EVXCreator

 
EVXCreator is a simple tool that creates a small .evx descriptor file from an EVO recording for web publishing. This file describes the recording files list and their placement on a remote server. So if you want distribute an EVO recording among many people, you don’t need to send the whole big recording to each person. First you simply create an .evx file, then upload the recording on server and finally publish .evx file. It can be put on a web page or sent by email. If an .evx file is published as web link, you don’t have to download it to computer. Just go to File -> Open URL in the EVOPlayer and put the link to the .evx file here.
 
 

 
Description of fields:
 
Name – name of the recording. The destination .evx file name is created using this name. If you have chosen a destination folder, the destination file name is automatically updated according to this name.
Source URL – URL link to the recording on the server. This link must point to the location where the EVO recording will be stored. For example, if the recording contains files sample.evo, sample_0 and the source URL is http://server.com/sample, their placement on the server should be like this: http://server.com/sample/sample.evo and http://server.com/sample/sample_0. Files should be available to public access.
Destination .evx file – name of the file where generated content will be saved. You can choose the destination folder by pressing the “…” button. The file name is created combining this folder name and text from the name field. The extension (.evx) is added automatically.
 
After pressing the Create button, the .evx file is generated and you are informed about the state via the progress bar. Finally one remark: if you start EVXCreator and player is in playing state, it will be paused. This is done for performance reasons.
 

Direct playing of .evx files

If you have .evx file stored on server, you can start playing of this file directly by entering address to your web browser. Address should have this form:
 
http://evo.caltech.edu/evoPlayer/prod/EVOPlayer.jnlp?fileToPlay=linkToEvxFile&start=hh:mm:ss,ms&end=hh:mm:ss,ms
 

Start and/or end time can be omitted, but if specified, seconds and milliseconds are mandatory. Also if you specify end time you also have to specify start time. Concerning start time, playback probably doesn’t start at time you specified, but earlier. The reason is how the EVO recording is organized. At the end time the playback is paused.
This direct playing of recording should work for local files also. fileToPlay should be specified something like this:

 
fileToPlay=file:/full_path_to_evo_file
 

On windows machines, *.evo files should be associated with EVOPlayer. It means they can be played directly by double click on evo file. This association is made directly by EVOPlayer jnlp file.

Recording converter

IMPORTANT: Recording converting is very CPU intensive operation which works with real-time multimedia data. Because of nature of this data, we highly recommend not to perform any other activity on computer while converting is in progress. We highly recommend to use at least 2 cores CPU @ 3GHz or better for good results mainly with recordings with many streams and high resolution and framerate output video. Even if all these requirements are satisfied, you may experience small desynchronization between audio and video track, particularly with longer recordings. In this case, splitting recording to shorter parts may help.
Converter needs ffmpeg binary to work properly. You can download binary appropriate to your operating system from https://vk.upjs.sk/~voyager/ffmpeg/. We do not recommend using binary from other sources. You may experience bad results with such version of ffmpeg, especially at higher resolutions. After downloading and extracting binary from zip, open converter window (you may need to open some .evo recording to enable menu item), go to advanced tab and set full path to the ffmpeg binary. Do not put there just "ffmpeg". In this case converter will use system ffmpeg binary (if exists) and it may produce bad results.
After you set path to ffmpeg binary you can convert your recordings. Basically you just need to select a suitable layout according to number of video streams and hit Convert button. If converted recording has more video streams than layout offers, some of the streams will be lost. You may edit recording before converting to remove unwanted streams from it.
Selecting different formats automatically changes available codecs. You can select among codecs on advanced tab. But not all formats offer more codecs. Changing video codec automatically changes video bitrate of the output file. This value is computed according to selected resolution and framerate. On the other side, this value is not mandatory for ffmpeg. ffmpeg may use lower bitrate if it is sufficient. But should not use higher than selected. Also selected video codec may reduce the list of available resolutions. Some of codecs do not support all resolutions and all framerates. If you see message "ffmpeg error" shortly after starting conversion, this may be the source of problem (check EVOPlayerStd.log for details).  Maximum resolution you can use is limited to 720x576 pixels. Maximum framerate is 30 frames per second.
Converting itself runs in real time. It means that converting of 10 minutes long recording will take 10 minutes. The progress is shown in bottom right part of the window. It shows remaining time until finish and also percents done. After finishing, ffmpeg needs approximately 5 to 30 seconds to finalize output file. During this period you can do nothing with converter. This process is very important and if not finished properly, output file may be unreadable. Beside ffmpeg, there are other tools providing conversion and running in background. If any of them ends unexpectedly, user is warned and converting is canceled. In this case, recently converted part of recording should be usable.
Converter offers also profiles for your convenience. If you often make conversions for certain purpose or device, you can store your setting into profile. It stores all settings except video layout and output file name.

EVO recordings editing

EVOPlayer built-in editor allows you to make simple editing operations like removing some parts and/or streams from the recording. Only .evo files can be edited and this process does not affect original recording.
First, you need to specify parts you want to keep. This can be done in two ways. You can enter times directly by double-clicking on time value and putting the exact time there. Second way is to get times directly from player when in playing or paused state by pressing “Set begin” or “Set end” button. You can do fine adjustment using small up and down arrows that change values by 100 milliseconds. To check region margins, you can use three play buttons. First plays four seconds after beginning mark and then pauses recording. Second plays four seconds before ending mark and third play button plays 10 seconds after beginning mark and 10 seconds before ending mark. There is also text field for comments to help you organize many parts. After that, just press the “+” button to add the selected part to the list. The “-“ button removes the selected part from the list.
When you have all parts added, by pressing “Get streams” button list of all streams in these parts is gathered. Then by selecting on some part you will see the list of streams in selected part. You can remove unwanted streams from new recording by click on this stream.
Finally, when you are satisfied with your set up, press the “Export…” button, put the name for new recording and save it. It may take a while to save it, depending on the amount of data that have to be processed.