That would explain why the quality of the 2 videos that completed processing still didn't look like 720 quality. Thanks again @Alex9779
No the quality is the bitrate you set above, the resolution is the 720p part. 5000 is like mid 2000s cell phone quality. I have mine set to 10000 and at 720p looks pretty clear. As @Alex9779 pointed out to me to look in the logs, when mine failed when I upped the quality, I discovered that in fact you can't set just any arbitrary frame rate (yes, yes, then WTF does the menu have have choices you can't enter...) since MPEG2 only supports a few frame rates apparently... BTW, I would strongly suggest you do what I did and move the time lapses off the root file system (in my case a 128gb usb thumb drive on the pi) so that a large time lapse can't halt your pi...
I did some research but 60 frames should be supported. Though I dunno if that covers avconv on the RPi... So a look in the log should help to get the error.
@JohnEsc are you sure it's just not in the middle of processing? It's going to take more time to create a more detailed video (I think).
That is not correct, I did not point it out to you, you posted the log yourself so you had a look in there yourself... I just made you read what was written there because it was an obvious and no ambiguous error message...
Thanks @Henry Once my current print finishes I will test out making the change of the bitrate to 10000. I delete every video from the Pi after it's completed and downloaded to my Google Drive timelapse folder so i shouldn't have an issue with large files. I switched the framerate to 25 fps instead of the 60 like @Alex9779 suggested. I'll see what happens with this current timelapse vid, my current print will be done in about an hour. Thx guys
It's not the video file that fills up the space, every Z change it takes a multi megabyte file. It's not hard to fill up a few gig in a big print job (I speak from experience - only solution is to go in via command line and clean out the time lapse temp directory). By moving that to a 128gb thumb drive mounted in the unix file system, it now can store a way bigger print than the printer is capable of...
I've been getting great results with the following settings you guys suggested: 1280 x 720 @ 30fps and 10000 as the bitrate, also changed the FFMPEG threads to 4 based on some info from this page: http://www.akeric.com/blog/?p=3508
I did another approach. I have set maximum resolution and fps to 2. So I can see with more detail what's really happening. Smooth video would be nice but I prefer details.
I finally got around to unsticking the lens on my PiCam so I could focus on the prints. Definitely worth it but I wish I had found this tool sooner! http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1570865 I think it would have made less of a mess than my pliers did.
I haven't tried focusing the 2.1 cam yet but will the focus ring not work on the newer camera? https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:211641
I didn't get my PiCam with the BigBox kit - and the lens was glued very firmly. I tried supergluing the Focus Ring tool to the front of the lens but even though it was very firmly stuck it just broke off without freeing up the lens. I found the 'Adjusting the Camera Focus' section of this article most helpful.
I finally managed to get almost everything looking better thanks to all the wonderful tips here. Now I can share one of my own. I have been struggling with a horrible yellow cast on the pictures when filming by the light of my white LED strips. I tried setting "-awb off" instead of the default "auto" but it made my screen turn black. I then tried a few of the other settings but found they only made the yellow cast worse. I was about to give up when I found this post which suggested trying the "-awb flash" option for LED lighting. I tried it and the difference was dramatic.