The example ContinuousCaptureFFmpeg as well as the VideoStream related API is based on the functionality provided by the FFmpeg (https://ffmpeg.org) project, which comes under GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2.1, March 2020. While the ContinuousCaptureFFmpeg example will be available for C++11 compatible compilers only it can also serve as a good start for users of other programming languages, especially C. The example code shows how to combine the Impact Acquire API with the FFmpeg header files and function. The VideoStream based interface added to Impact Acquire in version 2.39.0 on the other hand allows to use the FFmpeg features through the Impact Acquire API so only the FFmpeg runtime libraries need to be available on the host system but the FFmpeg SDK is not needed. As a consequence only a fraction of the FFmpeg project features can be used but the general setup is a lot easier and usually video compression is what you will be looking for when writing an application for a device capturing image data. If you are missing a feature please contact the Balluff support team.

However, FFmpeg incorporates several optional parts and optimizations that are covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later. If those parts get used the GPL applies to all of FFmpeg. See http://ffmpeg.org/legal.html to find out how this might affect your application! Because of these licenses Impact Acquire is NOT shipped together with the FFmpeg libraries needed to use the VideoStream related API! To use it a suitable copy of the FFmpeg libraries must be obtained elsewhere!

To find out how to make use of the FFmpeg library in your application have a look at the documentation of the VideoStream class for the programming language you are working with or the functions accepting the HDMR_VIDEO_STREAM data type if you are working with the C API.

Supported versions