Camcorder HUD

Camcorder HUD

Adds a camcorder viewfinder over every clip of a video, so it looks like a home video shot on an old camcorder. See references/reference-landscape.jpg for the finished look on a 16:9 video.

The look

• Corners: thin white viewfinder brackets near each corner.
• Top left: a red dot that blinks (on for the first half of every second, off for the second half), followed by REC.
• Top right: SP, then a battery outline with three bars and a nub.
• Bottom left: a tape counter (0:00:00) that ticks up once a second.
• Bottom right: a running clock (11:47:03 PM) above a date stamp (OCT. 31 2026).
• Type: everything is white VT323, a free Google pixel font under the OFL licence. There's no shadow, outline, grain or scanlines.
• The footage is not touched. The HUD is graphics only: no VHS noise, colour bleed or film texture on the footage, unless the user asks for it explicitly.
• Timing: the counter, clock and blink are timed on whole-video time, so they carry on across cuts without a jump.

Steps

1. Read the video. Call get_timeline (video dimensions, and each clip's timelineStartMs and durationMs). Look at a filmstrip so you know what's on screen. Read the timeline again right before building: the user may trim clips while you work.
2. Ask only what matters. Fill in the defaults: date OCT. 31 2026, start clock 23:47:03, counter from 0:00:00. A spooky or late-night video suits the default. Otherwise offer today's date in the same MMM. DD YYYY uppercase format. Don't ask about the font or the layout.
3. Font. Check whether VT323 is already in the library: list_library with type: 'font' (look for a family or name of VT323). If it's not there:
   • curl -sfL -o VT323-Regular.ttf https://github.com/google/fonts/raw/main/ofl/vt323/VT323-Regular.ttf
   • create_source with kind: 'font', then curl -sf -T VT323-Regular.ttf "<uploadUrl>"
   • add_library_item (named VT323). Its item id (mi_...) is the --font-id.
   • Tell the user the font was added to their library.
4. Build one Tella Motion document per clip. An overlay can't span clips, and a document plays in one place only. For each clip:
   • create_motion_document with the videoId, named Camcorder HUD <n>.
   • Run scripts/camcorder_hud.py with that clip's start and duration, for example: python3 scripts/camcorder_hud.py --width 1920 --height 1080 --clip-start-ms <timelineStartMs> --clip-duration-ms <durationMs> --font-id <mi_...> --date "OCT. 31 2026" --clock 23:47:03 --out hud_<n>.json
   • Apply it with apply_motion_editor_commands with commandsFile set to that JSON path. The script sets the canvas size and length, and lays out landscape and portrait automatically: everything is scaled to the short side, and the bottom elements sit above the bottom brackets.
5. Place them. Add every overlay in one apply_video_edits call, with one add_media_overlay per clip:
   • sourceId: the document's ffd_... id
   • startTimeMs 0, durationMs the clip's duration
   • point {xPct 0, yPct 0}, dimensions the full video width and height
   • transition hard_cut, depth front Overlays added after existing ones stack on top of them, so the HUD stays above picture-in-picture videos.
6. Check. Call get_filmstrip at about 0.1 s before and after several cuts, plus a few frames mid-clip:
   • the counter and clock don't jump at a cut
   • the dot is on in the first half of each second and off in the second half
   • nothing is clipped at the frame edges
   • the HUD sits above any other overlay Then look at one full-size frame (get_clip_frame, 1280 wide) to check the dot lines up with REC.
7. Report. Tell the user the date and clock you used, that there's one "Camcorder HUD" overlay per clip, and that if a clip's length changes later, the counter and clock after it drift until that clip's HUD is rebuilt.

Changing it later

• Date: setTitle on node date in every HUD document.
• Clock, counter or a trimmed clip: run the script again for the clips from the change onwards. In each document, delete the old nodes (or make a fresh document and swap the overlay), apply the new commands, and set the overlay's durationMs to the clip's new length.
• Changing to 9:16 (or any new size): rebuild every document at the new --width/--height and replace the overlays. Don't stretch the landscape ones.
• Text in the video: keep subtitles and text overlays clear of the bottom corners where the counter and clock sit. Centre them, or place them between the two.

Node ids in each document

brackets, rec.dot, rec.label, sp, batt.body, batt.nub, batt.bar0-batt.bar2, date, and one counter.<s> and one clock.<s> per whole-video second <s> that the clip covers.