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Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 10:42 am
by smeezekitty
Latest version

This isn't really "Off Topic" because it is NBTV related. But I couldn't quite find the forum to put it in.

So I have caught the NBTV bug again. I have been using Gary's excellent Video2NBTV software and it works great! But on more than one occasion, I have found myself wanting to play with other line standards, frame rates etc. I looked around and couldn't find any NBTV software that could generate or view arbitrary NBTV formats so I decided to start writing my own.

Since I am almost always jugging a dozen different things at once, I don't have a huge amount of time to dedicate to the project. Since there are still a lot of bugs and broken features, I am not releasing it quite yet. So this is kind of a pre-release announcement. But my design goals are:

  • To be as configurable as possible allowing the generation of arbitrary formats
  • To be cross platform (Windows, Linux and Mac)
  • To be released as open source software
  • To have a functional GUI
  • To support 4 simultaneous output channels
  • To support monochrome as well as various different color formats
  • To support high sample rates and high resolutions (96KHz+, 90 lines+)

It currently meets some but not all of these goals. There are still some things that need to be worked out to make the existing features fully functional. And other features still need to be implemented.

The configuration also doesn't come without a cost. Having almost every parameter tunable means there are a lot of run time conditionals and memory accesses as frames are generated. This means that it requires more CPU power than other NBTV software. I suggest at least a Core2 Duo for smooth real time performance.

I attached a picture of freenbtv generating a 32 line signal out the sound card with a loop back through stereo mix to display it on Gary's NBTV: The Big Picture.

At some point, I'd also like to write a matching viewer for arbitrary formats. Right now, testing is a bit challenging because of the limited options of viewers available.

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:14 pm
by Harry Dalek
Good Work its always nice to have a new tool to use on the hobby i like your lets do it attitude.
Making it to work at different line and frame rates is great idea does not have to be NBTV standard just NBTV.
BY the way we don't have a modern software that does the classic 7 and 8 second SSTV hint hint !

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 5:44 pm
by AncientBrit
Sounds a great idea.
Look forward to seeing the results,

Cheers,

Graham

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 5:09 pm
by smeezekitty
Alpha Release!

It still contains a some bugs and quite a few features that aren't implemented yet but I'd like if someone could try it out.
I compiled it on my Windows x64 system so hopefully I built it and all the dependencies for Win32.

edit: Deleted old/buggy copy

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 5:11 pm
by smeezekitty
And source code. I didn't include the build scripts because they are highly specific for my system so it might takes some work if you actually want to build it yourself. I will hopefully put together a proper build system when I have more time.

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 6:17 pm
by Harry Dalek
I had no luck on my lap top its a windows 32 system .
I was just getting error messages ,pity i am interested to try it out .

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 6:46 pm
by smeezekitty
Harry Dalek wrote:I had no luck on my lap top its a windows 32 system .
I was just getting error messages ,pity i am interested to try it out .

Hmm that's strange. What error was it?

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:09 pm
by Harry Dalek
Hmm that's strange. What error was it?


Missing DLL files
i will look which ones

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 7:16 pm
by Harry Dalek
Ok this is what comes up when i try to start it ...

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:25 pm
by smeezekitty
<Deleted> See updated DLL files below

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 11:16 pm
by Harry Dalek
smeezekitty wrote:Hmm try unzipping and dropping this in the bin directory.


OK tried that there's another file missing by the looks of it //

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 6:55 am
by DrZarkov
Thank you for your work. I'm using Linux and MacOS X, so a new NBTV software which I can use without the need of starting Wine or Parallels is most welcome. The last MacOS X software is quite outdated and does not work on any system younger than "Snow Leopard".

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:18 am
by smeezekitty
DrZarkov wrote:Thank you for your work. I'm using Linux and MacOS X, so a new NBTV software which I can use without the need of starting Wine or Parallels is most welcome. The last MacOS X software is quite outdated and does not work on any system younger than "Snow Leopard".

Thank you for the encouragement!

Indeed the lack of cross platform software stuck out at me. While I am focusing on the Windows build right now, once I get a normal build system together, it should be pretty easy to compile on Linux and Mac (fingers crossed)

OK tried that there's another file missing by the looks of it //


I am kinda staggered how many dependencies GTK requires. I ran it through dependency walker so hopefully this is all of them.
Try putting this in the bin folder

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 4:13 pm
by Harry Dalek
OK i got it up now thanks to all the last mass DLL file list ...
I am trying to work it out i can see what it can do but i need to load a picture as its like Garys video2nbtv i think but you have made it multi system which is rather good ~!
in other words i need instructions sorry :roll: but thumbs up looks good !
BTW Gary has 30 32 60 120 line Doms software does 30 32 48 64 line as far as a viewer ,being able to generate odd formats is good as i am playing around with that now .

Re: Introducing freenbtv - new NBTV generation software

PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 7:09 pm
by smeezekitty
OK i got it up now thanks to all the last mass DLL file list ...
I am trying to work it out i can see what it can do but i need to load a picture as its like Garys video2nbtv i think but you have made it multi system which is rather good ~!
in other words i need instructions sorry :roll: but thumbs up looks good !
BTW Gary has 30 32 60 120 line Doms software does 30 32 48 64 line as far as a viewer ,being able to generate odd formats is good as i am playing around with that now .

Thanks! I'm glad it works now. It uses FFMPEG or SDL_Image to load the file. So it can support just about any type of image, video (but video with audio doesn't work yet), animated GIFs etc. You don't need to worry about directshow codecs either.

I should mention you need to press "set format" before pressing start and whenever you change the audio output settings.