Time Lapse Question

Cameras
1

Hello Everyone,

I took one picture a day for a little over a month (that is the longest it would let me) and I down loaded it and played it and it played very fast. Only took like 2 seconds. Is there a way to slow down the replay?

Thanks in advance for any help of info.

2

Some media players (for example VLC), have a playback speed control that will let you slow down playback. You could remove the SDcard from the camera, and copy the TL file (itā€™s named record.h264, saved in a folder named time_lapse), and then use VLC or other program for viewing. However, youā€™re unlikely to get what youā€™re hoping for. Your time-lapse recording only consists of 30 frames or so. The slowest that VLC can go is .25x, so your 2-second video would extend to 8 seconds.

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3

Standard video playback is 30 frames per second and since you have 30 frames, it probably takes only 1 second to play back. You might want to save each frame as a photo and then be able to step through them one by one in a photo viewer. Or just play back in a player that lets you step manually through the frames.

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4

Thanks for the replies. I have the camera outside in a case I printed so I can not take the micro so card out. Just thought maybe I was missing a setting orsomething in the app.

5

You should not need to take the card out of the camera to retrieve the time-lapse video file. Once you have downloaded the file, use the phoneā€™s share menu to send it to yourself or save it in your photos. You can then move it to a computer to play frame by frame or slow down in a media player.

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6

Thanksā€¦I will try that.

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7

In the past, Iā€™ve run into problems trying to get VLC to play time-lapse recordings that were downloaded from the camera into my iPhone, and thence to my Mac. I suspect the issue had to do with transferring the file from the Wyze format to that used by iOS, and then transferring it again to macOS (via Dropbox). Iā€™ve had better luck removing the SDcard from the camera and mounting it directly on the Mac. The issues I ran into might not happen if the transfer is via the Wyze Android app, and/or ending up on a Windows machine or a Chromebook. Too many variables in play.

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8

Does it play okay if you play back the transferred file using QuickTime Player?

9

@Loki
Donā€™t recall, but QT doesnā€™t support variable playback speed (which was my objective).

The second (more compelling) reason for removing the SDcard from the camera is that various TL recordings Iā€™ve made failed to appear in the album. Iā€™ve found that they got saved on the SDcard, but due to a Wyze bug, they didnā€™t show in the album. So canā€™t be downloaded with the app.

10

Actually, QuickTime does support variable speed playback. Itā€™s just not very well documented. While playing back, hit the J/K/L keys on the keyboard to change speed and direction. J for backward, K for pause and L for forward. Multiple clicks of J/L step through the various speeds 2x/5x/10x/30x/60x. Holding the option key with these lets you step in .1x increments between 1x and 2x. For slow motion playback, hold down J+K or K+L together.

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11

Wow! Iā€™ve been using QuickTime as long as there has been a QuickTime, and I never knew about the hidden J/K/L controls. Apple certainly didnā€™t document those keyboard commands very well. Thanks for the tip!.

The K+L combo really isnā€™t doing slo-mo playback, per se. Itā€™s actioning a repetitive single-step (frame by frame) series, the same as you get by holding down the right-arrow key. (right-arrow single steps forward, left-arrow single-steps backward).

Now that I think about it, the old QuickTime Player Pro (from 2010 or so) had a hidden control panel that provided adjustable playback speed. I used to have QT Pro installed on an old Mac. I should see if I can find it and try running it on a current vintage Mac.

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12

@Loki @james.trenholm
I found a way to slow down playback of a time-lapse (using QuickTime Player v10 on a Mac). QuickTime is scriptable, and has an AppleScript control for playback speed. The following command, entered into Terminal, will instruct QT to playback the front-most window (i.eā€¦, ā€œdocument 1ā€) at 1/4 speed.

osascript -e ā€˜tell application ā€œQuickTime Playerā€ to set rate of document 1 to 0.25ā€™

The desired video has to be opened with QT first. Then issue the Terminal command. Iā€™ve tried it as low as 0.1 (i.e, 1/10th speed). Works fine, although at that low a rate the rendering gets a bit jerky.

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13

Thanks for all the feedback. You people are awesome!!!

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14

Thanks. I didnā€™t mention that since most people arenā€™t going to use Terminal and AppleScript. But since you brought it up, hereā€™s an AppleScript that will step through 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 speed and return to normal:

tell application ā€œQuickTime Playerā€
set theSpeed to rate of front document
set theSpeed to theSpeed / 2
if theSpeed is less than 0.125 then set theSpeed to 1
set rate of front document to theSpeed
end tell

You can save that in Users:username:Library:Scripts:Applications:QuickTime Player and if the script menu is set to display, it will appear at the top of that menu whenever QuickTime is foreground. This eliminates the need to use Terminal. Also, if you have a keyboard macro utility like Keyboard Maestro, then you can set it to activate on a keyboard shortcut.

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15

Agreed!:grinning:
Do you know if QT can be scripted to export the file to a new version with a changed timebase? Thatā€™s my ultimate objective.
Thanks.

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16

I donā€™t think so. But you can do so in iMovie.

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