A video booth is similar to a photobooth except instead of taking one or more stills pictures it captures a short video clip. Video booth shooting is available with all Canon DSLR cameras that support movie mode except for the Canon Digital Rebel T1i/EOS 500D. The cameras can only capture video to the camera's memory card and so the camera must have a memory card with sufficient space in order to use the video booth mode (video files are automatically downloaded to the PC and deleted from the memory card after capture).
Overview
The video booth mode works in a similar way to photobooth mode. Users are presented with a ready screen with a live view display showing what the camera sees. When the user presses the start button a countdown screen is displayed together with countdown message. At the end of the countdown the capture screen is displayed together with a progress bar that shows how much time is remaining. After the video clip has been captured the processing screen is displayed and the movie file is automatically downloaded from the camera's memory card to the PC and then deleted from the memory card to make space for the next clip. After downloading the ready screen is displayed ready for the next video capture.
Video Booth Settings
The dialog below is displayed when "Video booth settings..." is selected from the File menu:
In order to use the video booth mode it must be enabled by selecting "Enable video in photobooth mode". Normally when you enter fullscreen photobooth mode (by typing Ctrl+F4) the photobooth ready screen will be displayed. If you wish to startup in video booth mode select the "Startup in video booth mode when selecting full screen photobooth" checkbox.
Select the "Display playback screen after capturing video" to allow users to play back the video and decide whether to accept it or reject it. The playback screen will be displayed until the user either accepts or rejects the video. When the video is rejected it is automatically deleted from the computer. When the "Start playback automatically" option is selected video playback will start automatically when the playback screen is displayed.
Use the "Duration of captured video clip" setting to specify the duration of the video clip in seconds. This can be any value up to 120 seconds (2 minutes).
Use the "Countdown before capturing video" setting to specify the length of the countdown before video capture starts. The countdown text is displayed during the countdown and is updated every second. The following tokens can be used:
@videoClipLength@ - the duration of the video clip in seconds
@videoCountdown@ - the number of seconds remaining before video capture starts
Use the "..." buttons after the font and font color displays to change the font and color of the countdown text.
The size and position of the video playback window can be set manually or set automatically by the program. If the height is set to 0 the program will automatically display the video playback at the same resolution as capture, or if this is to big to fit on the screen it will scale the size down to fit the screen. The video playback window is normally displayed at the top of the screen but can be moved down using the top offset setting if required. The video playback window left offset allows the horizontal position of the window to be specified. The default setting of -1 will center the video playback window on the screen.
Use the "..." buttons after the record/playback progress bar foreground and background color displays to change the colors of the progress bar displayed during recording and playback.
Note: the progress bar can be hidden by setting the foreground and background colors to the same values.
The size and position of the live view display uses the same settings as the stills photobooth and can be specified using the photobooth settings dialog. The various screens used by the video booth should be saved in the photobooth images folder which can also be specified using the photobooth settings dialog. Click on the "Photobooth Settings..." button to save the current video booth settings and display the photobooth settings dialog.
Images displayed to the user
The following screen images are displayed to the user at different stages of the video capture:
video_ready.jpg - displayed when the video booth is ready to capture the next clip
video_countdown.jpg - displayed together with the countdown text during the countdown before capturing the clip
video_capture.jpg - displayed together with a progress bar while the video clip is being captured
video_processing.jpg - displayed after video capture while the movie file is being transferred to the PC
video_playback.jpg - displayed when playing back the video that has just been captured
video_playback_finished.jpg - optional screen image displayed after playback or after downloading the video if auto playback is not enabled
The images displayed to the user should be the same size or bigger than the computer's display. If the images are too small they will be expanded to fit with a black border and a small warning message will be displayed in the bottom left corner showing the image size and the display size.
Audio prompts can be added by placing a WAV sound file in the photobooth images folder and giving it the same name as prompt screen. For example to play a sound when the video booth is ready copy a WAV file named video_ready.wav into the photobooth images folder and it will be played when the video_ready.jpg image is displayed.
In Operation
Once everything is setup simply run DSLR Remote Pro for Windows and press Ctrl+F4 to enter full screen mode and display the ready screen. If the "Startup in video booth mode when selecting full screen photobooth" is not set the window will start in photobooth mode. You can switch from photobooth mode to video booth mode by typing Ctrl+V and from video booth mode back to photobooth mode by typing Ctrl+P. In video booth mode press F7 to start the video capture sequence. The user can then press the "End" key to stop the recording or wait until it reaches the duration setting and stops automatically.
When the video playback screen is displayed the user can type P to play the video, A to accept it or X to reject it. Please see keyboard shortcuts for a complete list of keyboard shortcuts.
The user must either accept or reject the video before the booth will return to the ready screen. When the user rejects the video to movie file is deleted and is not saved on the camera's memory card or the PC's hard disk. There is a default timeout of 300 secs after which time the video will be automatically accepted. This timeout is stored in the Windows registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\BreezeSystems\DSLRRemotePro\100\VideoboothPlaybackTimeout
If "auto reconnect" is selected from the "Camera" menu the camera can be turned off when not in use and then turned it back on again to automatically restart photobooth operation. When the camera is turned off the camera_not_connected.jpg screen is displayed and when it is turned back on again the ready screen is displayed.
To exit fullscreen photobooth mode either press the Esc key or hold down the SHIFT key and press the left mouse button.