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DannHuff

Live video feed during freefall?

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Modern wireless networks today are able to support data connections at broadband speeds. The local carrier in Australia has achieved 14.4Mbps speeds with a single cell over a 200Km distance. It seems plausible to point a base station into the sky and in real time convey a live video feed during freefall.

The applications are wide and varied. Tandems could have their families watching the jump in real time, both at the DZ on a TV, or as it is streamed live across the internet literally anywhere in the world. You never know the future of DropZone.Com could be links to skydives as they are happening.

What do people think? Would this be received well by the skydiving community and/or the public? Would there be a demand if it could be done in-expensively?

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It's been done with greater and lesser success.

The real issue is why you would want to do this and would it make sense as far as the budget goes.

X-Games did it quite well for Skysurf and Tom Sanders did a bang up job live for the Olympics, but they spent a lot of money on the right system. Conversely, we've tried to do it at Nationals with an inexpensive analog system on the cheap and while that was perfectly fine for that application, it would be totally unacceptable for broadcast.

The "good stuff" costs quite a bit of money and can be rented for special shots, but would make absolutely no sense whatsoever for say, a tandem operation to entertain the ground bound.
quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

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Modern wireless networks today are able to support data connections at broadband speeds. The local carrier in Australia has achieved 14.4Mbps speeds with a single cell over a 200Km distance. It seems plausible to point a base station into the sky and in real time convey a live video feed during freefall.

The applications are wide and varied. Tandems could have their families watching the jump in real time, both at the DZ on a TV, or as it is streamed live across the internet literally anywhere in the world. You never know the future of DropZone.Com could be links to skydives as they are happening.

What do people think? Would this be received well by the skydiving community and/or the public? Would there be a demand if it could be done in-expensively?



Some people have done this in the past, but it wasn't cheap. What I have always thought would be fun was a plane mounted camera that showed people exiting. Would be pretty cool for people on the ground to see their family members jump out and the skydiver wouldn't have to wear a bunch of extra crap.

Might cut down on observer ride slots though. :D
~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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It will take a while before cellular technology can be used for high quality video streaming.

The 14.4 Mbps rate you mentioned is the maximum rate that can be achieved under very special circumstances (i.e. excellent coverage, adequate capacity in the base station, very few subscribers using the cell, etc). It is definitely not guaranteed bandwidth.

Note that also the 14.4Mbps rate refers to downlink only, while uplink is still in the range of 384kbps to 1Mpbs (similar to fixed broadband type of access). Obviously if you are using cellular technology not only for receiving, but also for transmitting, you have a bottleneck in the uplink part.

Last but not least, it is very doubtful that you will get any cellular coverage at altitude. Depends very much on the specific network, but most of the times I have not been receiving a proper signal on my mobile, after 3000ft.

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It will take a while before cellular technology can be used for high quality video streaming.

The 14.4 Mbps rate you mentioned is the maximum rate that can be achieved under very special circumstances (i.e. excellent coverage, adequate capacity in the base station, very few subscribers using the cell, etc). It is definitely not guaranteed bandwidth.

Note that also the 14.4Mbps rate refers to downlink only, while uplink is still in the range of 384kbps to 1Mpbs (similar to fixed broadband type of access). Obviously if you are using cellular technology not only for receiving, but also for transmitting, you have a bottleneck in the uplink part.

Last but not least, it is very doubtful that you will get any cellular coverage at altitude. Depends very much on the specific network, but most of the times I have not been receiving a proper signal on my mobile, after 3000ft.



HSPA for cellular networks is commercially available at a theoretical maximum of 1.8Mbps in the uplink, and will increase to 5.8Mbps in the near future. A 1 Mbps actual connection should be possible, although not giving broadcast quality, the picture would be reasonable.A HSPA enabled mobile device would be sub $1000. Data carriage costs will also need to be factored.

On reception, the likely reason you do not get signal at altitude is the antennas on the base stations are tuned for horizontal reception. It would need an array pointing upwards. Telco providers would do this if there is a commercial return and if it was used for tandems at reasonably busy DZ's it is possible it would stack up.

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Ok,

I'll try to spare the technical details. Most of the people here are unlikely to be interested, so I'll take this to pm.

In my view, even from the economic perspective, the cellular approach does not make a lot of sense.

You will have a hard time convincing an operator to make a 50K investment at or near a dropzone and point antennas to the sky, just to get a couple of HSPA subscriptions.

Expected revenues cannot justify the case, given the fact that flat rate models are used more and more for this type of connections.

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