Project Logs

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• Initial Button Setup

  Dustin • 12/19/2020 at 04:00 • 0 comments

  Today was a rather busy day. I spent most of it on the camper restoration. I took a break to get started on the camcorder buttons today though. I had an old Arduino Micro soldered to a protoboard in my hardware kit, and finally found a use for it: emulating a USB keyboard. It will read and denounce the button presses on the camcorder and spit out keyboard key presses to the Raspberry Pi running the camcorder software. So far I've only got the side buttons available as the top edge buttons had their momentary switches mounted to the main PCB that was taken out. It's a simple matter of soldering a row of buttons onto a PCB, mounting it under the outside buttons, and soldering on a connector. After the keyboard is made and programmed, the camera only needs a battery pack to be a stand-alone device. I'm considering mounting a USB battery bank inside the camera and building a connection on the back to accept Ryobi cordless tool batteries. We have half a dozen of those floating around already. After that, the only critical hardware missing is a microphone interface. The Raspberry Pi doesn't have an audio input at all. I find that rather annoying at times. In the end, I'll have a USB to XLR interface and proper mics. 

  If I remember correctly, the camcorder has 36 buttons and switches on it. I'll be adding more as I go for various things, and all will emulate keyboard button presses. A custom keyboard may eventually be made to control this camera. One of my IBM Model M keyboards will be the main keyboard for it once I get one of them working. 

  That's about it for this one. I may finish up the button mapping and coding for the keyboard tomorrow. If all goes very well, I'll have all the buttons hooked up and working. 

• New Feature Considerations

  Dustin • 12/07/2020 at 04:05 • 0 comments

  I've shown this project to two friends and each had a few ideas for future features. The first, whih I plan to implement immediately, is a dimmable LED flash. I already have the flash upgraded to LED, but it's only on or off. It's a standard LED taillight bulb for automotive use. 12 volts DC, probably about 1 amp current draw. I know that the GPIO pins on the Pi won't run that directly, so I found the Adafruit DRV8871 Motor Driver Breakout that should work nicely. My friend is an artist of many mediums, and immediately recommended dimming it for various lighting scenarios. I agree, so it shall be done. The flash module that mounts on top of the camera has 3 pins that it passes through. That's perfect for this. 1 will be 12 volts positive, another will be the ground, and the third will be the PWM signal. Couldn't have worked out any better than that. That PWM control should allow me to use the LED flash as a strobe light as well, which was another suggestion made to me.

  Next is built in speakers for audio playback. I haven't looked at hardware for that, but it should be fairly simple. I'll be putting in an audio output for in ear monitors, and will just tie some powered speakers into that line. Will make gaming and video playback on the camcorder much easier, as I won't have to keep hooking up an external speaker.

  A keyboard built into the lid that flips down to uncover the touchscreen. The space there is very limited, but I suspect I can get a grid of small momentary buttons mounted and use them for controlling functions outside of what the camcorder already has buttons for. I might even be able to fit an entire QWERTY keypad into it. Would make quick tasks much easier than plugging in or connection a keyboard. If I make that lid removeable and map the keys to main camera functions, it can be used as a hardwired control panel. That would help as the user wouldn't have to touch the camera in order to input commands, eliminating the chance of bumping the camera and shaking the image.

  Along similar lines as the flip down keyboard, I'd like a built in LED light that would shine down on the keyboard. As much as I like backlights, I prefer the top mounted keyboard light on my Lenovo Thinkpad X230. Simple and very effective. I'll give the Pi control over that light so it can be turned off when the lid is closed, or when recording in low light situations where it might influence the image. 

  Interior light. I'd really like a little interior light that turns on when the case is opened to make it easier to swap memory cards, cables, or just work inside of it. Simple, but would be very helpful if I ever had to work inside the camera under less than ideal lighting situations.

  
  Autofocus. This is a big one that will require some extra hardware. The camera has the motor and hardware to implement autofocus, and it used to use it quite well. It uses an IR system, but I think I'll go with a simpler image processing technique. The only thing I need for that is a Python library for autofocus, which I already confirmed exists. Once I get the motor wired up and under Pi control, I'll start on that software.

  Electric zoom control. THis camera also has a motor and hardware for the 24x optical zoon. I just have to give control of that motor to the Pi and map it to the original zoom buttons. Once this and autofocus are implemented, I can write programs to automatically zoom in and focus. This would be a great feature for when I don't have a camera operator and still need to zoom in and focus on a fixed point. Would be good for scripted work when I need the camera to zoom in on something I'm holding, then zoom back out after a set time. I've never heard of anything like this being implemented into a camera. I could make a fully automated studio where the host just follows the script and the camera does the rest. It's a large goal, but that's the end goal: single person automated recording studio built into a camera.

  Pan and tilt motors....

  Read more »

• Overclocking the Pi

  Dustin • 12/05/2020 at 19:12 • 0 comments

  It's my birthday today, and I decided to spend the morning doing chores, baking spicy dark chocolate gingerbread, and working on the camcorder. I've got a decent heat sink with fan taped onto the Pi right now(The adhesive for the thermal pad doesn't like to be vertical), and have it overclocked to 2.125GHz on the CPU and 750MHz on the GPU with an overvolt of 6. It's running just fine. I'm watching the temperature and CPU frequency while a stress test runs. Just using the simple stress program. 

  sudo apt-get install stress

  Then to run it:

  stress -i 4

  That runs some sort of sync operation on all 4 cores of the CPU. 

  The temp started at about 30C, and is struggling to get past 50C. Hovering around 48C currently. The Pi should throttle at 80C, if I remember correctly, which means I have tons of thermal headroom. I doubt I'll overclock it much more. I do need a stable system, afterall. I overclocked it for dealing with mixing audio into the video stream when I get audio recording hardware. Another nice side effect of the overclock is better gaming and emulation performance. I might take the camcorder to visit my cousin with his giant vintage game and computer collection, and this would be a fun system to game on. Gaming on a camcorder...Never heard of that before.  

  I ran Super Tux Kart and Super Tux 2 for some game testing and to see how the Pi 4 might run games. Ran perfectly fine, even though STK warned of too low resolution and insuficient GPU stuff. More game stuff whrn I get back. 

• New Light, Pi Mounts, and OS

  Dustin • 12/05/2020 at 05:59 • 0 comments

  I stopped really working on this project when I cracked the SD card trying to get it out of the Pi. I didn't have a backup of the OS and all the stuff I installed to get my camcorder software working, so that was a big set back. I just have to remember exactly what modules where installed and how to install them. It should just be Pycamera and Keyboard for Python. 

  I started with Raspberry Pi OS Lite, but forgot that doesn't have a GUI... I would really like a GUI for this part. So I followed a prompt from the OS to run 

  sudo apt-get install lightdm

  and that gave me a login window for Debian 10. That's perfect. Minimalistic OS installation with a light GUI. Couldn't get logged into it... The usual default user "pi" with password "raspberry" didn't seem to work. I think it was actually accepting the password because I never got an error like when I tried others. It just tried to load something and took me right back to the login screen. That was useless, so downloading the Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop now. That image is over 2GB, which is far too big for another project, but fine for this. This camcorder is a general purpose computer, so it should be just fine. 

  On a brighter note, I got the Pi mounted properly, and upgraded the old incandescent bulb on the camera to a very bright LED. The LED I'm using is a spare from the off grid camper project, and is meant to be a 12 volt car tail light. I managed to get it fit perfectly into the little case that mounts to the top of the camera. I'll wire it later, but initial testing shows that it's a far better light, with a very bright white, instead of the dim yellow light.

  For the new Pi mounts, I melted 2 holes into the plastic case with an ice pick and screwed in two motherboard standoffs. As the other mounting holes sat up on a little plastic hill, I had to do something different. I took some long screws that I have nuts for, heated them with a small torch, and sunk the screw heads into the plastic and quickly dropped the Pi into place to align them. Then I screwed a nut onto the screw for the Pi to rest on. It's very sturdy and another nut on top of each screw will secure it permanently. I trimmed away a little plastic on the camcorder case to gain access to the Pi ports, and it worked perfectly. The only thing I can't access right now is the SD card(not using it, booting from USB), and the GPIO, which I can break out later or wire internally.

  I've finally gotten the camcorder booting again, on the latest Raspberry Pi OS. All of the hardware and software actually worked on the first try this time around. USB booting works great and the system is very useable. I'm using a 32GB Samsung USB 3.1 flash drive for the boot drive. It's the nice metal one. It's my standard flash drive these days. I tried running my camera software, but forgot I had to install the keyboard software with "pip3" instead of "pip":

  sudo pip3 install keyboard

  The above installed the keyboard module and it seems to be working. I didn't have the camera interface enabled, so I had to change that up. After enabling the camera interface and such, my camcorder software started right up. I didn't have the latest version backup up, so the photo mode was missing, as well as all exposure and ISO adjustments. Easy enough to implement. I ended up adding a bunch of new features to the camcorder software over the past hour or so. I can now control ISO, exposure(only  Night and Auto modes currently), and I can finally toggle the preview. The preview is a nuisance at times, as it covers all of the screen and I can't tell what the camera is doing. I also added print() output for all functions of the camera so I can see what's going on. Everything is working very well on video, and I can capture images. A big problem is how long it takes to save an image at full resolution. It seems to take a very long time to caputre the image, and the camera becomes unusable as it does so. I will add in a feature to capture an image...

  Read more »

• New Feature: One Button Record and Stop

  Dustin • 11/30/2020 at 18:53 • 0 comments

  I decided it was time to finally start cleaning up my code this morning, and it's going surprisingly well. I created some basic functions, and basically started over. I finally got a function working that lets me start and stop recording by pressing a button. It's a rather important feature, as it lets me use the single physical record button on the camcorder. The current code is still quite messy, but I'll post it here anyway.

  It works just fine, and lays the foundations for easily implementing the rest of the features later. 

  Features previously implemented, but not yet implemented in this iteration:

  - Photo captures

  - White balance adjustments

  - Exposure adjustments

  - ISO adjustments

  Improvements in this iteration, over previous:

  - One button record and stop

  - Cleaner code, allowing for faster future coding

  The code is at a point where someone could install my setup into their Raspberry Pi and have a working camcorder. It's quite easy to make simple scripts that would capture a video file, but I feel mine is a more complete solution than that. It's getting to a point where it would be a useable system for the average person, once installed. No running of scripts and such. Just pressing buttons and pointing the camera. The end goal is a working camera that takes advantage of every single feature of the Raspberry Pi HQ Camera Module, as well as many of the general purpose features of the Raspberry Pi 4.

  I have to go clean the car out and such, so back to the real world for a little bit.

  The following code is known working at this point, but using it requires the Keyboard module installed.

  #Commands:
  #r = start recording
  #p = take picture
  #0-8 = ISO modes 100-800, 0 is auto
  #a = auto exposure
  #n = night exposure
  
  
  #Exposure Modes:
  #- off
  #- auto
  #- night
  #- nightpreview
  #- backlight
  #- spotlight
  #- sports
  #- snow
  #- beach
  #- verylong
  #- fixedfps
  #- antishake
  #- fireworks
  
  #White Balance Modes:
  #- off
  #- auto
  #- sunlight
  #- cloudy
  #- shade
  #- tungsten
  #- flourescent
  #- incandescent
  #- flash
  #- horizon
  
  import time
  import keyboard
  from time import sleep
  from picamera import PiCamera
  
  camera = PiCamera()
  camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
  camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
  camera.awb_mode = 'auto'
  #camera.start_preview()
  
  print("PiCorder V1.4")
          
              
  def record_start():
      camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
      sleep(2)
      camera.start_recording('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/button.h264')
      print("Recording Started")
      while True:
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              record_stop()
              print("stop")
              time.sleep(1)
              break
          
  def record_stop():
      camera.stop_recording()
      print("Recording Stopped")
      
      
  def end():
      camera.stop_preview()
      camera.close()
      print("Killing Program")
      time.sleep(2)
              
  
  while True:
      try:
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              record_start()
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed('x'):
              end()
              break
      except:
          pass
  

• New Feature: Exposure Adjustment

  Dustin • 11/30/2020 at 04:37 • 0 comments

  In the previous log, I said I'd implement white balance next...I Lied. I ended up doing exposure adjustment instead. It was easy enough to add "auto" and "night", so I'm happy with that. Feature implementation is turning out to be one of my favorite parts. I suspect that's pretty common with most people... I do make myself go back and clean up and optimize my code after a while, but it's more of a chore. Speaking of which, I need a better system for adjusting all of these settings, as I won't have that many physical buttons on the camera. That reminds me: I need to count how many buttons I have available on the thing. I'm sure I'll add more as I go. 23 tactile buttons, and 2 sliding swithces. One switch is the power switch, two buttons are reserved for zoom, and a 1 is the record button. That leaves me a cool 20 buttons to work with right now. I counted 36 current options that require buttons, so I already far exceed what I have. Being able to scroll through functions and save commonly used as hot keys will be a requirement at this point. I need to combine the buttons to start and stop recording into a single toggle button, which will free up one button. Using a keyboard, it hardly matters how many things I tie to buttons. Maybe I'll have the option to hook up a full keyboard and unlock every single function. I giant custom control panel comes to mind, and looks glorious in my head. It makes me happy to imagine breaking out every single camera function onto a control panel, and running this like a brodcast camera. Broadcast camera is loosely what I am basing this on, so that makes perfect sense.

  Anyway, back to the actual update. The following updated code is working as designed, and all is well at this point. I finally docuented all of the commands in the file, as they were starting to pile up. I feel the documentation process is one of the most important in the creation process, but it can be very time consuming and tedious up front. Worht the savings down the road, and when others wish to work with your code.

  """
  Commands:
  r = start recording
  s = stop recording
  p = take picture
  0-8 = ISO modes 100-800, 0 is auto
  a = auto exposure
  n = night exposure
  
  
  Exposure Modes:
  - off
  - auto
  - night
  - nightpreview
  - backlight
  - spotlight
  - sports
  - snow
  - beach
  - verylong
  - fixedfps
  - antishake
  - fireworks
  
  White Balance Modes:
  - off
  - auto
  - sunlight
  - cloudy
  - shade
  - tungsten
  - flourescent
  - incandescent
  - flash
  - horizon
  """
  
  import keyboard
  from time import sleep
  from picamera import PiCamera
  import numpy as np
  
  camera = PiCamera()
  camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
  camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
  camera.awb_mode = 'auto'
  camera.start_preview() 
  
  while True: 
      try:        
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
              sleep(2)
              camera.start_recording('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/button.h264')
  
                  
          if keyboard.is_pressed('s'):    
              camera.stop_recording()         
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('p'):
              sleep(2)
              camera.resolution = (2592, 1944)
              camera.capture('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/testpic.png')
              camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
              camera.start_preview()
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("n"):
              camera.exposure_mode = 'night'
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("a"):
              camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("0"):
              camera.iso = 0    
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("1"):
              camera.iso = 100
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("2"):
              camera.iso = 200
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("3"):
              camera.iso = 300
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("4"):
              camera.iso = 400
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("5"):
              camera.iso = 500
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("6"):
              camera.iso = 600
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("7"):
              camera.iso = 700
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("8"):
              camera.iso = 800            
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed('x'):
              camera.stop_preview()
              break
              close()
          sleep(.01)
          
      except:
          pass
  

• New Feature: ISO Adjustment

  Dustin • 11/30/2020 at 04:07 • 0 comments

  Fter getting overwhelmed with the user interface(I underestimated that task), I decided to go for an easy win to keeo me going. Changing the ISO settings seemed simple enough. Unlike most things that seem simple enough, this task actually was. I got all the ISO settings I think I need working, and ready to use. The code is crude right now, with everything under if statements in a while loop, but I could take this camera out and use it right now if needed. That's the entire point, so I call that a win. I'll eventually go back and clean up all this code and make functions. For now, I'll just enjoy my nea feature. 

  Here are the if statements I added:

          if keyboard.is_pressed("0"):
              camera.iso = 0    
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("1"):
              camera.iso = 100
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("2"):
              camera.iso = 200
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("3"):
              camera.iso = 300
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed("4"):
              camera.iso = 400
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("5"):
              camera.iso = 500
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("6"):
              camera.iso = 600
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("7"):
              camera.iso = 700
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed("8"):
              camera.iso = 800

  Some of those settings don't seem to do much, but I'll test again later and remove any that are dead weight. I have to see if the keyboard driver I'm using supports key combinations. Otherwise, I'll be limited to a standard keyboard character set. I suspect I could even use Python code to look for key combinations and trigger extra events. I don't really feel too bad about using up almost all of the number keys in my code. 

  I found that I get far better low light results using an SIO of 800, set manually, than I do using the auto mode. I'm glad I added this feature and discovered that, as low light performance seemed horrible. Just goes to show how disappointing the most basic implementation of this camera would be. I imagine there are plenty of people out there who want to make use of the HQ Camera Module, and just don't have the technical skills and programming abilities to do so. Hopefully my work here will help someone someday. I coudn't find anything similar to what I'm doing, so I have to do this all myself. I'm ok with that. I get to learn this at a much deeper level than I might have otherwise.

  Next up: White balance

• Adding Status Feedback

  Dustin • 11/30/2020 at 03:13 • 0 comments

  I finally got ahold of some AAA batteries for my bluetooth keyboard, so I can start coding on the Pi instead of on my laptop. I really do need a way to modify the code remotely, but that's a whole new rabbit hole.

  Now I'm onto feedback. The program does work, though at a very basic level. It's nearly impossible to tell the state of the system, as there are no recording lights, symbols, or even sounds. I figure the easiest thing to investigate first is just putting screen overlays that DO NOT embed into the video. Back to the documentation for a bit of research, then I'll try out some code and post the results...

  After screwing around with the example in the docs for way too long, I've decided to do something else instead. I find it very frustrating how little information there is on this. The default code sets the camera resolution to 1280x720, and I need it at 1920x1080. I'm not familiar with numpy at all, so I'll have to learn all of that too. Too many knowledge gaps, too tired to try.

  I did figure out that the example in the docs doesn't work on Python3. You have to replace 

  np.getbuffer(a)

   with 

  a.tobytes()

   since the first bit of code existed in Python2, and I'm working with Python3. Moving onto the next part, still to be determined.

• General Thoughts

  Dustin • 11/30/2020 at 01:56 • 0 comments

  When the Raspberry Pi Foundation released the first camera module, I didn't really care. Same with the second one. They just didn't really fit any of my camera needs. Resolution and quality was just too low for me to actually do anything with. When the HQ module released, I checked out the specs and knew I had to get one. Wasn't sure what I'd do with it, but needed it. That's how it usually goes. I guess it's the curiosity and excitement for all the new possibilities that makes me crave the new toys and tools. 

  When I was a child, I was obsessed with animals, animal documentaries, and any kind of educational programming I had access to. I remember my thrift store tv, with a dead speaker, in black and white. I had to tune every channel manually. Still loved the stupid thing. I remember watching a penguin documentary on the tv in my Dad's van on the way to the big city. Those programs, and the technology surrounding me shaped me. My dad used to give me his old cell phones back in the 90s. I used to charge them up and just play with and collect them. These days, I find myself wanting to create, rather than consume things. I particularly want to create my own documentaries and educational things. I miss watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I miss the not so great image quality. It seems this camera project is a good way for me to bring everything I enjoy together. I get to tinker with all kinds of technology and make a tool I'll cherish forever. It's good enough quality for me to make fun videos, and has a whole bunch of 90s flare to it. The 90s were my favorite days, as that's before my life was destroyed and everything became painfully serious. This camera is a way for me to experience something I could never have dreamed of as a kid, now on my own terms. To own a video camera back in the 90s, was something completely out of my reach. I'm very happy to have one now. I went on a 5,200 mile road trip to the west coast recently, and got to swim with the sealions. I got to live out a childhood dream by filming wild animals in their natural habitat. It was unreal. I felt at home out there. If I were being paid for that experience, I'd have been truly content. My camera for that experience, and my first ever video camera, is a GoPro Hero7 Silver. The lady and I sold our bikes and bike rack on that trip to lighten the load, and it helped partially fund that camera purchase. I mounted it to a snorkel mask I'd been holding onto for almost a year(it actually has a GoPro mount on it), and got into the water to see under the ocean for the first time. This camera would have never survived such a harsh environment, and I'll never try to make it waterproof, but that's what multiple cameras are for. This camera is just a tool I'm building to make my documentary process as easy and fun as possible. I could go on endlessly, but I'll end it here. I hope someone reads and enjoys this particular log. I've shared this incredibly important success with friends and family, and no one seemed to care. I hope we friendly fellow hackers will appreciate my work on this odd project. 

• Software: Setting Up The Preview Screen

  Dustin • 11/29/2020 at 18:37 • 0 comments

  I started with my best guess at the easiest way to implement this, and it failed nicely. The goal is to get a preview up as soon as the program starts, and try to keep it running the entire time. I added all the stopping and starting as I know the different camera modes have different resolutions. Actually, this isn't the easiest way to do it, but it was the first thing that occured to me. The following code is really wonky and does not work.

  import keyboard
  from time import sleep
  from picamera import PiCamera
  
  camera = PiCamera()
  camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
  camera.awb_mode = 'auto'
  
  while True: 
      camera.start_preview()
      try:   
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              sleep(2)
              camera.stop_preview()
              camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
              camera.start_preview()
              camera.start_recording('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/button.h264', splitter_port=2)
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('s'):    
              camera.stop_recording(splitter_port=2)
              #camera.stop_preview()
              
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('p'):
              sleep(2)
              camera.stop_preview()
              camera.resolution = (2592, 1944)
              camera.start_preview()
              camera.capture('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/testpic.png')
              #camera.stop_preview()
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed('x'):
              break
          sleep(.01)
      except:
          pass

  That failed in a very interestng fashion. The preview did indeed come up, and stay up, but it would flash every few seconds, and I couldn't interrupt the program to stop it. I ended up having to spam the "x" button and reboot the Pi. It at least did capture a video and an image without interfering with the preview. I now need to stop the screen from flashing, and find a way to interrupt this program.

  Let's try this out. I took out the sleep(2) and the camera.start_preview() from the while loop. I added the camera.start_preview() to the top, after the camera is initialized. The 2 second sleep I had in there seems to be about the same amount of time as the flashing. After pasting that in, I realized that I NEVER stop the preview, and that's probably why it's still up on the screen. Better add that into the end when "x" is pressed.

  import keyboard
  from time import sleep
  from picamera import PiCamera
  
  camera = PiCamera()
  camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
  camera.awb_mode = 'auto'
  camera.start_preview() 
  
  while True: 
  
      try:
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              sleep(2)
              camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
              camera.start_recording('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/button.h264', splitter_port=2)
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('s'):    
              camera.stop_recording(splitter_port=2)            
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('p'):
              sleep(2)
              camera.resolution = (2592, 1944)
              camera.capture('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/testpic.png')
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed('x'):
              camera.stop_preview()
              break
          sleep(.01)
      except:
          pass
  

   That worked out far better this time. The preview window came up, and never went away. It did change dimensions every time it changes functions, but it's far better and more usable. There was a live preview image on screen at all times. The image and video captures were also good. 

  import keyboard
  from time import sleep
  from picamera import PiCamera
  
  camera = PiCamera()
  camera.exposure_mode = 'auto'
  camera.awb_mode = 'auto'
  camera.start_preview() 
  
  while True: 
      try:        
          if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
              camera.start_preview()
              sleep(2)
              camera.resolution = (1920, 1080)
              camera.start_recording('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/button.h264', splitter_port=2)
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('s'):    
              camera.stop_recording(splitter_port=2)            
          
          if keyboard.is_pressed('p'):
              camera.start_preview()
              sleep(2)
              camera.resolution = (2592, 1944)
              camera.capture('/home/pi/Documents/test_files/testpic.png')
              
          if keyboard.is_pressed('x'):
              camera.stop_preview()
              break
          sleep(.01)
      except:
          pass
  

  When hitting "r" to start recording, the preview goes away for a moment, and comes back. It then does this again. I suspect this is due to the following:

  if keyboard.is_pressed('r'):
  camera.start_preview()

   Hitting "s" to stop recodring does not interfere with the preview window....

  Read more »

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