• Pygame Video Overlay
  • Example Usage
  • How does it work?
• UNCOMPRESSED FRAME FORMAT

Pygame Video Overlay

Displays uncompressed video data on a pygame 'overlay' using the Pygame Display service.

Example Usage

Read raw YUV data from a file and display it using VideoOverlay:

imagesize = (352, 288)        # "CIF" size video
fps = 15                      # framerate of video

Pipeline(ReadFileAdapter("raw352x288video.yuv", ...other args...),
         RawYUVFramer(imagesize),
         MessageRateLimit(messages_per_second=fps, buffer=fps*2)
         VideoOverlay()
        ).activate()

RawYUVFramer is needed to frame raw YUV data into individual video frames.

How does it work?

The component waits to receive uncompressed video frames from its "inbox" inbox.

The frames must be encoded as dictionary objects in the format described below.

When the first frame is received, the component notes the size and pixel format of the video data and requests an appropriate 'overlay' surface from the Pygame Display service component, to which video can be rendered.

NOTE: Currently the only supported pixelformat is "YUV420_planar".

NOTE: A fudge factor is currently applied to the video size (see below)

Included in the request is a reference to an outbox through which the component will send the yuv video data for future frames of video. For video overlays, the video data must be sent direct to the Pygame Display component rather than be rendered onto an intermediate surface.

Also included in the request is the data for the first frame of video.

When subsequent frames of video are received the yuv data is sent to the "yuvdata" outbox, which by now is linked to the Pygame Display component.

If the frame of video is of a different pixel format or size then VideoOverlay will re-request a new overlay.

NOTE: If this happens, the component does NOT dispose of the old surface. This behaviour should therefore be avoided at present - repeated changes of video size/pixel format will result in multiple overlays accumulating in the pygame display.

Fudge factor

The size of overlay requested by the VideoOverlay component is adjusted by a fudge factor.

This is a workaround for problems with Xorg/fbdev based displays on linux. If the overlay is precisely the right size and shape for the data, it can't be displayed right. The value must be even, and preferably small. Odd values result in the picture being sheared/slanted.

This problem rears itself when the following version numbers are aligned:

• SDL : 1.2.8
• pygame : Anything up to/including 1.7.1prerelease
• xorg : 6.8.2
• Linux (for fbdev) : 2.6.11.4

The fudge factor does not appear to adversely affect behaviour on other system configurations.

UNCOMPRESSED FRAME FORMAT

Uncompresed video frames must be encoded as dictionaries. VidoeOverlay requires the following entries:

{
  "yuv" : (y_data, u_data, v_data)  # a tuple of strings
  "size" : (width, height)          # in pixels
  "pixformat" :  "YUV420_planar"    # format of raw video data
}