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Exploring and displaying USB video with GraphEdit

5 Comments

graphviewGraphEdit is a little known tool distributed with Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) and allows exploring camera settings and video rendering filters. A copy of old version (which worked just fine without installing whole SDK) can be found wildly on the internet. Besides ability of tinkering with options it is much more advanced tool for viewing live view than for example VLC. There are even more advanced commercial modifications but original will be just fine. For more details check Wiki pages.

Below is a quick guide:

  • Download, unzip and Install GraphEdit-x86.exe or GraphEdit-x64.exe (if in doubt chose GraphEdit-x86.exe)
  • Run graphedt.exe from installed location
  • Empty program window should appear
  • Click on menu item Graph / Insert Filters…
graphview_1

Graph / Insert Filters… Ctrl+F menu

  • Locate Video Capture Sources and select needed device and press Insert Filter
graphview_2

Select video source

  • Now locate a pin and click right mouse button.
graphview_3

Video pin properties

As we further inspect all pins, we can find out that one pin has YUY2 and MJPG output options, another one is for H264.

  • Chose options as needed or leave intact
  • Right click a pin again and click Render Pin
graphview_4

Rendered pin ready for displaying live view

  • Click Play button or press Space key to play video.
graphview_6

Live view

A copy of GraphEdit 9 can be found here

Comments ( 5 )

  1. 2lostkiwis
    Hi, I just got a C1 camera with lens. When I use graphedit, my USB camera only has one capture pin with YUV - hence I can only achieve 5fps at 1080. How do I get the second h.264 output? Cheers, Ian.
    • saulius
      Hi Ian, you have to click on a pin before rendering it to get "Pin Properties..." menu. I don't have camera with me at the moment - will check later today. Also I managed to get YUY2 and MJPG modes http://kurokesu.com/main/c1-specs/ - Looks like h.264 mode is not supported by GraphEdit.
    • saulius
      Hi Ian, was a bit wrong. All modes are supported by GraphEdit. Please check short video clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyZrLMbNqjA
      • 2lostkiwis
        Hello Saulius, many thanks for looking into this further. I only have one output pin and it can only be configured for YUV not MJPEG. I have done some more research and it looks like Microsoft broke this generally for all UVC cameras with the Windows 10 anniversary update. I didn't really register this because this is the first time I have used the camera, so was unsure what to expect. https://www.mgraves.org/2016/08/windows-10-anniversary-update-breaks-usb-camera-functionality/ I will try and test this camera on a Windows 7 machine later today. Thanks again for your help. Kind regards, Ian.
        • saulius
          Hello Ian, thank yup for update and let me know if you find a solution for Windows 10. I am still working with Windows 7 x64.

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