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Home Assistant and CarPlay with the Pi Touch Display 2

After a decade, Raspberry Pi finally upgraded their official Touch Display from 480p to 720p, while keeping the price and overall aesthetic the same.

Raspberry Pi Touch Display 2 - Home Assistant Dashboard

I've had early access to the Touch Display 2, and have been testing it in a variety of scenarios. Generally, Linux touchscreen support isn't wonderful. And Pi OS, being a fairly customized UI focused on simple use cases, is not quite to a usable state if you go touchscreen-only, considering I had trouble getting the onscreen keyboard to work in Chromium half the time, and it would overlay things I was typing even in fully-supported apps like Terminal.

AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus - Can't record to microSD

I recently purchased an AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus to help record screens on devices I test at my desk.

It's claim to fame is being able to record to a microSD card standalone (at resolutions up to 1080p60), without having a separate computer attached.

For my 4K cameras, I typically use an Atomos Ninja V, since it can record in full 4K resolution, but that thing is $700—the Live Gamer Portable is $120, and runs a lot cooler (and quieter).

I don't enjoy dealing with microSD cards, but it's more convenient than having to use OBS or some other recording software on my main computer just to capture the HDMI output of another device. Especially since I can't pass through the HD or 4K signal through my little Elgato USB capture card (they do make a few models that do this, but I digress).

Anyway, what brings me to this post is the fact I spent way too long trying to figure out the magical microSD card format required to be able to record on the device.

Grab a Single Frame from a Video in QuickTime X

Update: More recent versions of QuickTime Player have the ability to copy frames of the video by using 'Command + C'. In recent versions, to grab a frame, do the following:

  1. In QuickTime Player: Pause on the frame you want to capture (use arrow keys to go forward/backward by 1 frame).
  2. Press 'Command-C' (or select Edit > 'Copy').
  3. In Preview: Press 'Command-N' (or select File > 'New from Clipboard')
  4. Save the new file where you'd like.

There are many things to like about QuickTime X, and many improvements were included over QuickTime Pro 7... but there were also a ton of features removed (like being able to set advanced export options, save a movie as images, and do some other more advanced edits/exports.

However, I'm glad I finally figured out how I can grab one frame from a movie in QuickTime Player X. The problem I was having is this: If you pause the video and use the left/right arrow keys to move the playhead exactly to the frame you want, the player controls are still showing over the video (in addition to the video title bar/window chrome.

Master the Art of Screenshots - Mac OS X

Mac Screenshots

Having a screenshot of something you see on your Mac can sometimes be priceless, especially if something happens that you want to show someone else, or if you want to email someone a picture of how to do something on their Macs. Fortunately, Mac OS X has a ton of options for taking pictures of the screen, or even individual elements of the screen. We'll get into the basics, and we'll also show you some advanced techniques that many 'power-users' may not know of (yet).