JASigning Video Generator

The software described on this page is © UEA and is for evaluation use only. Please contact the Virtual Humans Group at UEA VirtualSigning@cmp.uea.ac.uk if you wish to use this facility for other purposes.

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Video Generation using JASigning

JASigning is able to generate a video of an animation using a video video generation server application. The server needs to be installed on the same computer system as the main JASigning application being used. Video files are generated as .mp4 files in H.264 format.

This page gives information on installing the Video Generation Server and explains how to use the SiGML Player application to create videos.

An earlier system was based on the Xuggler package which is no longer supported. See Xuggler Video Generator.

Installing the Video Generation Server

Download the Video Generator installation ZIP file
Unpack the ZIP file to a suitable location. It will be unpacked in a folder VideoGen
Check (e.g. using the Java Preferences app) that you have a 64-bit Java installation
If necessary configure the run-jas-video-gen-server script file for your platform to match the Java installation
Use of Java has become very restricted. See JASigning Platform Issues

Launching the Video Generation Server

Use the run-jas-video-gen-server script file appropriate to the platform, Mac or Windows, to launch the server
The server app should launch with a Test and Quit button
Test runs a test client that uses the server to generate a video from frames held in the frames subfolder of the VideoGen folder
Quit is used to terminate the server

Using the SiGML Player to Generate Video Files

Once the video generation server is running, a video of an animation can be generated using the Java Web Start SiGML Player app, accessible from https://vhg.cmp.uea.ac.uk/tech/jas/vhg2024a or a more recent Legacy Release found at CWASA Release Notes
Use the SiGML Player's File->Video Generation... menu item to generate a video of the most recently played signing animation
The SiGML Player accomplishes this by transmitting the animation's frame data to the video generation server, which produces the .mp4 file
The SiGML Player should refuse to attempt video generation if it is not feasible, e.g. when there is no current animation, or when the server is not running
Some videos may be larger than expected due to high resolution displays such as Apple Retina displays

Configuring the Video Server

The Log checkbox can be used to provide more verbose logging of server operation
The Video checkbox, selected by default, causes a movie to be generated in a specified location
The Frames checkbox causes a folder to be created containing a set of PNG images for the frames sent to the server
Frames are placed in a folder whose name is the same as the movie with ".frames" appended
Files are created in XML and Java Properties formats recording settings sent to the server: movie name, width and height, frames per second, and frame count

Adapting the Video Server

The server uses JavaCV, a Java interface to FFmpeg, and has been built with Maven on NetBeans
The VideoGen folder contains a NetBeans project containing sources and assembly information
In order to support older MacOSX releases, such as High Sierra, older versions of JavaCV are used
The Netbeans project should assemble a new installation ZIP file but may fail to run the server directly from NetBeans