Recording video in Raspberry Pi - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Recording video

📖 Scenario: You have a Raspberry Pi with a camera module attached. You want to record a short video using Python code on your Raspberry Pi.

🎯 Goal: Write a Python program that records a 5-second video using the Raspberry Pi camera and saves it as my_video.h264.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a PiCamera object

Set the video resolution to 640x480

Record a 5-second video and save it as my_video.h264

Print a message when recording starts and ends

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Recording videos on a Raspberry Pi is useful for security cameras, time-lapse projects, or capturing events automatically.

💼 Career

Understanding how to control hardware like cameras programmatically is important for roles in embedded systems, IoT development, and robotics.

1

Setup the camera object

Import PiCamera from picamera and create a camera object called camera.

Raspberry Pi

# Import PiCamera and create camera object
# Your code here

Hint

Use from picamera import PiCamera to import the camera class.

2

Configure the camera resolution

Set the resolution property of the camera object to (640, 480).

Raspberry Pi

from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()
# Set camera resolution to 640x480
# Your code here

Hint

Use camera.resolution = (640, 480) to set the video size.

3

Record a 5-second video

Use camera.start_recording('my_video.h264') to start recording, then wait 5 seconds using camera.wait_recording(5), and finally stop recording with camera.stop_recording().

Raspberry Pi

from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()
camera.resolution = (640, 480)
# Start recording, wait 5 seconds, then stop recording
# Your code here

Hint

Use start_recording, wait_recording, and stop_recording methods in order.

4

Print messages before and after recording

Add print('Recording started') before starting the recording and print('Recording stopped') after stopping the recording.

Raspberry Pi

from picamera import PiCamera
camera = PiCamera()
camera.resolution = (640, 480)
# Print message before recording
# Your code here
camera.start_recording('my_video.h264')
camera.wait_recording(5)
camera.stop_recording()
# Print message after recording
# Your code here

Hint

Use two print statements: one before start_recording and one after stop_recording.