Embedded Linux system & video capture - is this possible?
 

Hi guys,

First time here, and there's so much information on the forum, I'm afraid I'm going to have to start at the beginning, and no-doubt be directed to the correct forum. So apologies before I start.

Here's goes:

My experience of anything remotely programmable, stopped when I worked in the residential passenger lift industry in NZ many years ago, where I used my very basic programming ability on Omron PLC's. It was a great way to control what at that time was quite a complex system of sensors, limit switches, indicators etc etc. but that's the only time I've ever entered the world of programming in any way until recently.

Now I'm a Mac geek, and have limited experience using Applescript, but have been working alongside a guy from the UK, who is a wizard with these scripts, and has managed to build quite a complex AppleScript which basically captures video files from a compact flash card, adds several other files, compiles them into one single movie file, and then spits it all out onto a DVD.

So now the reason I'm here:

I've been advised that as the Mac is basically a Unix system, it may be possible to use the AppleScript in an embedded Linux system controller. Is this information correct?

If so, then is it going to be possible to build a compact system (embedded system?), which could:

Ingest/capture video from 4 external sources (camera's)
Seamlessly switch between these sources
Add transitions/effects on the fly

. . . . and several other things which I'll come to once I know if the above is possible.

In short, I'm hoping to develop a small box, capable of connecting 4 miniature camera's, and recording the video on the fly to an external media drive (USB, SD etc).

Thanks for any information anyone may be able to offer.

Steve

AppleScript is basically no different then any other scripting language. In reality it is calling another application to actually perform the video capture and processing.

Yes, it is possible to capture video on an embedded system but on the fly stuff will depend a lot on processing power and memory.

Thanks for the prompt reply, and for the confirmation that I'm on the right track with this.

So where to start?
I guess I'm going to need to find an embedded Linux "box" with plenty of processing power and memory expansion ability as a platform, and then start looking at programing?

For the embedded unit, what kind of thing am I searching for?

Thanks

You'll want something powerful, preferably multi-core I would think. Maybe a pandaboard? What kind of interface do these cameras have?

Maybe a fit-pc or trimslice would work as well.

Well that will depend on the Linux unit I use I guess, but I'm hoping that if the unit is capable of HD recording, then they will either be component devices or SDI.