and not a floating point, we will use two numbers, 107 and 106. Those are the number of pixels we need to crop from our video file.

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I still use MPEG Streamclip because, wow, it’s awesome and it works. I’ve highlighted all the important settings I need to care about. We are loading in our full HD (1080) video file, and then scaling it down to 853×480 and also cropping it, 107 pixels on the left, and 106 pixels on the right. (Selecting “Deinterlace Video” can help too, depending on the look you want.)

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If the export preview from MPEG Streamclip looks wrong, you probably did something wrong. If it looks right, then you are probably in luck! Once your MP4 file is saved, you can check it out.

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I open it with QuickTime Player to check the resolution. It’s 640×480, so everything is good. So now I’ve got a Standard Def 640×480 MP4 video file that is all set to be played on a Raspberry Pi connected via composite video to an old fashioned 4:3 video display.

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Les Yeux Times

Les Yeux

One of the pieces I displayed at Maker Faire Milwaukee in 2016 consisted of two monitors showing a pair of eyes. I was (slightly) inspired by Ben’s Video Wall of Terror.

Les Yeux

I started by filming Dr. Prodoehl to capture the movement of her eyes. The crop lines show where I planned to crop the single video into two separate videos. I also used filters on the videos to get the old TV scan line effect and add a bit of distortion. (The cropping is for a 4:3 aspect ratio display to be compatible with the old computer monitors I had on hand.)

Les Yeux

The two videos were then exported and one was trimmed to be about a half second shorter than the other one. Since the installation would be running for two full days this meant that we’d see some interesting time drifts between the two videos.

The videos were played using a pair of Raspberry Pi Zero single board computers. Like nearly every installation, there were problems involving technology, this time I think it was a bad SD card, but I quickly swapped it out and got up and running again.

Here’s a short video showing Les Yeux Times at Maker Faire in 2016, along with the two videos that were used.

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Apple Wait…

Apple Wait...

At Maker Faire Milwaukee in 2015 I presented a piece titled Apple Watch, and at least one person enjoyed it enough to make me think about creating another piece utilizing the same concept, so for Maker Faire Milwaukee 2016 I presented Apple Wait….

Apple Wait...

Apple Wait… (like Apple Watch) consisted of a Raspberry Pi Model B connected to an Apple Monochrome Monitor from 1988. Instead of just attaching the Raspberry Pi to the monitor with some gaff tape, I added in one more reference to technology, an iPhone box.

Apple Wait...

It seems the box for an iPhone is just the right size to house a Raspberry Pi Model B. Interesting enough, the iPhone 4S and the Raspberry Pi Model B were released about the same time frame. They are very different devices, with different goals, aimed at different audiences. Why not merge the two together? Technology is interesting!

Apple Wait...

For Apple Wait… I took a busy indicator cursor from the olden days of computing on Apple devices and brought it into the modern day, but made it 8-bit and low-rez, because retro is in. If you’re interested in learning more about old things, check out Where did the loading spinner originate?, The Design of Spinning Indicators, Spinning pinwheel, History of the Mac Spinning Wait Cursor, and just for a laugh, The Marble of Doom.

Apple Wait...