Win10 - empty ui, no camera

[fundef1]

Hi, I gave the windows port a spin and it's really not working. see screenshot.
slider works to blend the cam and display but the camera feed seems plain white/gray and no controls show in the black vidrio app.

[jameshfisher]

@fundef1 thanks for the report - my suspicion is that Vidrio was selecting the wrong camera here. Vidrio for Windows now has a webcam selector (as of v0.5) - could you try it out and let me know if you still get the issue? If you do, email me - [email protected]!

[fundef1]

thanks for the update. and yes it works now.
There is a however still a bit of strangeness on win10: I can't figure out how to get to any of the options/preferences/settings - how do I scale and position myself scaled down to the right for instance?

Right clicking on the taskbar and selecting Vidrio opens Vidrio again - which has the interesting effect that the slider now controls the screen going to black (as the source is already in use, as it correctly complains about)

[jameshfisher]

Thanks again for the report! Glad the webcam is working now.

There is currently only a control window with an opacity slider and webcam selector - you should be able to see it via Alt-Tab.

You've mentioned a couple of issues which should be fixed in the next alpha version for Windows:

• Vidrio only shows full-screen. There is currently no way to rescale/resize.
• It shouldn't be possible to open Vidrio twice.

These features are available on the macOS version and I'll be implementing them soon for Windows. I'll let you know when it comes out - thanks again for the report!

[jameshfisher]

@fundef1 we've just released Vidrio for Windows v0.8, which has a fix for the behavior you mentioned. It is no longer possible to open Vidrio twice. If you try to open Vidrio while it’s already running, it will just focus the control window for the running instance.

We'll be working on features for resizing and repositioning over the next few weeks 🚀

[jameshfisher]

@fundef1 the latest Vidrio for Windows has a rescale/resize feature, along with several other new features: we have automagic background removal, chroma key background removal, and a screen recorder 🙂

[fundef1]

Hi James, thanks for the update. I gave it a quick whirl just now...

1. issues as reported earlier seem resolved: ui is visible, camera selection etc is fine - thanks!
2. there's a new issue: this selection window is quite elongated, and (i'm assuming) overflows on the bottom of the screen
   (also assuming) there's a hide button down below, off the screen, see screen shot.
   

as the only window control I get is the 'X' to close - which closes Vidrio completely
a workaround is to use the windows 'close window' which close the Vidrio window but keeps the video overlay
but then you have to kill vidrio via the taskmanager. :-/

also I found background removal a little heavy on the CPU, and not so nice looking. Not using background removal leaves a hard square-ish background, also not so nice. Could you maybe implement some rudimentary face/eye tracking and provide a (circle, lozenge, ... , whichever shape you prefer) mask?

anyway, Vidrio is getting better all the time! Thanks a lot.

[jameshfisher]

Hey @fundef1 - thanks for this detailed feedback! Here's our plan:

• We'll add a more conventional "minimize" button next to the "X". Currently the only way to hide the control window is to have another window on top of it.
• Indeed the control window is too tall for some screen resolutions. We'll make it shorter by grouping some controls together.
• The automagic background removal does have some issues. In the long term we plan to use a better ML model. In the short term, the "Chroma key" method is more reliable but requires a green screen or other solid-color background.
• I've been working on a head-tracking version! This might come out within the next month or two.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's really valuable, and I'll let you know when we've fixed these issues 🙂

[jameshfisher]

@fundef1 a short update - the latest version 0.17 has a refreshed UI - it should fit on your screen, and it has a proper minimize button. Let me know if you have any issues with it!

p.s. head tracking is still in the works 🙂

[fundef1]

wooo x-ray pointer! ;-)
Everything works fine, even my second screen was detected, cam resolution switching - nice work!

A minor (minor minor) gripe: the grouping of options feels a bit random - overlooked the move-scale control a couple of times.
just a suggestion: Would it be possible to trigger the move-scale action by something less heavy-handed than the activate(hotkey)-move-done flow. I find myself intuitively clicking on mycamera feed to reposition it. But I don't know if that's technologically feasible without messing with powerpoint (too much).

but head tracking first!