Thread: cameras and pc integration

as you can see, it is a very small unit, but at $100 for a single input, it is a little pricey, and has very basic features. i was planning on using the secondary a/v input on my lilliput to see it..

FYI, just checked the first link and it's showing as 79.xx + free shipping.

Eavesdropping law being "one step lower than murder" - LOL at that... Hope that never comes to PA. Thanks for links though and being descriptive.

Why no recording? Just because it's easier to use the 'other' cameras for recording, so essentially 2 reverse cams, one as a webcam for recording, and the normal lilliput reverse cam?

Not trying to get down on the informative posts, hope this didn't come across as mean toned...[/QUOTE]

The Lilliput Monitor is and the Composite camera are instant on, If your nose first into a driveway or parking space,waiting for the camera through the PC to come on before being able to see what is behind me is not worth the $35-$40 cost of a second reverse camera. Also the reverse backup camera has reverse viewing,(you see the driver's side of the car on the driver's side of the lilliput screen) and it has distance and parking spot line references.

I Like the Soundman98's idea of using the 4 Channel CCTV Security 3G Mobile & iPhone View HD DVR from ebay, but like you said it's another box in the car. It would be nice to have motion sensors,( also used for parking assist) that would bring the carpc out of hybernation and automatically start recording, great if someone decided to try to take you car for a joyride, or someone hits your car why'll it is parked, great evidence to take to the police.

I am quite interested in this.
I would like to have 4 cameras on my ute one for reversing, one forwards, one underneath near my front diff and another that can go whever I feel it is best used..
I want these for when offroading to show when I might be about to hit something or what is going on under my car at any point in time..
This is where my requirements start getting tricky..
A) My cameras will need to be waterproof and reasonably adept at low light conditions...
B) They really need to be computer controlled as I want to have all 3-4 on screen but at certain points in time I need to call them up individually so I can see exatly what that rock is doing under or in front of me etc..
C) I would love to be able to hit a button either after something cool happened (grab the last x minutes of film from all and store) Or Before hand hit record..

Sorry little bit of a hijack but I thought some of my ideas might help think about requirements / best ways fo achieving different goals.. If need be I can get it split out.
I was thinking look for good usb cameras simply because I want so much control over the display, not just multiplexed into a single view and stored.. But I am not sure if any usb cameras are up to this task yet.. So far I haven't looked too hard for this..

Cheers

Originally Posted by stretch4x4

I am quite interested in this.
I would like to have 4 cameras on my ute one for reversing, one forwards, one underneath near my front diff and another that can go whever I feel it is best used..
I want these for when offroading to show when I might be about to hit something or what is going on under my car at any point in time..
This is where my requirements start getting tricky..
A) My cameras will need to be waterproof and reasonably adept at low light conditions...
B) They really need to be computer controlled as I want to have all 3-4 on screen but at certain points in time I need to call them up individually so I can see exatly what that rock is doing under or in front of me etc..
C) I would love to be able to hit a button either after something cool happened (grab the last x minutes of film from all and store) Or Before hand hit record..

Sorry little bit of a hijack but I thought some of my ideas might help think about requirements / best ways fo achieving different goals.. If need be I can get it split out.
I was thinking look for good usb cameras simply because I want so much control over the display, not just multiplexed into a single view and stored.. But I am not sure if any usb cameras are up to this task yet.. So far I haven't looked too hard for this..



Cheers

You're going to want to build a housing for the stuff underneath if you go with a USB. There's nothing on the market that would stand up to those conditions without it. There are plenty of cheap, very small composite cameras that could be mounted up and out of the way that would give you a good look at your diff. I have a small 4-chan multiplexor that lets me select any camera for a fullscreen view, or puts them all into a single split screen. Think of it this way: A nice HD front webcam to record the trip...that's your geewhiz isn't that neat camera. The 3-4 small composites around/under the truck are your tools....to give you a view on those tricky offroad sections. If you want to record them, you can using a capture card attached to the multiplexor, but in normal offroad situations, that's not really what they're for.

Edit: the other advantage the composites have is that many come with IR LEDs for low-light conditions, which should do a REALLY nice job of lighting up the underside of the truck when you need it.

Cheers!

VegasGuy

Well that is a compelling argument for composite What sort of multiplexor do you have? What was the cost and what are the controls for switching the views like?

Also yeah I agree about the recording of the video not being the primary job although this video makes me very keen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT1MMbQI1H8
Admittedly it is recorded with a go pro mounted in several spots but it would be nice to end up with similar results by just hitting record every now and again when interesting things happen..

Finally I was thinking about ideas for housings as it is a very harsh environment.. Hopefully they won't get rock damage but that is a posibility however swimming is a regular occurance.. as is mud so was planning on setting up a washer bottle and jets for cleaning purposes.. (Had also been thinking about some led rock lights too.. Ah so many ideas..

Originally Posted by VegasGuy

You're going to want to build a housing for the stuff underneath if you go with a USB. There's nothing on the market that would stand up to those conditions without it. There are plenty of cheap, very small composite cameras that could be mounted up and out of the way that would give you a good look at your diff. I have a small 4-chan multiplexor that lets me select any camera for a fullscreen view, or puts them all into a single split screen. Think of it this way: A nice HD front webcam to record the trip...that's your geewhiz isn't that neat camera. The 3-4 small composites around/under the truck are your tools....to give you a view on those tricky offroad sections. If you want to record them, you can using a capture card attached to the multiplexor, but in normal offroad situations, that's not really what they're for.

Edit: the other advantage the composites have is that many come with IR LEDs for low-light conditions, which should do a REALLY nice job of lighting up the underside of the truck when you need it.

to add some to this:

ir: this can be great/horrible at the same time..

most cameras use 5mm led's for the ir feature. most 5mm led's have around a 30-40deg viewing angle. that means that you need a lot of space to get the ir to spread out, and it will rarely cover any more then half of the image.

to add to this, most cheaper ir cameras use a 3.2-3.5mm lens(the higher the mm, the narrower the field of vision) which covers about 90deg....

with my experience, you are better off using some decent sealed flood lights over relying on the ir in a camera..

cameras:
i have been seriously looking at these cameras they have a built-in menu that would allow me to flip/rotate the image for reverse usage.. they are also IP67 sealed (always check how that rates on the IP ratings scale!!)


multiplexer:
this can be hit-or-miss, but some models the front switch panel is wired via a ribbon cable to the main board-- so you could disconnect, and extend that entire control panel so you don't need to run all your video wires to the switch location...


honestly, i believe composite cameras are going to be better-- they are a little more sacrificial(still a little pricey--the above bullet cams go for about $145 ea) then a computer-capable version...

if you still want them connected to the pc, you could use some splitters and a capture card, so you have both a instant live image(some capture cards have a slight delay in displaying the live info-- esp depending on processor load), but also the option to record to the pc..

granted, it won't be HD, but recording at 20-30fps, minimal compression, and 620x480 would be plenty clear for most people..

4x$145 this is going to be a painful excercise no matter how I do it At least it would be already waterproof..
Yeah I think I do agree with not using IR cameras, bit like upgrading the reverse lights to cover the rear camera, Just make it daylight

Yeah I think I need to put a lot more research in. In the long run the capture card might end up being the main solution but you never know..

Thanks to both of you, good advice.

I Like the Soundman98's idea of using the 4 Channel CCTV Security 3G Mobile & iPhone View HD DVR from ebay, but like you said it's another box in the car. It would be nice to have motion sensors,( also used for parking assist) that would bring the carpc out of hybernation and automatically start recording, great if someone decided to try to take you car for a joyride, or someone hits your car why'll it is parked, great evidence to take to the police.

How's the motion stuff working? I mean, if cameras are motion sensing, how quickly can a multiplexer be woken up to record, or would that be always on as well? Always supplying power to multiple cameras and a multiplexer wouldn't be low power draw anymore, and invites a 2nd battery install (not trying to do this).

At this point, I'm ditching the pc part of it (still have carpc but not for cameras) as it sounds composite and not splitting into pc recording devices are the easiest/cheapest/quickest way of doing this all. I'm researching some cameras that are under $145 as I'm relatively cheap after buying new toys.

I might at some point get some sort of cable splitters to allow me to view the composite cameras via pc (or if multiplexer has an 'out' source, split that into the pc for viewing) - no overhead on viewing it since no recording.

Originally Posted by detlion1643

How's the motion stuff working? I mean, if cameras are motion sensing, how quickly can a multiplexer be woken up to record, or would that be always on as well? Always supplying power to multiple cameras and a multiplexer wouldn't be low power draw anymore, and invites a 2nd battery install (not trying to do this).

At this point, I'm ditching the pc part of it (still have carpc but not for cameras) as it sounds composite and not splitting into pc recording devices are the easiest/cheapest/quickest way of doing this all. I'm researching some cameras that are under $145 as I'm relatively cheap after buying new toys.

I might at some point get some sort of cable splitters to allow me to view the composite cameras via pc (or if multiplexer has an 'out' source, split that into the pc for viewing) - no overhead on viewing it since no recording.

Not true. Whether you record or not, the signal has to be encoded to show on the PC, so you will incur some processing overhead even when you are just viewing the output of the multiplexor. Not "quite" as much as recording, but it's still noticeable.

VegasGuy