Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Pavel Machek]

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Hi!

Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
mailing list I should use?

AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?

I created simple python+gtk+gstreamer application to take photos,
pictures and record videos. It is in tui repository; it is work on
progress but some functionality is available on PinePhone, Librem 5
devboard and a PC. If someone could test it on actual Librem 5... that
would be nice.

https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam

Best regards,
										Pavel

-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek


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Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Guido Günther]

Hi Pavel,
On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 11:47:02PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> mailing list I should use?

I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in

https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next

Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
have a more suggestions.

> 
> AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?

Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:

https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels

Cheers,
 -- Guido

> 
> I created simple python+gtk+gstreamer application to take photos,
> pictures and record videos. It is in tui repository; it is work on
> progress but some functionality is available on PinePhone, Librem 5
> devboard and a PC. If someone could test it on actual Librem 5... that
> would be nice.
> 
> https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam
> 
> Best regards,
> 										Pavel
> 
> -- 
> (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
> 

Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Nicolas Dufresne]

Le jeudi 13 mai 2021 à 11:42 +0200, Guido Günther a écrit :
> Hi Pavel,
> On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 11:47:02PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > Hi!
> > 
> > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > mailing list I should use?
> 
> I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> 
> https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> 
> Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> have a more suggestions.
> 
> > 
> > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> 
> Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> 
> https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels

While this is interesting work, I would also keep an eye on libcamera, which I
believe is a better place for HW specific media controller and request handling.
Shouldn't be very hard to port this GTK3 library on top of libcamera.

https://libcamera.org/

> 
> Cheers,
>  -- Guido
> 
> > 
> > I created simple python+gtk+gstreamer application to take photos,
> > pictures and record videos. It is in tui repository; it is work on
> > progress but some functionality is available on PinePhone, Librem 5
> > devboard and a PC. If someone could test it on actual Librem 5... that
> > would be nice.
> > 
> > https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam
> > 
> > Best regards,
> > 										Pavel
> > 
> > -- 
> > (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
> > 
> 
> 

Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Pavel Machek]

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Hi!

> > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > mailing list I should use?
> 
> I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> 
> https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> 
> Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> have a more suggestions.

Thanks for pointers.

In the meantime I got silent video recording to work on Librem 5
devboard --

https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam

-- but quality is awful, probably either hardware or kernel issue.

Is pulseaudio supposed to be running in Phosh? I have trouble
capturing any audio and am wondering if I should attempt to do full
reinstall.

> > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> 
> Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> 
> https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels

Ok, so you seem to have that one under control.

Best regards,
								Pavel
-- 
http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek

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Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Pavel Machek]

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Hi!

> > > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > > mailing list I should use?
> > 
> > I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> > 
> > Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> > have a more suggestions.
> > 
> > > 
> > > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> > 
> > Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels
> 
> While this is interesting work, I would also keep an eye on libcamera, which I
> believe is a better place for HW specific media controller and request handling.
> Shouldn't be very hard to port this GTK3 library on top of libcamera.
> 
> https://libcamera.org/

Hmm, famous last words :-).

I view megapixels as hand-optimized camera application tailored to
phones and taking photos (and it is good at that).

OTOH Unicsy camera (https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam ) is
simple python wrapper over GTK+ and gstreamer aimed at videos. (It can
do photos, too; slowly. Hand-coded app would probably have better
performance).

Eventually it would be nice to have media controller support in
libcamera, gstreamer and probably some other framework I forgot about.

Best regards,
								Pavel

-- 
http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek

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Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Guido Günther]

Hi,
On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 06:07:24PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > > mailing list I should use?
> > 
> > I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> > 
> > Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> > have a more suggestions.
> 
> Thanks for pointers.
> 
> In the meantime I got silent video recording to work on Librem 5
> devboard --
> 
> https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam
> 
> -- but quality is awful, probably either hardware or kernel issue.
> 
> Is pulseaudio supposed to be running in Phosh? I have trouble
> capturing any audio and am wondering if I should attempt to do full
> reinstall.

Pulseaudio is what we use in Phosh for audio yes. If you reinstall i'd
use the byzantium based images rather than the current stable amber ones
(librem5-flash-image --board=devkit --dist=byzantium) since that's way
newer software.
Cheers,
 -- Guido

> 
> > > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> > 
> > Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels
> 
> Ok, so you seem to have that one under control.
> 
> Best regards,
> 								Pavel
> -- 
> http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek

Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Laurent Pinchart]

Hello,

On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 06:19:29PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > > > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > > > mailing list I should use?
> > > 
> > > I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> > > 
> > > https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> > > 
> > > Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> > > have a more suggestions.
> > > 
> > > > 
> > > > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > > > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > > > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > > > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> > > 
> > > Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> > > 
> > > https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels
> > 
> > While this is interesting work, I would also keep an eye on libcamera, which I
> > believe is a better place for HW specific media controller and request handling.
> > Shouldn't be very hard to port this GTK3 library on top of libcamera.
> > 
> > https://libcamera.org/
> 
> Hmm, famous last words :-).

No humans or animals were terminally injured during libcamera
development :-)

> I view megapixels as hand-optimized camera application tailored to
> phones and taking photos (and it is good at that).
> 
> OTOH Unicsy camera (https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam ) is
> simple python wrapper over GTK+ and gstreamer aimed at videos. (It can
> do photos, too; slowly. Hand-coded app would probably have better
> performance).
> 
> Eventually it would be nice to have media controller support in
> libcamera, gstreamer and probably some other framework I forgot about.

Media controller (and any camera-related kernel API really) support is
exactly what libcamera is about. While it may make sense for gstreamer
to deal directly with kernel devices that require configuration through
the media controller API is some cases, for computational cameras (or
software-defined cameras as they're also called today) it's increasingly
a dead end. GStreamer is good as an application API, or as a framework
wrapped in helpers that offer a simpler, higher-level API, and the
libcamerasrc element can bridge it to the camera implementation.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart

Re: Recording videos on phones and camera on Librem 5 devboard

[Laurent Pinchart]

Hello,

On Thu, May 13, 2021 at 06:07:24PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > > Who is the right person to talk about Librem 5 cameras? Is there
> > > mailing list I should use?
> > 
> > I think most of the coordination is mostly happening via the gitlab issues in
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/linux-next
> > 
> > Maybe Martin and Dorota who are working on the camera drivers (put in cc:)
> > have a more suggestions.
> 
> Thanks for pointers.
> 
> In the meantime I got silent video recording to work on Librem 5
> devboard --
> 
> https://gitlab.com/tui/tui/-/tree/master/cam
> 
> -- but quality is awful, probably either hardware or kernel issue.

It's due to the lack of an ISP. As the i.MX8QM doesn't have a hardware
ISP, the backup plan is to implement one in software, with GPU
offloading (as the CPU alone very likely won't have the computing
power).

> Is pulseaudio supposed to be running in Phosh? I have trouble
> capturing any audio and am wondering if I should attempt to do full
> reinstall.
> 
> > > AFAICS from bugzillas, it is still not compeletely working. I see
> > > megapixels packaged in the repository, but without required config
> > > files. Are there work-in-progress configurations somewhere? Would it
> > > be useful if I tried to get it to work on the devboard?
> > 
> > Megapixels work is mostly happening here atm:
> > 
> > https://source.puri.sm/dorota.czaplejewicz/megapixels
> 
> Ok, so you seem to have that one under control.

-- 
Regards,

Laurent Pinchart