video file created cannot be opened

[ChaimF90]

Just trying to use this in a very basic example as follows

const castro = require('castro')
const movie = new castro.Castro();
movie.setLocation('/Users/Me/Movies/totes-epic.mp4')

movie.start();

setTimeout(() => {
    movie.stop()
},4000);

I am not getting any errors, and I even see the file that was generated in the movies folder as expected. When I try to play the video however, it wont open.

Any ideas?

[hugs]

Can you provide more info about your setup? (Specifically, node and OS X / MacOS version numbers.) Also, did you see any errors in the console when you ran 'npm install castro'?

[hugs]

FWIW, I just tested this and I can confirm your issue. (Tested on Node v6.9.1 on OS X 10.11.6)

The weird thing is that your script works correctly (the video is playable) when you paste the script into a live Node REPL. But it does not work when it's run as a command line (node your-script.js). Will need to do more digging to find out what's going on.

[hugs]

Well this is interesting... Try adding one more timeout that fires at least 500 ms (possibly more) after your video ends. There appears to be a timing issue where some video processing hasn't quite finished running in the background before the script ends. Adding a delay is not a great permanent solution, but it might be a good enough workaround for now.

Example:

const castro = require('castro')
const movie = new castro.Castro()
movie.setLocation('/Users/Me/Movies/totes-epic.mp4')

movie.start()

setTimeout(() => {
    movie.stop()
}, 4000)

setTimeout(() => {
    console.log('Done!')
}, 4500)

[hugs]

We might be able to modify Castro's stop() method to check that the movie's isRecording property value is false before returning.

But since we're dealing with timing and events here, a better solution is probably to have Castro fire a "stopped" event when isRecording switches from true to false. And then you'd modify your script to wait for that event. Of course, this might be harder to test. #HaltingProblem

[ChaimF90]

Hey, I am gonna play around with this tonight and see what works based on your suggestions. I will also get back to you about the node version I am running.

Thank you!

[ChaimF90]

Ok so I just tried your added delay trick and that did work. I didn't notice any errors when installing the module. As for versions, I am running node version v7.7.4 and, macOs version 10.12.3.