Cheese Video Capture

Description:

When you try to record video with Cheese, the video takes ages to start recording, it stops almost immediately, and only records a still frame or two.

Analysis:

This appears to be a known problem which has existed for some time now. There are some indications that this problem has been around since January 2009. Thus, if this problem has not been fixed in that time, it's unlikely to be fixed soon.

Possible Solutions:

1. Find an alternative.

2. Program a solution.

3. Fix Cheese.

Solutions Analysis:

1. Find an alternative

The forefront candidate for this appears to be wxcam.

Pros:

• It has most of the same effects that cheese has.

• It works.

• It's already packaged so very little work to get it into our environment.

Cons:

• Not terribly visual.

• Is a little ambiguous (i.e. where does it save files to?)

2. Program a solution

Pros:

• We have full control of the solution.

Cons:

• It's a big undertaking.

• It would require maintenance.

3. Fix Cheese

Pros:

• We would be benefiting the open source software community.

Cons:

• If no one has been maintaining this application, which is a possibility, then we'd have to take ownership for it.

• If someone is maintaining this application, then the changes may not make it upstream essentially eliminating the one pro.

• Given the maturity of the application, fixing it may not be trivial.

Chosen Action:

Immediate:

Trial wxcam in Manaiakalani-image-10.04-2.0.

Long term:

See if wxcam can be altered to a more visual layout (using the graphics from cheese?) essentially forking it.

This has disadvantages in terms of maintenance of such a forked application.