I mentioned in a previous blog the limitations inherent in Google Blogger. It's great with images, and video, and linking to URLs. Other files are kind of left hanging out to dry. There's a workaround on Google Drive Direct Link Generator. Makes it just a few easy steps. I'd prefer that Blogger could natively handle the files, but this is almost as easy.
With that said, the bigger problem has nothing to do with Blogger. I've been looking for a way to convert MIDI files to Sheet Music. I play by ear, and haven't read sheet music in about 50 years so writing my own would be more effort than I really want to do. For years, I used "Midi to Sheet Music", and it was great. Super simple, but anybody who wanted to learn my arrangements by music notation could do so. When it quit working, there wasn't much of an alternative out there. MuseScore had potential, but I didn't like the way it played the files, and it didn't seem to understand my "southern gospel" twang. Music Notation played my stuff perfectly, but the free version was crippled so as not to print the notation out. You had to buy the full program to be able to output the sheet music, and it was $90.
That's where I've been stuck for the last two months. My son and his wife unknowingly funded the project when they sent birthday money last week. Bought and downloaded Music Notation 4, and spent a few days exploring it. Does more than I need, but the important part is that it DOES WHAT I NEED, and does so extremely well. It's absolutely worth the cost. If you click the link, it will take you to Notation Software's website. If you decide to buy it, be careful to choose the correct program. They have two, "Notation Composer," and "Notation Musician." The former is a more complete program, and much more expensive. The latter, Notation Musician, is the one I got. For the record, I have no affiliation with Notation Software, and make no money for recommending them. :^)
A few weeks ago I posted my first new piano music video in years, and included a link to the midi file (thanks to the Direct Link Generator above). Now I've got the sheet music for it:
I'll edit the original post with the video, so as to have the video, midi, and sheet music all in the same blog post, but wanted to include it here as a technical example of the link working properly, and how well Notation Musician handles the conversion process.
As an added bonus, it splits the left and right hands for me. Not that I'm reading the notes, but watching what's being played while listening to it, it sounds like a fine job of separating the track into two. Might not be following "The Rules According to Hoyle"... but well enough for someone to learn the song from it.
One more related link - If I choose to make a "How to Play" video like like the original Grace Notes blog did, Music Notation would work but Midiano includes an actual piano keyboard on the screen, so you can read the music and watch the keys all at the same time. And speed or slow the playback as desired, which makes a great learning tool!! (NOTE: Today I figured out how to put an image and link on the sidebar, now you can click on the image and go directly to Midiano!)
In the last post, I described the steps that took me from failing with OBS, to succeeding with VLC. In this post, I included the step by step images that actually worked for me, and a portion of the resulting video. Portion, because the test video recorded for well over an hour. When I played it back, the entire duration played fine. Audio stayed synced. Image quality looked great (for a plus-or-minus 30 year old VHS tape). It was satisfying, gratifying, after the entire journey from "Why isn't this working?" to "Look, Mom!"
For the record, here's VLC's official site. VLC is completely free, and a very "swiss army knife" of a video player. Versatile, fast, and lightweight. I've used it for years, but even so didn't realize it could capture video until a year or two ago. It's sort of 'hidden', unless you explore the menus. And VLC could do with some actual documentation. But I can't complain. It's free, works great, and solved the problem.
Quick note about the video recording - I played with some options that should have shown the video as it played, while recording. Nothing worked exactly right. If I chose the "Play" option and recorded from there, the video was visible while recording, but would only record AVI, which has a size limit. Ultimately, I had to follow the steps, but take it on faith the video was recording correctly. Once I hit the "stop" button, it finalized the file. Only then did the finished file play. As you see, it worked, I just couldn't see the actual video while it was recording.
I still strongly recommend visiting "How to Record Screen with VLC." By the time I found this site, I had a lot of the puzzle pieces. This was the website that put it all together and showed a wide variety of ways to record. But for a quick visual shortcut, the images below shows the process that actually worked for me.
Above you see VLC's startup screen.
Next, under the MEDIA menu, select "Open Capture Device"
Here, under the Capture Device tab, make sure "DirectShow" is selected for Capture Mode. I'm using AV2HDMI for the capture hardware that connects the VCR to my computer. For me, the Video Device Name was "USB Video." The Audio Device name was "Digital Audio Interface (2 USB Digital Audio)." Your devices may be different, depending on your capture device and your computer setup.
Where it says "Play" near the bottom, click the dropdown arrow and select "Convert."
The "Convert" popup should appear. Source was automatically set for "dshow:\\", I didn't have to choose that. I did not select "DeInterlace." Thought it might be needed, but it worked fine without. I did try the "Display the Output", but still couldn't see the video as it was recording. The recording worked, with or without trying to display the output, it just didn't seem to make any difference either way. Under "Profile", I selected "Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4)." There was a higher numbered Codec for H.265. I tried that, but it embedded the audio in a way that my players and video editors could not use, so I went back to H.264, which works just fine.
The only thing important here is that the "Browse" button is highlighted. Click on it to open the save window.
From here, you select the target directory you want to save the video to, name the video, and type ".mp4" at the end of your filename. Adding .mp4 seems to be all you need to tell it what format to save in. There are other options, but mp4 is the only one I wanted.
Now you're back to the "Convert" screen with your destination file selected. Click Start.
Now you're on the recording screen. I know, it's blank. That's all I could see. But the red dot was depressed, and the counter was counting up. At this point, I took it on faith, and went to eat supper. How did the video turn out? Check out the clip above!
For the record, I (accidentally) recorded an hour and 13 minutes for the test video. Left it running, and forgot it was on. Most of the video is very old children's cartoons recorded from broadcast television. Rather than bore you with all of it, I took the first six minutes because it was me... playing 30 years ago. It's like a window into the past. And a chance to see how my playing then compares to my playing now.
Honestly, I think I played better back then. Still made mistakes, but my playing was more certain, and felt more 'full of joy'. I've learned a lot since then, and can play things now that I couldn't back then. But it seems to be missing some part of what I loved about the piano. Food for thought. Maybe I need to simplify, and get back to just having fun with it.
I mentioned OBS in a previous blog, as a great free option for capturing video. I'll have add a caveat. It's great, when it works. When it as working, it was perfect. The first time I ever used it, it felt like a godsend. Now, I have another videotape to capture. Booted OBS, it still captures video great, but no audio. I hadn't changed anything about it. Settings were still the same, hardware still the same. I'm using AV2HDMI, by the way. Sneered at by professional VHS restorers, but they consider a minimal set-up investment to start at $1,000, and freely recommend much more expensive equipment if you're serious.
Those guys are exactly that - professionals who make a living salvaging old videos at the best quality humanly available. I had to wait weeks to afford the $35 I needed for the AV2HDMI unit plus an HDMI to USB cable. Would love to have the pro stuff. I used to do weddings/industrial video production, so once upon a time I had most of the gear they mention but that was decades ago. Back in the first great days of video production using an Amiga 4000 and NewTek's Video Toaster. Revolutionary days back then.
Back to modern times...after several days of research, studying, trying to learn, following multiple guides and suggestions, it started looking like it wasn't a hardware issue, but a compatibility issue. OBS's main strength is as streaming software. Seems like video capture is kind of a side effect, and doesn't work equally for everybody.
Given the number of other people online making the same complaint about OBS - no audio - and the lack of any consistently successful solutions, I had to give up. I did try Virtualdub, but really had my doubts. While the software will run in Windows 10, it's specs list Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, Vista, and 7. While that's a huge spectrum of continued support, it's age and lack of mentioning Windows 10 put me off. Gave it a try, the quality was fair, but most disappointingly the only output format was AVI. Some modern media players don't even recognize AVI, others struggle to play the audio in an AVI. For the record, 5kplayer was great at playing AVI files.
The biggest problem with AVI was that I could only record a few minutes and then it auto-stops. Some very minimal searching on google, and I found that AVI files were originally limited to 2GB, and using some tricks with pointers, can go to 4GB. I'm not certain that's the problem here, but it's a limitation that MP4 doesn't have, so that disqualified VirtualDub for me.
There were a few paid options, but I didn't look into them. I've already invested my limit. :^) Then I remembered that VLC Media Player has a rather obscure video capture system. It didn't work for my previous capture card, so I'd forgotten about it until yesterday. Didn't even have to update, it was immediately compatible with AV2HDMI. There were still some bumps in the road, but at least it worked with the hardware, and grabbed clean video.
First problem? Defaults to AVI. The initial guides I found all lead to saving the file on the default format. Plus, the guides were a bit outdated, so I had to blunder around blindly on the parts that weren't accurate any more.
The article offered instructions for multiple techniques. The most useful part for me was the section on recording a video. You have to read between the lines a little. But following the steps, the article got me exactly where I needed to be.
The best part, when you get to "Convert/Save", and the option to create the file name, you can choose MP4 format simply by TYPING .MP4 AT THE END OF YOUR FILENAME!! That seems too little, too simple, it feels like there should be a button to select or a preference somewhere. VLC actually offers a lot of format options to save in, and it's very simple once you know how to get to it.
I just did a test video, running for over an hour, and the quality was great, the audio was perfect, and it recorded the entire hour-plus. Finally, a reliable way to get video from VHS tape to my computer!!
