HG2004

How is your video coming?

Mine was just thrown together quick to get something out there. Yours should be much nicer with the manual focus and with it showing the road. I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes, I had wanted to do one since the real of fake issue over at insightcentral quite a while ago. Searching... It came up between our esteamed Xcel and Getshocked.ca back in November of 2004. See linky:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/...pic.php?t=2150

NOTE See second page.

"Video Tape your next 96 mile trip at 117mpg, the whole thing, If you cant post it on the net then I will pay for shipping and handling and the cost of the tape to send it to me,"

 

Thanks Lakedude, there's no stepping on toes at all.
We all appreciate the help we can get.

The last week an a half have been bright sunny days here in Georgia, which plays with my camcorder autoexposure. Cloudy days are in the forcast so I'll try again soon.

Could you kindly PM me a link to your video files? I'd prefer MPEG if you have it available.
Thanks in advance.

 

Hot_Georgia, I have his videos on my site using bittorant http://hybrid.wrathof.com If you can't use bittorrent for some reason I can give you a link to the mpeg file. I just don't want too many people downloading the file directly from me because that would kill my bandwith for a few hours . I don't mind giving the link one at a time for people that can't use bittorrent though.

lakedude, in case your interested. So far about 7 people have downloaded the shorter file and one adventurous soul has downloaded the larger one

 

Cool! Only a few million more to go and we will eclipse StarWars!

 

Tom, can you keep track of how many Bit-torrent downloads have occurred ? I don't understand the sharing mechanism -- is there a central clearinghouse ?

The movie downloaded fine for me by torrent, but the summary gave an error regarding the ?source URL. Sorry I cannot be more specific. I closed the summary window and cannot bring it up again. The error made we wonder if any uploading can occur from my computer

 

Yes, but only while are downloading it. People can connect to your computer and grab the bits you already got. There should be some kind of slider in your client you can set to tell it how much if any bandwidth you will allow others to get from you.

Thats how the program works it distributes the load across all connected clients so no one person takes a hit. If you have a firewall and haven't done anything to allow connections into your computer then you don't count as a source for the file.

The file will always be available though because I run a client with the whole file on my server.

Does that make any sense?

 

The videos I've taken aren't that good because the dash is only a small portion, not readable, so I've been working a different idea.

I've had one of those cheap Logitech web cam eyeballs for years and finally found a good use. I believe I can secure it to the top of the steering column and record just the FCD & gauges, while at the same time the analog camcorder records the road.
I could also adjust the rearview mirror in a corner of the picture as well.

It wouldn't take much to run a wire from the 12v battery to my power converter to allow reboots without shutting down my equipment.

I plan to have the road in the main view while the FCD shows in a PIP box along the bottom. My main concern is syncronization between the two video files while rendering, hope I can get it close enough.

I understand Lakedude's video is more of a proving that fantastic FE can be done, my goal is a series of short clips showing the more critical FE moments.

I'm hoping file sizes can be kept reasonable with a resolution of 320x240 MPEG or WMV.

UPDATE 05/23/05:

Today I got busy and tried a few things...
I bungee-corded my webcam and it records the FCD perfectly. It doesn't have the FOV to see the IMA gauges but I guess that's not important. I also ran my 12v supply wire from the battery.

I found a terrible glare on the FCD so I made a mask that covers most of the guages to block the light out, with little cut-outs so I can see the Assist, speed-o and FCD (Which is hard to see in front of the web cam). It records very clear now.

I also strapped my camcorder tripod behind the seats and did a test run today. The view of the road is clear and people behind can be seen in the mirror.
I think I should snap a photo of the setup and post it for giggles.

My webcam software renders the AVI file after recording is stopped and I made the mistake of unplugging the camera while it was busy, and it stopped rendering up to that point.
Well, it was only a test run anyway so after a few tweaks I'm ready to roll!!

 

Please take pictures of the setup. It sounds like it would be a good one to go into the share section

 

Wow, you guys are really crazy!

Hey, maybe another idea would be to get one of those construction hats, and attach another video camera to the top of it with duct tape. Then put the movies together in parallel, so that you could see both the FCD from your current recording, and the road (or wherever your head was pointing) from the camcorder-on-a-hat.

Or even get some of those wireless video eyeglasses like from Mission Impossible? Now *that* would be cool. :-)

 

That is the one thing I really wish I'd have done different in my video. I mounted the camcorder over my right sholder and the steering wheel blocks the regen part of the gauge most of the time. The center cluster and tac on the left are in full view. Too bad you can't get the IMA in the FOV. I think it would be better for people to be able to see the charging and regen cycle. In fact I'm thinking about re-doing mine with the camera mounted on the left or else moving the steering wheel so you can see the regen.

BTW I mounted my camera on a tripod with only 2 legs extended and bungee'd the top part to the headrests.