Software >

(on Wikipedia)
http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/cheese/
https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Cheese

Webcam capture program.

Mediocre.

2009-02-16 - For some reason, cheese improves the picture quality of other webcam stuff, like in Stickam or with YouTube Quick Capture.

• 2010-10-17 - 2.30.1 on Unity Linux 2010.1 32bit
• 2009-07-19 - 2.26.3 on Unity Linux 0.99 alpha 1

• (date not recorded) - 2.25.4 on (distribution not recorded)

  • Either PCLinuxOS 2007 or Unity Linux 0.99 alpha 1
• (date not recorded) - 2.24.2 on PCLinuxOS 2007 (version not recorded)

• (date not recorded) - 2.24.1 on PCLinuxOS (version not recorded)

  • Likely PCLinuxOS 2007

• 2009-01-22 - 2.22.2 on (distribution not recorded)

  • Likely PCLinuxOS 2007

Info on the output file (2.24.1) ∞

(probably different, since it's an ogv)

As of 2.24.1 or so, it saves its file as something like ~/.gnome2/cheese/media/2009-02-09-235800.ogv

• gMPlayer plays the file fine.
• Avidemux cannot open the file.
• FFmpeg can work with this file to convert it to something avidemux can use.

• kino can work with this file, although I've had some aspect ratio issues which still need to be explored.

Using for YouTube videos ∞

cheese
# Click 'video'.  Press space to begin and space to end.  Then exit.
mv ~/.gnome2/cheese/media/*.ogv ~/cheese1.ogv

• Avidemux cannot open this resulting file. Convert it:

ffmpeg -i cheese1.ogv -async 1 cheese2.flv

• -async 1 is to fix a recent audio sync issue.

avidemux2_gtk ~/cheese2.avi

Settings to use:

• Video: MPEG-4 ASP (Xvid4)
• Audio: AAC (FAAC)
• Format: MP4

• Save it as ~/cheese3.mp4

Note: You may need to chop the beginning or ending off.

2010-10-17 - 2.30.1 ∞

smart install gstreamer0.10-plugins-good

Works perfectly.

2009-07-19 - 2.26.3 ∞

Compiled from source.

Works just fine, but it saves its videos in a new place:

~/Videos/Webcam/

(date not recorded) - 2.25.4 ∞

(unstable)

apt-get install libgnome-desktop-2_2-devel

Requested 'gnome-desktop-2.0 >= 2.25.1' but version of gnome-desktop-2.0 is 2.21.2

apt-get remove libgnome-desktop-2_2-devel
apt-get install libgnome-desktop-2-devel

Requested 'gnome-desktop-2.0 >= 2.25.1' but version of gnome-desktop-2.0 is 2.24.2

Ok, so I can't install this. I'll try 2.22.2 now..

(date not recorded) - 2.24.2 ∞

Tried building it from source on PCLinuxOS 2007 updated early Feb 2009.:

su

apt-get install gnome-doc-utils libgnomeui2_0-devel libGConf2_4-devel libgstreamer0.10_0.10-devel libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-devel libgnome-vfs2_0-devel evolution-data-server-devel libhal1-devel librsvg2_2-devel
wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/cheese/2.24/cheese-2.24.2.tar.gz
tar -xvvzf cheese-2.24.2.tar.gz
cd cheese-2.24.2
./configure && make && make install

notes:

• libebook-1.2 is part of evolution-data-server

(date not recorded) - 2.24.1 ∞

I was forced into an update from a PCLinuxOS repository update.

• Cheese no longer properly syncs audio. It's completely unusable.

  • fixed with -async 1: ffmpeg -i filename.mpg -ar 22050 -async 1 filename.flv

• It seems faster to start up and begin to record or stop recording video, so maybe an update will help.

2009-01-22 - 2.22.2 ∞

• gMPlayer screws up the aspect ratio when playing this file back (solved in 2.24.1 or so)

This info is probably different in 2.24.1 or so, since it became an ogv.

Video

• Theora v3.2.1
• 320x240
• 24bpp

• 25.000 fps

Audio

• Vorbis
• 44100 Hz
• 1 channel
• s16le

• 80.0 kbit

It saved its file as ~/.gnome2/cheese/media/0001.ogg 0002 0003 etc. As of 2.24.1 or so, it became something like ~/.gnome2/cheese/media/2009-02-09-235800.ogv

building from source

apt-get install xxf86vm-devel

(and the usual stuff)

now run

/usr/local/bin/cheese

earlier notes

• Looks good, and runs smoothly.

• On startup, I got:

** (cheese:11876): WARNING **: could not load /home/user/.gnome2/cheese/media/0001.ogg (video/x-theora+ogg)

• I checked, and it did write data to that file.
• Seemed to hang when I stopped the video.
• /home/user/.gnome2/cheese/media/0001.ogg was emptied to 0 bytes then deleted.

• "move all to trash" segfaults.

(cheese:11876): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: can't peek value table for type `<invalid>' which is not currently referenced
Segmentation fault

• After a fashion it seems to work just fine. Strange.
• not smart enough to display itself at native size.
• Now on later attempts, it takes fucking forever to stop, and afterwards just zeroes out the file.

• And again, it begins to work on later tries. Something is odd.

earlier notes ∞

TODO - re-investigate dimensions, so that I can use the full width again.

This method should be appropriate for stringing multiple sources together and keeping them as YouTube "high quality".

;* UPDATE - this gets squished all to hell when uploaded to YouTube. Booooooo!

• Resize from 320x240 to 640x360.

  • The closest is 480x360, with a pad of 80 on the left and right.

SETTINGS="-y -ac 1 -ar 44100 -r 30 -sameq"
SIZE=480x360
TOP=0
BOTTOM=0
LEFT=80
RIGHT=80
ffmpeg -i ~/cheese1.ogv -async 1 $SETTINGS -s $SIZE -padtop $TOP -padbottom $BOTTOM -padleft $LEFT -padright $RIGHT ~/cheese2.avi