9.1.1. Introduction

As its name suggests, one of the initially intended uses for Debrief was to conduct post-exercise debriefs.

Nowadays Debrief gets a lot more use for exercise analysis, and has evolved into an exercise analysis tool, but there are still aspirations to use it in debriefs. Unfortunately, its use in a debrief normally requires an expert operator; who is not always available. Recording a Debrief session to file, however, enables it to be inserted into a PowerPoint presentation for automated replay.

Previously video segments have been recorded using the HyperCam application from http://www.hyperionics.com Now video can be recorded from within Debrief itself by taking advantage of the Java Media Framework

In this initial version, the video is composed of uncompressed bitmap images - typically around a megabyte per frame recorded. This makes the videos recorded from within Debrief at least 10 times larger than those recorded within HyperCam - but as soon as Java contains support for comprising videos from JPegs the files will shrink drastically - wait and see!

9.1.2. Preparing to record

Debrief determines the directory to record to by looking at the WMF_Directory property from the Debrief properties file. So, before you start recording video files ensure that this property is set to a useful value (and make sure you edit it without Debrief running, or else your changes will be over-written by Debrief as it closes).

It's also worth resizing the Debrief plot to the correct size for your video, and having a practice run of stepping through the important part of your serial, prior to recording.

9.1.3. Recording Debrief

Recording to video is all quite simple, really. To open the video window, click on the record to video icon:

The video window will now open.

The three buttons at the top control the recording process itself, whilst the two text boxes contain configuration details.

9.1.4. Test Run

If you want to have a go at recording to video, run through the following steps:

1. First check that the WMF_Directory property in your Debrief properties file contains a sensible directory name.

2. Then open a new Debrief session and load your Boat1.rep and Boat2.rep data files into it.

3. Press Auto-generate on the Tote to configure the time stepper. Now step forward in large steps until the vessels enter the melee period near the end.

4. Zoom in to get the best view of the tracks in the remaining time period.

5. Click on the Record Video button on the File toolbar, and once the video window has opened drag it out of Debrief. Switch back to the Tote window.

6. Now arrange the windows so that you have a clear view of both Debrief and the video window.

7. Press Configure on the video window, and wait for its processing to complete: at which point the Start button will be enabled.

8. In the Debrief Tote, start Debrief stepping forward automatically. Immediately after this press the Start button. Let Debrief run for a few seconds, and press Stop in the video window, and cancel the Step Automatically button on the Tote.

9. You should now be able to switch to the WMF_Directory, where you will find the video file named Debrief2K1.avi. Double-click on this file, and view your recorded video.

9.1.5. Things to remember

The videos recorded in this way are still much larger than those recorded in HyperCam. However, they will shrink as soon as the Java Media Framework provides the necessary functionality.

Don't resize the Debrief plot after you've pressed the Configure button, since the frame size of the video file has already been initialised.