Binary Camera Recorder

A macOS command-line utility for recording video with real-time cropping and flipping capabilities, built using GStreamer.

Features

• Records video from built-in camera and audio from microphone
• Real-time video cropping (top, bottom, left, right)
• Video flipping options (horizontal, vertical, rotation)
• Preview window while recording
• Multiple simultaneous recordings to different files
• MP4 container format with H.264 video and AAC audio

Prerequisites

• macOS (tested on Apple Silicon M1)
• GStreamer 1.0 and plugins (installation instructions below)
• CMake 3.10 or later

Installation

1. Clone this repo and in terminal switch to x86_64 arch -x86_64 /bin/zsh uname -m #(verify)

2. Install Underlying dependencies brew install cmake glib gobject-introspection pkg-config gtk+3 libusb v4l2loopback python3 pygobject3

3. Install GStreamer: cd gstreamer meson setup builddir
   --prefix=$HOME/custom-gst
   -Dugly=enabled
   -Dgpl=enabled
   -Dgst-plugins-ugly:x264=enabled

   ninja -C builddir ninja -C builddir install

   cd .. source env.sh

4. kvsisink (optional) git clone https://github.com/awslabs/amazon-kinesis-video-streams-webrtc-sdk-c

   cmake ..
   -DBUILD_GSTREAMER_PLUGIN=ON
   -DBUILD_JNI=FALSE
   -DBUILD_DEPENDENCIES=OFF
   -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64
   -DCURL_LIBRARY=/usr/local/opt/curl/lib/libcurl.dylib
   -DCURL_INCLUDE_DIR=/usr/local/opt/curl/include
   -DOPENSSL_ROOT_DIR=$(brew --prefix openssl@3)
   -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="/Users/mozark/custom-gst"

5 awskvswebrtcsink git clone https://adihk1l1ce1anibfyta203wyx7gwcv@bitbucket.org/mozarkai/gst-plugins-rs.git cd gst-plugin-rs/net/webrtc cargo cbuild -p gst-plugin-webrtc $ GST_PLUGIN_PATH="target/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/debug:$GST_PLUGIN_PATH" gst-inspect-1.0 webrtc Replace x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu with your system's Rust target triple (rustc -vV).

2. Clone this repository or create the project structure using the provided script.

3. Build the project: mkdir -p build && cd build cmake .. -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64 make

Usage

Run the application: ./recording_app

Commands

The application accepts commands via stdin in the following format:

1. Start recording: --action=start-recording --outputPath=/path/to/output.mp4 [--top=N] [--bottom=N] [--left=N] [--right=N] [--flipMethod=mode]

2. Stop recording: --action=stop-recording --outputPath=/path/to/output.mp4

--action=start-recording --outputPath=../output2.mp4 --p1=(622,77) --p2=(877,83) --p3=(900,684) --p4=(632,699) --width=262 --height=612 --action=start-streaming --channelName=webcam-gst-test --p1=(622,77) --p2=(877,83) --p3=(900,684) --p4=(632,699) --width=262 --height=612 GST_DEBUG=3 ./recording_app --CamDevIndex=FDF90FEB-59E5-4FCF-AABD-DA03C4E19BFB --AudioDevIndex=BuiltInMicrophoneDevice

Parameters

• outputPath: Full path to the output MP4 file
• top, bottom, left, right: Number of pixels to crop from each side
• flipMethod: One of:
  • none (default)
  • horizontal
  • vertical
  • clockwise
  • counterclockwise

Examples

1. Basic recording: --action=start-recording --outputPath=~/Desktop/recording.mp4

2. Recording with cropping (100px from top and left): --action=start-recording --outputPath=~/Desktop/cropped.mp4 --top=100 --left=100

3. Recording with vertical flip: --action=start-recording --outputPath=~/Desktop/flipped.mp4 --flipMethod=vertical

4. Stop recording: --action=stop-recording --outputPath=~/Desktop/recording.mp4

5. Take-Screenshot --action=take-screenshot --outputPathSs=../screenshot.jpeg

Technical Details

• Uses GStreamer pipelines for media processing
• Video source: avfvideosrc (macOS AVFoundation)
• Audio source: osxaudiosrc
• Video codec: H.264 (x264enc)
• Audio codec: AAC (avenc_aac)
• Container format: MP4 (mp4mux)