Question 1

Dark Vision vs IBM Watson Video Enrichment: which should I use?

Accepted Answer

Dark Vision is a free, open-source demo for learning how to build video AI pipelines with Cloud Functions, while Watson Video Enrichment is a paid, supported product with more features and SLAs. Use Dark Vision for prototyping, but switch to the commercial offering for production deployments.

Question 2

How to set up Dark Vision with Object Storage for media files?

Accepted Answer

During deployment via the toolchain or manually, configure environment variables to enable Object Storage integration. The README notes it's optional, using cloudobjectstorage.js to store media files separately from Cloudant metadata.

Question 3

What does it cost to run Dark Vision on IBM Cloud?

Accepted Answer

Costs scale with Watson service usage (Visual Recognition, Speech to Text, NLU), Cloud Functions invocations, and storage. Since it's a demo, expenses can be high for heavy video processing—monitor IBM Cloud pricing tiers carefully.

Question 4

Can Dark Vision analyze live video streams?

Accepted Answer

No, it's designed for batch processing of uploaded videos using serverless triggers. Real-time analysis would require significant re-engineering of the architecture to handle streaming inputs.

Question 5

How to adjust the frame extraction rate in Dark Vision?

Accepted Answer

Modify the getFps function in extract.js, which controls how many frames are extracted per video. By default, it produces around 15 images; change this to suit different analysis needs.

Question 6

Why does Dark Vision sometimes fail to process audio tracks?

Accepted Answer

A known issue per the troubleshooting section, often due to Cloud Functions timeouts or Watson async API misconfigurations. Check deployment logs for Speech to Text callback errors and ensure services are properly linked.

openwhisk-darkvisionapp

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