Starting with version 7.5.7 we have now relaxed the licensing restrictions on both the  RightBooth Standard and RightBooth Professional products to allow you to install the software (together with a purchased product code) on equipment that you are to provide to third parties on a permanent basis (e.g. system sales).

This process will be deemed a transfer of software ownership and all you need to do is to inform us of the new owners of your product together with the installed RightBooth product code(s) at the time of sale/transfer so that we can update our product code database accordingly.

Please note that this new licensing provision does NOT apply to any earlier version of RightBooth so if you intend to provide RightBooth powered equipment to others on a permanent basis, please make sure you include RightBooth version 7.5.7 or higher on your equipment.

See here for more details on the general Terms of Use for RightBooth:
https://www.rightbooth.com/terms-of-use.html

Also please refer to the new license wording that now ships in version 7.5.7 (or higher) which can be accessed by clicking the 'View license' button on the RightBooth 'About' panel:

​Starting with RightBooth version 7.5.5 it is now possible to give your event screen(s) a transparent background, which then lets you place event screen content directly on top of other applications. This then provides you with a quick and seamless way to access RightBooth's features directly within other applications.

We will explain this feature using the following scenario:

You are going to give an interactive presentation using a series of Powerpoint slides and you also need the ability to use RightBooth at any time during your presentation in order to take a photo or record a video.

Here’s how:
​
1 - Configure RightBooth for transparent event screen overlay

• In RightBooth Settings --> Start/Stop --> Setup, tick the new option: Allow transparent event screens.  (introduced in version 7.5.5).
• In RightBoooth Settings --> Security, tick the option: Event on top

You will need to restart RightBooth for these settings to be applied.  RightBooth is now configured to i) allow transparent event screens to be designed and ii) always play its events on top of other Windows applications.
We’ll now make use of these features.

2 - Create an event with a transparent background 
Create a standard RightBooth event that lets users choose to record a video or take a photo. The event has a Start screen which is edited to have a transparent background as follows:

• Run RightBooth. On the main screen, click ‘Edit’ to go to the Screen Editor.
• On the Screen Editor toolbox, click Properties to show the Screen Properties for the Start screen (1)
• On the Screen Properties toolbox, select the single colour Background radio button (2)
• Click on the single background colour box to show the Colour Selector panel (3):

You will now find that the underlying application is both visible and able to be interacted with.  In our example screenshot above you can now clearly see Powerpoint running behind RightBooth.

3 - Position Event Screen Content
Continuing with our example, return to the Powerpoint application and start the presentation playing fullscreen, and then return back to the RightBooth screen editor to see the following result with the event screen content showing on top of the fullscreen Powerpoint slide:

At this point you can now edit, size and reposition the RightBooth screen content so that it composes better with the underlying application.

​In this screen shot we have edited the RightBooth text, changed its colour to match the Powerpoint text, and moved it so that it sits in the bottom right corner of the Powerpoint slide:

​4 - Play the Event
Now save and play the event file to see the following result showing the Powerpoint slide running behind the playing RightBooth event:

In this situation, Powerpoint continues to be fully interactive, so clicking on the Powerpoint slide will cause it to progress to the next slide while continuing to show the RightBooth transparent Start screen text at the bottom right:

If you click (at any time) on the RightBooth text you will then be shown the next screen in the RightBooth event, effectively hiding the Powerpoint slide and allowing you to take a photo and/or record video, and after completing the task RightBooth will return to showing the transparent Start screen again, at which point you are able to continue interacting with the Powerpoint presentation.

Here’s another example of mixing RightBooth with the Sky Go app. This is a screen shot of Sky Go without RightBooth overlaid:

And here is RightBooth overlaying a blue styled button and text which gives access to take a photo:

I’m sure you creative folk will think of other uses for transparent event screen backgrounds.  And many thanks (once again) to Mike Ridge for suggesting this new feature.

Modern phones and graphics tablets are fitted with extremely good cameras that rival (or even surpass) the quality you can expect from many webcams.  So wouldn’t it be great if you could use your phone or tablet to provide its camera input into RightBooth while it is running on a Windows computer?

Well now you can !

​This article explains how to hook up your phone or iPad  to a Windows computer and then use it as a webcam for recording videos and photos in RightBooth.  As an example, here you can see the live camera feeding from an Apple iPad directly into RightBooth which is running on a laptop running Windows 10:

Note: Throughout this article where appropriate we will refer to your iPhone, iPad or Android phone as ‘your device’.

Installing and Setup

On Your Windows Computer
1) If you are planning to use an Apple device ( iPhone or iPad ) then you must install iTunes on your computer. Freely available here:   https://www.apple.com/za/itunes/download/.

Note: If you are planning to use an Android phone, then iTunes is not required.
​
2) Download, install and run iVCam from here: https://www.e2esoft.com/ivcam/
iVCam is an amazing piece of software that allows you to obtain the camera feed from your device and present it to Windows as a virtual webcam for use in RightBooth.

On Your Device

1. Download and install the iVCam app from the relevant App Store for your device.
2. Connect your device to your computer using a USB data cable.  Preferably you should connect to a USB3 port.
3. Ensure your device is recognised by your computer and accept the device as a ‘Trusted device’.
4. If you are using an Apple device you will see iTunes start up on your computer. Note that the iTunes app doesn’t actually need to be running for this solution to work,  so you can close iTunes to free up some memory.
5. Run the iVCam app on your device and accept the app requests to access the device’s camera and microphone.

Note: If you purchase a Product Code for iVCam on your computer, it is not then necessary to purchase another code for the iVCam app on your device.

If all is well, then the iVCam app on your computer will connect to the iVCam app on your device and you will see the live camera feed on your computer.

Configuring iVCam

On Your Computer
In the iVCam app on your computer set the audio input to Speaker (e2eSoft VAudio):

​Note that each time you Apply new settings in iVCam you may need to restart the iVCam app on your device.

Once you have configured iVCam and it is showing the feed from your device, you can effectively minimise the app to the Windows Taskbar and forget about it.

Recording Audio
To be able to capture audio from your device you may need to download and install the Virtual Sound Card app on your computer: https://www.e2esoft.com/vsc/.

• Run the Virtual Sound Card app.
• Select the Microphone (e2eSoft VAudio) option and patch it to a suitable audio output on your computer.  You may need to experiment with this.  Example from my development PC:

Then click the ‘ > >’ button to start the Virtual Sound Card:

​Like iVCam, Virtual Sound Card will run in Trial mode, allowing you to evaluate it.
If you find it works for you then you can purchase a Product Code which at the time of writing costs around $20.

Configuring RightBooth to Work With iVCam

• Run RightBooth
• Go to Settings --> Cameras --> Webcam video
• In the Device list, select: e2eSoft iVCam
• In the 'Video size' list select: Default.  RightBooth will then show you the default size for your device. In our example screenshot below you can see it is showing 1280x720, which correctly matches the setting in iVCam.
• Set Data type to RGB24
• Set 'Recording frame rate' to match the FPS setting you chose in iVCam.  In this screenshot you can see it has been set to 15:

• Go to Settings --> Cameras --> Webcam photo
• In the Photo Size list select Default. Again, RightBooth will show the default size for your device.

IMPORTANT.  The ‘Default’ options were introduced in RightBooth version 7.5.3 to correct a bug that exists specifically when using iVCam.  iVCam sometimes fails to provide the correct video sizes to RightBooth, which effectively means that in this situation the RightBooth Video size list cannot always be relied upon.

However, by choosing the Default option, RightBooth will interrogate the webcam driver directly to determine which video size was chosen in the iVCam settings (see earlier). 
Therefore we recommend that you upgrade to version 7.5.3 for this solution to work correctly.

If you are using a version of RightBooth less than 7.5.3, you may run into problems where RightBooth could be using the wrong size for its iVCam video manipulations, which in turn will cause issues with many of RightBooths features, including video cropping, overlays, inking, stamps and item positioning in event screens and print layouts.


That’s it. Job done !
RightBooth will now use your device to record videos and take photos, and the quality is very good.

OK.  Imagine how thin you could make your physical video booth housing if you used an iPhone instead of a webcam or a DSLR camera.  !!

Happy building.

​A special shout out to Mike Ridge for drawing my attention to iVCam and also for helping me to work all this out.

Cheers,
​Nigel.

Today we are releasing RightBooth 7.5.0.

This is a new major product release.  You can find details of what's new here.

Notes

• This version of RightBooth has been designed to be the last new major product release.  Therefore all future feature additions and bug fixes to RightBooth will be applied to this major product release as an ongoing process.
• When you purchase this new major product you will also receive 12 months of ongoing updates and support starting from your product code activation date.
• Further update and support periods may be purchased as and when required.
• This product is independent of any previous major RightBooth product releases (3 thru 7).
• All product codes from previous major product releases (3 thru 7) are not valid codes for this new major product release.

You may have noticed that some fonts do not appear in RightBooth's Screen Editor font list.   This is an issue that affects many Windows applications and to be honest I am not 100% sure why this happens.  But there is a solution...  It is possible to create a new font (from the offending font) which will then be compatible with (and appear in) RightBooth.  Here's how:

For this article I will use the font Calissha Script, which can be downloaded here:

http://fontsfree.net/calissha-script-webfont-font-download.html

If you install Calissha Script in Windows and then run RightBooth you will find that it does not appear for selection in RightBooth's font list even though it has installed correctly in Windows.

To resolve this:

• Use Glyphr. https://www.glyphrstudio.com/online/.  This is an excellent online font editor which I can thoroughly recommend.
• In Glyphr, click 'Load', then 'Browse for a file' to upload the Calissha Script font file
• The font will now be imported into the Glyphr Studio Editor
• On the Glyphr menu, choose 'Project settings'
• Change the Project Name from 'My font' to a name of your choice, in this example I used 'Calissha2'
• On the Glyphr menu, choose 'export font'
• Scroll down and click the button 'Export OTF Font'

The new font will be downloaded to your PC and you can then install this into your Windows fonts as follows:

• Run Windows Settings
• Choose Personalisation
• Choose Fonts
• Drag and drop your new font file onto the 'Add fonts' panel to install the new OTF font onto your system.

Here you can see I have installed the original 'Calissha Script' and the new 'calissha2' fonts on my system:

Now when you run RightBooth you will be able to choose the 'calissha2' font in the Screen Editor font list...

Note in the above screen shot that the 'Calissha Script' font is not listed.
If anyone knows why this happens,  please let me know.

You may have noticed a drop in activity on the site recently.

We are all currently experiencing the most challenging and unprecedented time in living memory and like many of you our business has been adversely affected by the sharp downturn in global activity.

Having said this, it has provided an opportunity to concentrate on developing and adding new features into RightBooth.  More information to follow within the next few weeks.

I wish you all well and please stay safe.

Nigel.

Starting with RightBooth version 7.3.28 the way that screen items are resized has changed.

To size an item in the Screen Designer, first click on any item on the screen in order to select it.  This will then display the pickup sizing boxes on the right side edge, the bottom edge and the bottom right corner of the selected item.

Now you you have two sizing options:

• 1)  Click and drag any pickup sizing box to change the size of the item relative to the item's top left corner. 
  

OR

• 2)  Press and hold down the keyboard Shift (or Ctrl) key, and while doing so you can then click and drag any pickup sizing box to change the size of the item relative to the item's centre point.​

Starting from RightBooth version 7.3.25 you can now allow other applications to modify your photos as part of the RightBooth event flow.  This article explains how to apply Photoshop filters to your RightBooth photos.

Step 1 - Get Photoshop
Perhaps it goes without saying but the process described in this article will only work if you actually have a copy of Photoshop installed on the same PC as RightBooth.  At the time of writing, Photoshop is no longer available as a single purchase product, so you must take out a monthly subscription.  This can start out from as little as £8 per month on a rolling contract.   Visit www.adobe.com for all the details.

Step 2 - Create some Photoshop Droplets
What are Photoshop Droplets?  A droplet is an executable file generated by Photoshop that allows you to apply a set of actions to an image just by providing the droplet with the filename of a photo.  When the droplet runs, it will open Photoshop, load the RightBooth photo, then apply all the actions to the photo and re-save the modified photo with the same filename, overwriting the original.  Using this approach, you can create droplets that can modify photos in many different ways using any of the incredible photo manipulation features available in Photoshop.

This article will not be explaining how to create Photoshop droplets, there is a huge amount of information on how to do this on the Internet. ​Here is a typical article:  https://pixel77.com/how-create-droplet/

Step 3 - Use the Droplet in RightBooth
To do this:

• Go to the RightBooth Screen Editor.
• Look at the Show Photo screen.
• Add a new label object to the screen.  Enter the text: 'Convert to Black and White'  (for example).
• Open the Label properties and add the Click action:  'Run Program Minimised'
• Add the commend line parameter:
  • "c:\droplet\blackandwhite.exe"  rb:photo  rb:wait  rb:next

​As shown in this screenshot:

Now when the event is played and a photo is taken, if the user clicks (or touches) the label item,  RightBooth will:

• run the blackandwhite droplet (in hidden mode so you don't see it running) and  will provide the droplet with the name of the current RightBooth photo, due to the rb:photo parameter,
• RightBooth will then wait for the droplet to complete its work ( i.e converting the photo to black and white using PhotoShop), due to the rb:wait parameter,
• RightBooth will then progress the event onto the next event screen in the screen list, due to the rb:next parameter.

Step 4 - Show the modified photo in RightBooth
In order to show the user the resulting modified photo:

• In the Screen Editor, tick the 'Add items' checkbox.
• On the 'Add Items' toolbox, click the 'Screen' button to add a new screen to the screen list, let's call this screen: 'Show filter'
• Use the down arrow button to move the new screen below the 'Show photo' screen in the screen list:

Now when the event is played if the user clicks (or touches) the 'Convert to Black and white' label item on the 'Show photo' screen,  RightBooth will then show the modified black and white image on the 'Show Filter' screen.

Allow Users to Change their Filter Choice
If you would like users to try a different filter after having chosen one:

• On the 'Show filter' screen add a new label.  Enter the text: 'Choose another filter'  (for example)
• Open the Label properties and add the Click action:  'Show screen'
• Add the commend line parameter:
  • Show photo  /resetp

​As shown in this screenshot:

Prevent Photoshop appearing
When a Photoshop droplet runs it will automatically open Photoshop and apply all the actions to the photo.  This may cause Photoshop to appear in front of your event when the user selects one of the filters.  To prevent Photoshop appearing you can set the RightBooth event to remain on top of all other applications as follows:

• Go into RightBooth Settings
• Click on the Security tab
• Tick the setting: Event on top

If your RightBooth event contains questions that require video answers then the recording time for each answer is initially set to the value you have entered in the Maximum recording time text box.   Here you can see we have set the event to be a Question event and the default recording time has been set to 40 seconds:

In this example, each time you add a new question to the Questions table (in the Event questions section) the question will be given an initial video recording time of 40 seconds.

However, once a question has been added to the event, subsequent changes to the Maximum recording time value will not alter the recording time for any of the existing video answers in the event.  This is because each defined video answer maintains its own independent recording time once it has been created.

So what if you want to alter the recording time for one (or more) of the video answers in your event?

​Here's how:​

• Enter the RightBooth Screen Designer.
• Select the Answer screen from the Screen list on the main Toolbox.
• Use the numeric Up/Down Answer selector to choose the relevant Answer screen.
• Select the Countdown item on the chosen answer screen.
• Alter the countdown value to the required amount.
• Repeat this process for any other video answer screens you would like to alter.

In this example screen shot we have changed the countdown value to 60 seconds on Answer screen number 2.  In other words, we have set the maximum recording time to 60 seconds for the video answer on the second question in the event:

RightBooth is a graphics intensive application, especially if you are using multiple video files and graphics animations in your event designs.  For this reason you may find that it performs better if you add RightBooth to the Windows 10 graphics performance list and set it to 'High performance'.

To do this:

• Right click on your desktop and from the pop up menu, choose 'Display settings'
• In Windows Display settings, scroll down to the bottom of the panel and click on: 'Graphics settings'
• On the Graphics settings panel, click the Browse button
• Choose the file: RightBooth.exe (or RightBooth7.exe) which you will find in the folder: C:\Program Files (x86)\RightBooth\   (or RightBooth7).
• RightBooth will now be added to the Performance list.  Click on its name and then click the Options button.
• On the Graphics specifications panel, click the 'High performance' option.

RightBooth will now be set to use the High performance graphics mode as shown below:

Over the years I have tried many apps and online utilities for downloading videos from the Internet, especially YouTube.  These utilities tend to come and go, and some of them can install all kinds of unwanted files, services and viruses on your PC.

This article describes what I consider to be one of the safest methods for downloading videos from the Internet.

Step 1 - Get VLC Media Player
This excellent and well trusted freeware app can be downloaded here:
https://www.videolan.org/index.html

Step 2 - Obtain the URL of the video you want to download
For example in YouTube find a video and start it playing.  Then right click on the playing video and choose: 'Copy video URL' from the popup menu.

Step 3 - Paste the Video URL into VLC and Start it Playing

• Run VLC Media Player.
• On the VLC main menu, select:  Media --> Open Network Stream.
• Paste your previously copied video URL into the box, then click the Play button:

Step 4 - Get the Video Location URL
Once the video starts playing in VLC media player, on the main menu select: Tools --> Codec Information and then copy the Location URL:

Step 5 - Enter the Location URL into your Browser Address Bar
Navigate to the video location by pasting the copied location url into the address bar of your browser.
When the video is playing in your browser, right click on the playing video and choose 'Save As' from the popup menu to download the video to a chosen folder on your PC.

Job done, and without any risk of installing unwanted garbage on your PC :-)

RightBooth version 7.3.19 has just been released.  It allows you to add video backgrounds to your karaoke video recordings (and your standard video recordings).  Here's a small section of a karaoke video I received from a RightBooth user.

It was created using the karaoke recording feature and the real-time green screen video background replacement feature.

​It was recorded at 720p, 30fps using a Logitech C920 and it just shows what you can achieve when you have the right equipment, the right lighting and the right software...

​And here is a photo showing the actual green screen background set up that was used for the karaoke video recording:

Latest RightBooth video tutorial:

Now play the event and when you record videos the volume meter will show you the current audio input level.  This video shows how the meter provides constant feedback, using my drill to provide a consistent noise !  :-) ...

DISCLAIMER:  Please be advised that the hardware configuration and wiring information presented in this article has not been reviewed by qualified people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information. Therefore we (Aire Valley Software) cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here and we do not guarantee expressly or implicitly, nor take on any legal responsibility about the correctness, the exhaustiveness or the usefulness of the information. For these reasons we cannot be held liable for any problems that may arise as a result of acting upon this information.
You should ALWAYS seek the advice of a qualified professional electrician.

Article
COB LED lights produce excellent light and these can be used to greatly improve the quality of your webcam (and DSLR camera) photo capture quality, especially when the room's ambient lighting conditions are not great.

This article shows you how to design your own low cost 'flash setup' using COB LED lights  situated near your webcam which point towards your users and are automatically controlled by RightBooth’s USB relay switch action command.

Step 1 - Items list
Obtain the following items:

• 12V COB LED Lights 
• 12V Dimmer switch 
• 5V/12V USB HID Relay 
• USB A-B Male Cable  
• 12V 2A Power adapter  
• Wire   
• Webcam (any).

Step 2 - Build
Connect the items together as follows,  you don't need a soldering iron :-)...

Note that in this setup the single switch USB relay takes its power from the PC via the USB port.  1 and 2 way relays can take power from the USB but if you are using a 4 way relay (or larger) you will need an additional 12V adapter to power it.

Step 3 Testing
Make sure your flash setup is powered, and the webcam and relay are both connected to USB ports on your PC.

• Run RightBooth
• Go to RightBooth Settings --> Start & Stop
• Tick the setting: ‘ Start USB HID relay boards’
• Check that your flash setup is working correctly by entering the following command into the relay test textbox and pressing the ‘Test’ button:  1 W 1000 0

​This is the amount of time that RightBooth will wait before taking a photo on the ‘Take photo’ event screen.
​

• Return to the RightBooth main window and go to the Screen Editor.
• Select the ‘Take photo’ screen.
• Click Properties to view the Screen properties.
• In the Action section, select ‘Show’
• Choose the action: ‘Set relay channels’.
• In the action text box, enter ‘1 W 700 0’...

Save your event.  Job done !

The Result
When you play your event, each time the ‘Take photo’ screen is shown, your COB lights will be switched on before each photo is taken and will then switch off immediately after.

Note:  You may want to play around with the timings.  In this article the lights are turned on, then 0.5 seconds later the photo is taken, then 0.2 seconds later the lights are turned off. 

Tip:  To ensure that the lights are definitely on when the photo is taken, try pointing the webcam at the lights, while you tweak the capture timings, and if the captured photo is showing complete white out, then you know you've got it right !

When you create your RightBooth events you will usually include images and videos from various locations on your computer.  As time goes by, when you return to previously created events you may forget which folders the referenced files are located.  Here's how you can discover the location of the files in your events.

• Open the event in RightBooth
• Go to the Screen Editor
• On the Screen Editor Toolbox, tick the option: Item tooltips
• Now, when you move the mouse over items on the screen you will see a tooltip appear that shows the full path to the underlying image or video.

In this example screenshot the mouse has been moved over an image on the Start screen and the tooltip is showing the image name and location as:  c:\users\nrpsu\pictures\pic.jpg

RightBooth version 7.3.1 introduces some additional action commands for improved  control of one or more USB relay boards.  This video shows some of the new capabilities and full details can be found in the latest RightBooth User Manual:

IMPORTANT:  Be sure to obtain programmable HID relay boards.  Here is a typical supplier:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/152464651505?ul_noapp=true

Version 7.3 includes a number of new features including the video green background remover.  For a complete list of all the new features, refer to the Release Notes
​
Here I show how to turn on the video green remover and also how to tweak the settings to cater for differences in each of the videos:

If you'd like to have a play, there are some example green videos which can be downloaded here

This release has (among other things) the ability to define individual countdown values for each photo in the event.  Details here.

See the release notes for all the new features and bug fixes.

RightBooth version 7.1.2 (released today) now allows certain screens to be optionally shown only for specific photos taken in the set of photos for each user.

Full details here

RightBooth version 7.1.1 (or later) now supports creating Boomerang animated GIFs.  Here is a standard animated GIF and a Boomerang animation of the  same activity:

Today RightBooth version 7.1.0 is released containing the Event Packaging feature.  See here for full description.

RightBooth version 7.0.46 adds two more application languages: French and German, in addition to English and Spanish.

If you would like to switch the RightBooth application user interface to use one of these new languages:

• From the RightBooth main screen, click the Settings button.
• In Settings, click the 'Text & Language' tab.
• Select your chosen language from the 'Application language' combo box.
  

In this screenshot we are choosing the French language...

• You will then need to exit RightBooth and restart the app for the new language to take effect.

When you start for the first time with a new language, RightBooth will create a translated Media Library by copying all the files and folders from the English media library.  This process may take a few minutes, so please be patient !

Note: The RightBooth user manual and help file will remain in English.

Call for Feedback
If you are fluent in French, Spanish or German we would love to receive your feedback on the RightBooth application language translations.  If you find any problems, or see any word or phrase that is either miss-spelt or is contextually incorrect then please let us know.