2ndLook Industrial video recording software

IO Industries' 2ndLook software for Windows and Linux is a flexible, cost-effective tool designed for recording video from industrial GigE and USB3 Vision cameras in either the factory or the research lab. Troubleshooting a manufacturing process and the recording of scientific experiments are common applications for this easy-to-use video recording software. 2ndLook has been tested with an extensive list of video cameras that are popularly used in industrial and scientific applications. 2ndLook's advanced camera-independent GenICam driver supports USB3Vision, GigE Vision, RTSP IP and DirectShow interfaces. It takes only a few minutes to get up and running with 2ndLook. Install the software on your PC-laptop or workstation, connect a camera, and you'll be recording the action in less than a minute. Commonly used camera settings are conveniently accessible; specialized settings are accessible in a GenICam tree control. 2ndLook has a high-performance recording engine, supporting compressed and uncompressed storage formats, that can accommodate fast frame-rate video cameras. Recording speeds are limited by the media write-speed of your computer. A Benchmark tool is included to test that your media write-speed can accommodate the video rate of your camera. With flexible file-based recording, 2ndLook has the ability to record directly to many popular file formats such as JPEG, AVI, RAW and many more.

System requirement for industrial video recording

The minimal pc requirements are:

Windows 7 / 8 / 10 (32-bit / 64-bit)
Linux Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (32-bit / 64-bit)
Dual core CPU
2GB RAM
100MB Harddrive for application
Suitable storage device for recording video
HD display

However to acquire and record high frame rates we advice at least:

A SSD harddrive with a write speed more than 500 Megabyte / second (for example Samsung 860 Pro 256GB)
16 GB DDR3 / DDR4 memory
Intel core I5 or I7 processor that supports intel quick sync

Real time H.264 video compression

Standard the software records in it's own recording format called 2nd look video library. This format is mandatory if you want to use the playback features of the software. This video format is uncompressed video. When recording at high speed, for example with a resolution of 1440*1080pixels (1.6MP), with a framerate of 227fps, every image has a size of 1.6mb, resulting in 1.6*227= 363mb/s of data. Storing a one minute video would require 363 * 60 = 21,9 GB of hard drive.

To reduce the files size, Realtime image compression is possible in MP4, H264 format. Standard compression settings will reduce the file size with approx. a factor 50. Compressing the above video of one minute will result in a file size of approx. 500MB instead of 21.9GB. However it is possible to reduce the file size as much as required. The same video can also be compressed to 50MB for 1 minute of video. However it will impact the video quality.

The universal MP4 encoder cost 75 euro and can be used on every pc. It uses the CPU for compression. Especially when recording at high speeds, a fast processor is required. For example to compress video from a 2MP camera at 100fps (200MB/s) this compression uses 48% CPU power and 1% GPU power, using a intel core i9-9900 processor.

If your processor supports intel quick sync, you can use the free H.264 compression feature. It will reduce the processor load and use the GPU for H264 conversion. When using the intel quick sync option, compressing a 2MP camera at 100fps costs 15% CPU power and 33% GPU power.

Therefore we recommend a CPU (that has a GPU onboard) that supports the intel quick sync feature.

Free demo download

Submit the form below and you are automatically forwarded to the 2nd look download site. You can download a demo version for free. With the demo version the maximum recording time is 10 seconds and a maximum of 2 recordings can be stored.