In car camera transmitting

A client in Trinidad asked me if I could get him a system to take in-car video and transmit to the pits. Does anybody have ideas on how this is done? I have seen helicopters used as recievers and then transmitting to a ground station, but is this still what is done? Thanks, Chuck

try supercircuits.com for wireless camera's.

I've been thinking about this as well. Mostly because I'd love to be able to get data and video feeds from a race car as it goes around the track.

Regular wireless signals (g/n, etc) are fairly limited in range.

You might find that a cellular modem connected to a portable computer system to buffer the signal might be the ultimate solution. Using a USB camera to capture the raw data with software to capture the video and upload the it on the fly.

The trick is determining where to send the data and how to automate the capture and transfer process along with the cost of the data plan for the cellular modem and how to deal with dropped connections, etc.

Otherwise you'd probably have to build a portable TV signal transmitter (which isn't cheap to get a decently powerful one) and just broadcast the signal and capture it in normal ways. Of course this won't be very secure and the local FCC-type folks might get a little pissy if they catch you without a license.

News agency's use a satelite truck with wireless camera's The camera's communicate with the truck, which is stationary with the dish pointed at the satelite. Building an automatic satelite dish tracker has been done, but again how much work do you want to get involved with?

Isn't there a service that lets you stream live video from your cell phone camera to another cell phone? I remember seeing a commercial a while back where they did this.

I was thinking more about this project- wi-fi transmitters can work up to 4 miles and can connect to an IP camera at the car and a laptop wihin the range. BIG question is how this will function while moving at speed, vibration and g-loads. Guess I need to spend some money and try it. By the way, Super Circuits wireless cameras are cheap junk, as is most of their product line. Basically Harbor Freight for cameras stuff.

If they don't always have unlimited 20% off coupons floating around they are not exactly like HF.

Though yes, I am in telecommunications, it has been years since I was in the solutions side of the business. What you want should be possible with some cellular wifi air cards and some commercial hardware. Of course this would be in the US. I am not familiar with what the infrastructure of Trinidad offers.

Call these guys, Tessco.
http://www.tessco.com
They are very smart and can sell you anything from a desktop wireless router to an entire cell phone tower and all the switching and connectors needed to make it work (far more than you need.)
Seems that what you need is very similar to an internet transmitted remote security camera. If you could use a stationary camera to watch your company parking lot from anywhere in the world, in real-time, why couldn't that camera be mobile rather than stationary?

along the same lines as posted above, your standard wireless setups dont have a stable enough signal, even in the 900mhz range it will be unstable.

BUT ,

Maybe,

the new 900mhz ATV band setups will do. theres supposedly a 2 mile line of site transmission capability, and you can add in signal repeaters. search for amateur TV , or similar. im sure there's something in that realm that will be adaptable and portable, but don't know enough about it to offer any more than the suggestion..

blaze86vic wrote: Isn't there a service that lets you stream live video from your cell phone camera to another cell phone?

Not certain about back to a second cell phone but Qik will go from cell phone to any internet connected PC or more than one if you connect it to a Livestream account. The frame rate isn't great and it'll run the cell phone battery down fairly quickly but it might last long enough for a shorter race.

Search on "First Person View", or FPV. These guys fly radio control airplanes via a camera in the plane, so they use small battery powered cameras and transmitters. http://fpv-community.com/forum/index.php

I'm with Digital Ally - we make in-car video systems for law enforcement. The streaming video service we recommend with our products is Iveda Solutions. Not sure if they'd be more than you're looking for, but they're excellent at what they do!

Canoe from history!

In reply to cwh:

Do you need real-time transmission from vehicle to the pits? If you need car camera, you can find a lot at http://www.szswill.com, but usually this kind of car cameras do not support wireless transmission, maybe you can try a wireless camera with receiver kits, but usually they are not shockproof and not suitable to use in vehicles, power supplying might also be a problem.