Newbie: general requirements to write a program for video coding?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Keith
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K

Keith

I own VS.Net2003 which I used to build several simple PPC data collection
programs, and I've done extensive VBA programming in Excel- I have the basic
logic of programming, but now I'm out of my knowledge base... I have a new
project, but I'm not sure where to start (using VB.NET2003, with the end
program to be used on WinXP) so I'm looking for general ideas on how to
approach this project- I can post later with questions once I get started
and get stuck.

My wife has over 500GB of video data (uncompressed AVI), comprised of video
segments that may be anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes long. She
wants to categorize each clip by adding tags so that she can later find
clips that meet certain criteria easily- including who is in the clip, what
are they doing, etc. (clips are of animals in the wild)

I'm envisioning a screen where the video plays in the upper left corner of
the screen (maybe 25% of the total screen space), and I can use a ton of
checkboxes on the right so that she can click each tag for that clip; along
the bottom I can have previous/next clip buttons, etc.

So here are my first questions-
(1) never having worked with video before, what types of components should I
look at/ learn about for playing the video on a form?
(2) once I have the video playing, and the tag checkboxes in place...what is
the best method of linking the tags to the clips without actually pulling
500+GB of video data into a database? Should I just rename each file with a
unique key and store all data in a database, or is there another (better)
way to attach my tag data to the video clips?

The end results will be (post tagging) she will want to select certain
parameters (tags) and have the relevant clips listed (or a copy of them
pulled into one place) so she can re-watch them to collect specific data, or
use them in a third-party video editing program to organize and merge the
clips she wants for presentations.

I appreciate any suggestions on what I should read more about before getting
started, and if there are any "newbie traps" that you can help me avoid so I
don't waste time on bad approaches.

Thanks,
Keith
 
you could use a database of sort to link video file name with all the tags
assuming the names are already unique
otherwise you use two tables,
video ID table of unique id and the fully qualified file name
video tags table of video ID and tag

the second approach is more flexible although it may take more entries to
describe the video

IF you don't have any database software around, you could look at
-sql express and possibly get the vb .net 2005 express which is also free
- download some free ones like mysql

I think there are sample of video catalogue you want to look at and adapt.

As for tons of tags, you may want to organize them according the subject
matter of wild animals. Ask your wife how she would use them. you could
use comboBoxes boxes to select groups of potential tags to be checked
 
GS- Thank you for the advice. I've downloaded and installed VB.Net express
2005, SQL express, and the WMP SDK. I'll start playing around with the
approaches you suggested, and I'm sure I'll have many more questions to post
as I go.
Thank you,
Keith
 
MIcrosoft Access forms would do the trick.


Insert, control, ActiveX control.. Windows Media Player

store the file NAMES in the database and build a couple simple radio
buttons or listboxes for classification
 
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