Screen Recording app for an Android - SUCCESS

[Dartmoor Dave]

Hi,
I'm looking to improve my fpv max distance with my p2v+ and I'm testing alternatives at the moment including fpv booster app that I tried yesterday. As part of the process I'd like to record what I'm seeing on my android screen when I'm using my dji vision app. My Galaxy s5 phone isn't rooted and this rules out using REC. Can anyone advise me on a suitable app to video record my screen whilst I'm out in the field testing the fpv distances that doesn't require a rooted phone and is relatively simple to use ie click and record?
Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere, but I have searched and can't find anything specific mentioned.

See my next post for an update.

 

[Dartmoor Dave]

Re: Screen Recording app for an Android

SUCCESS - Since no one else could seemingly help me with finding some suitable software to record the smartphone screen as a video I've spent quite a few hours on the net and I'm pleased to let you know I've found just what I wanted to capture the DJI vision app first person view screen, amongst plenty needing a rooted phone or difficult repetitive linking procedures

The application I've found is very easy to use and does not need a rooted phone, two of my prime requirements. My phone is an unrooted Samsung Galaxy S5, android 4.4.2, and the application can be used on it without a PC being required. It gives flexibility in the size of the video it produces and is easy to use, once you've played with it a few times.

I'm now able, at the click of a button on my smartphone, to turn on a video screen saver that saves a file directly to my smartphone and to end the capture with just another button press. I can now inspect all the parameters of the flight at leisure, these dynamically changing as the flight progresses. Using other software I can then relatively easily embed the DJI vision screen video in the PV2+ video recording if I want to compare the preview image from the DJI vision app with the high quality video recording.

It makes analysing the link between distance from home, number of satellites and the full range of parameters offered by DJI's vision plus much easier than before and anyone interested in FPV with the P2V+ could benefit by using it.

The best application I found is called Mobizen and it really is a remarkable application. Predominantly it is marketed as enabling a smartphone to be controlled from a PC remotely using wifi or by being connected via a usb cable. As a throw away line (almost) the ads for it mention that it can also be used to capture what appears on a smartphone screen as a video and that this can be done away from a PC, a notebook or notepad. It really is a brilliant app, available free from google play store. For information on it and any limitations on the android versions it can be used with then google it. Does it work on iphones though? Google will tell you that.

If you want to see how it looks embedded in the P2V+ video then I've uploaded a small section of a video to dropbox I made today, flying from my back garden, suitably edited of course as I don't want to offend my near neighbours in any way!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6p7qo9l0lz1uh ... t.mp4?dl=0

If enough people show an interest in how I produced this then I'll knock out a step by step guide and upload it to youtube at some point.

 

[MikeEast]

That looks downright useful!

Thanks!

Mike

 

[Dartmoor Dave]

Yes Mike it certainly is for me. Take a look at a flight up on Dartmoor today ( see link below) with embedded fpv screen. It was a lovely day on wild and remote Dartmoor with sunny conditions, and light wind, ideal for some aerial photography of the bronze age artifacts and tin minings areas that abound on the moor At just over 400 metres from my home point, without my fpv booster app running, the fpv vision app froze as I was out of fpv range. However what I didn't appreciate was that the copter wasn't out of signal range. I continued on the same line away from the home point, probably travelling around 10 m/sec. A few seconds later I received the "lost contact with the phantom message" and a few seconds later I then got the coming home message as it had triggered RTH, I was mighty pleased to see it returning at over 40 metres above home and took over control again from auto flyback.
It was only when I got home and downloaded the full video and overlaid the mobizen smartphone video over it that I realised just how close to piling the copter into the hillside I had come. I'd estimated the top of the hill, over 450 metres away to be 40 meters above my home point. I was flying at about 42 metres and thought RTH would trigger at about 400 metres max as it has done before. You'll see from the video I was skimming the tussocks on Dartmoor at the end, probably flying at around 20 mph. Without the video of the smartphone screen there would have been no way I could have analysed my flight using the two videos and various maps of Dartmoor I have. I was able to estimate that the phantom had reached 470 metres when it lost the control signal
For me studying the smartphone screen video in conjunction with the phantom video is very useful in better appreciating what I am doing and what I should be doing
The video is up on youtube
Have a look at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXfktDs ... e=youtu.be

The pile of Dartmoor Pony dung and tussocks I skimmed just before RTH triggered looks mighty large in the video and another lesson learned about flying these machines.

Dave

 

[4wd]

The mystery is why it was previously made so difficult, but there may be security concerns if you do online banking and such with your phone.

 

[p fandango]

470metres, is that normal for a P2V+? I'm sure i've had about 700metres out of my P2

 

[Dartmoor Dave]

TBH I don't know what the typical range is for an unmodded P2V+ but I've read somewhere that without any add ons it is around that sort of distance. fpv froze at just over 400 m so I was flying blind for a few seconds until RTH kicked in. The range distances depend on conditions of course but looking at the elevation profile of my flight today and the height I was at I'd lost "line of sight" at around that distance. I prefer to keep it in view when I'm videoing and against a moorland backdrop it is mighty easy to lose sight of it completely as happened to me today (again!)

Re the possibility of the Mobizen developers compromising security by uploading data whilst the app is running. Anything is possible of course but as a matter of routine before flying I turn off mobile data usage on my smartphone. It makes no difference to the screen capturing or control interface from what I've seen. Whether it stops data being uploaded from my machine is another matter but my phone indicates that Mobizen is using very little data compared with many of the apps I use.

 

[MikeEast]

I've played with the app for a bit now and so far I'm not finding anything that is a show stopper here.
I use a droid maxx (not the RAZR) for my phantom, and even though there is a valid sim card, it's not being talked to by anyone but me.

Nice video Dave, always cool to see what other parts of the planet look like from a drone. ;-)

 

[srchadwi]

Cheers for finding this app. I too had been searching for ages for a screen recording app and couldn't find anything easy to use.

 

[srchadwi]

I've been playing with this app but found a problem. Only sometimes does the recording work. On 4 out of the 10 times I've used it it's been great but on the other times when I try to play the video back on my mobile device I get "Sorry, this video can be cannot be played". When I download it to PC it won't play on any media player I have. Any ideas?

 

[Dartmoor Dave]

hi srchadwi,
I've got your pm re the problem you've encountered and I've replied to it, at least the system says I've sent it to you. If it doesn't arrive, pm me again with your email address and I'll email you.
I had probs with the settings at the start but the program now records every time and saves the recordings as mp4 files on the phone.