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divadgagnon

Live camera monitoring

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Hi everyone!

It is really only out of curiousity but I was just wondering, would it be possible to get the video of jumper live on a screen on the ground? Maybe it already exists I have no idea but I was just thinking this would be a very cool feature for tandems for example as their families would get to live the experience with them on the ground, and maybe convince a few that they should try it!

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It's been done but it's a lot of work. :)
Check out the Korean Olympic opening ceremony's skydiving. They used live video on that one.



They used it for 4way a few years ago too as I recall. Yep, lots of work, extra equipment, no guaranteed feed and sometimes poor quality. Maybe today's tech could give something better, but still, it would require equipment, and that costs. Wo pays for it? The student of course, but considering the already high perceived cost of a tandem, I dunno...
Remster

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It's possible but to do it via an FCC-legal method you need someone on the ground to point a high gain antenna at the tandem pair. At that point it might actually be easier/cheaper to just have a telemeter (camera/telescope) pointed at the tandem and feed that video live.

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Without any research, I am wondering if maybe cellular 3G service might be a solution with a webcam sort of arrangement. Push the data into the Internet via cell network service.

Can the camera on some of these smart phones do real time streaming?

If not maybe a smallish notepad type PC with a web cam?

Not HD but what is the quality requirement?
Instructor quote, “What's weird is that you're older than my dad!”

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Sure it could be done. I don't know how the Koren Olympics did it but the general publics answer would be in the R/C community.

They have first person video on R/C planes. The pilot wears a head set and sees what the plane sees. They have like a 2km range and some of the video quality is not to bad (less than GoPro) and getting better with every new micro camera release and transmitter upgrade. I think the whole set up is around $200 or so.

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it could be done via skype on a smart phone. easiest way I can think of is to strap a decent phone to your chest. Something like the galaxy s2 4g has a HD camera and 4g connectivity, assuming the cell signal is strong enough it could easily stream HD over the 4g network, skype to skype. its a shame you cant connect a usb hd bullet cam to the phone.

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In 1988, the technology involved in getting live air-to-ground video of the Seoul Olympic Skydiving Exhibition was pretty rudimentary and not tremendously reliable. This was one of the reasons that they had THREE video guys jumping with the Rings team.

Norm Kent, Ken Crabtree & Tom Sanders all jumped microwave packages on them with very directional horn antennas pointed at the ground. One (I forget which) had the antenna mounted on his shoe so that when floating the aircraft, he could be transmitting something they could lock on to for the exit shot.

On the ground, it was purported that the receiver antennas were atop the stadium roof and manually pointed with the aid of a rifle scope to keep the signal solid in freefall.

I would think the RC airplane style xmitter / receiver combos would work more than well enough to keep whuffos entertained, if thats the purpose.
NIN
D-19617, AFF-I '19

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Yes I was thinking of it more like a fun feature for the families on the ground rather than the real video tandem passengers bring back home. If the system cuold be small enough, the camera jumper could wear both cameras (live and the DVD higher quality one)



It's a fun thought, but you have some hurdles beyond the technical issues.

For staters, who's going to pay for it all? If it's the DZ, they would have to buy the recieving equipment plus a monitor, and then a pile of cameras for the video staff. Let's say the DZ buys the recieving equipment, and the video guys have to buy their own cameras, that's better for the DZ, and worse for the camera flyers.

Next, the camera guys now have to carry and maintain extra equipment. Space on camera helmets is tight, and some camera flyers go to great lengths to take weight off their helmets, where this plan would add weight.

In the end, the problem is that this is a 'no revenue' plan. You're looking to the DZ and camera flyers to spend money and do work with no return. Let's face it, this would only benefit one group of people, that being tandems who buy outside video and have spectators with them at the DZ. Tandems that don't buy video obviously wouldn't appear on the live vidoe feed, and tandems who come alone or with other tandems will have nobody on the ground to watch the live feed anyway.

Here's how we do it where I jump - we have a TV mounted near manifest and we play a loop of tandem/student videos so the customers can watch while they fill out the waivers and such. For customers who get video, once we're done editing we call over to manifest and have them page the student over the PA system to come up to manifest. At that point we shut off the loop video, and show their actual video, so they (and their family) gets 'instant gratification' and they get to see their video immediately. When it's done, we put the loop back on, and hand over their DVD.

It's a good system, and it only cost a used TV and a DVD player.

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I believe that it is getting better with longer ranges. I forget what type of signal it uses but you might get more range on it if the signal is just being transmitted more vertical then with the horizontal distance.

I don't really know a whole lot about the whole system but I know the setup is small and light so they can be carried on R/C planes and such.

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Yes of course if there is no gain I understand it won't be a good thing for the DZ. In fact I was more throwing out this idea to see if it already existed and/or discuss how it could be done, I was not looking at the real practical way of doing but more of it as how it could be done at all.

What about facetime on iPhones? Maybe there could be some sort of way to use that with an external camera ?(again only ideas here I don,t know a thing about that). Or do cell phones even get signal at 13K?

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I was not looking at the real practical way of doing but more of it as how it could be done at all.


The technology does exist, but I can't think of any system that is both simple and commercially viable at this point in time. One thing that comes to mind as a potential solution could be a zigbee system (low cost, open source wifi). They do have units with range, but I don't think they have the bandwidth required.

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What about facetime on iPhones? Maybe there could be some sort of way to use that with an external camera ?(again only ideas here I don,t know a thing about that). Or do cell phones even get signal at 13K?


I don't think Facetime can be done over 3G without jailbreaking (this was the case at first, I don't know if it has changed since), but you the cell coverage at 13K is a bigger issue. You might get something at altitude, but it's not going to be reliable, and you almost certainly won't have the bandwidth to stream video.

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>One thing that comes to mind as a potential solution could be a
>zigbee system (low cost, open source wifi). They do have units with range . . .

Zigbee is limited to about 250kbps. Enough for a low quality (think youtube) video, which might be enough for spectators.

However Zigbee brings with it other issues. It can take a while to get the link up; you can't just "tune to the right frequency" and wait for an image to appear out of the static. You're also into the 1 watt radios at that point and they're fairly expensive.

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Channel 7 here in Aus did (or were going to do) a live tandem feed of one of their hosts up at ramblers DZ this morning. I didn't catch the feed (im at work before anyone gets a plane in the air :() so I can't comment on the quality but im sure they wouldn't telecast rubbish live.

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Yea but I guess broadcasting live on a TV network requires more gear that only on a TV on the ground right?

As for the contour+ that is a pretty cool! I wonder what's the range thought?



I wouldn't think so...I would have assumed that the gear in the air would only get the signal back to the ground then normal transmission equipment would take over.

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The live jump recently on the Seven network a couple of days ago had two feeds to the ground below one from camera flyer and one from a wristmount go pro on the tandem. Both feeds were bounced straight to satelite and into the studio in Sydney then around the country.
The jump is on You tube under 'Grant goes Skydiving''.

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I was not looking at the real practical way of doing but more of it as how it could be done at all.


The technology does exist, but I can't think of any system that is both simple and commercially viable at this point in time. One thing that comes to mind as a potential solution could be a zigbee system (low cost, open source wifi). They do have units with range, but I don't think they have the bandwidth required.

Quote

What about facetime on iPhones? Maybe there could be some sort of way to use that with an external camera ?(again only ideas here I don,t know a thing about that). Or do cell phones even get signal at 13K?


I don't think Facetime can be done over 3G without jailbreaking (this was the case at first, I don't know if it has changed since), but you the cell coverage at 13K is a bigger issue. You might get something at altitude, but it's not going to be reliable, and you almost certainly won't have the bandwidth to stream video.



Eh....

This is reasonably priced for what it is. NTSC/PAL only.

http://www.vfmstore.com/trc12g.htm

The legality of it depends on your location and what licenses you have. This stuff is totally doable and not that unreasonable.

That stuff is bigger and would have to be worn in some kind of pack or just for exit video in the aircraft.

They also make pretty high powered RC stuff...

http://wirelessvideocameras.com/my-cart.html?page=shop.browse&category_id=53

That option goes up to 25 miles and requires a HAM license to operate. And the transmitter is about the size of a credit card.

This stuff is out there in good quality, way beyond what has been done in skydiving. There are lots of hobbiest RC first person flyers out there doing long range flights with GPS and onscreen displays.
~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

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