Can I overlay CSV data onto a video?

June 17, 2009 9:43 PM

I have a CSV file relating a measurement value with elapsed time. I'd like to overlay the changing measurement value over a video, using the time values in the CSV to sync the two. I have a MacBook, iMovie, and not much else. Is there a reasonably cheap or free way to do this?
posted by tirade to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Here's the "not much else" way I've used :

• Convert your .csv data to .srt subtitle format. I don't know offhand of any tools that'll import .csv and spit out .srt, but if it's just straight {timestamp, value} and you can figure out the .srt format (it's pretty simple), then Excel + a text editor can be used.
• Use ffmpegX to encode it to your required format.

The trick with Excel is to use it to format your data as closely as possible (i.e. column A for the sequence #, column B for the formatted timing data calculated from your original, column C [or more, if you want multiple lines] for the text, and a blank final column to give the extra linespace required later), export it as tab-delimited, then use search & replace in a text editor to convert the tabs to cr+lf.
posted by Pinback at 11:11 PM on June 17, 2009

Processing is excellent for this kind of stuff. There would be some sort of learning curve, but you could do a lot more than simply overlay the text value for the measurement. You could do some spiffy graph next to or over the video, change the video in someway etc.

The forums are reasonably good, you'll probably be able to find people willing to help out.
posted by trialex at 1:46 AM on June 18, 2009