TL;DR - Anyone ever use a security/surveillance camera system (IP or not) to record sports - specifically higher speed sports like cycling?
Hello,
I am on the finish line timing team for our state interscholastic MTB cycling league. We use an RFID chip timing system for our race results.
Works well and have had only a few minor problems:
1) system problems just before a race - successfully rebooted the system and it didn't fall over the rest of the day (ended up having some overheating problems due to a failing power supply.)
2) Last race we had a "photo finish." Actually, we didn't know it was a photo finish. The timing system declared the order (this was for a 13/14th place contest.) Turns out 14th place's mother had done a "motor drive" photo shoot of her son coming up the finish shoot. She reviewed her pics and felt that he had beat the official #13 to the finish line - thus protested the results. Pics weren't great and weren't at a great angle. After much review with timing team and league director, we ended up declaring in her favor with some trepidation due primarily to parallax in the photos from the angle she was at.
The heart of that protest is likely related to the angle that the chips are mounted on the bikes. The RFID is on the back of their race bib which is zip-tied to the handle bars. From the photos we could see that #13 had his plate very "vertical" relative to the ground while #14's plate had tilted back. The timing system takes a series of signal strength readings off of the chip and declares the "peak" signal strength as the crossing time. We suspect that in this case, #14 crossed first but #13 hit peak signal strength first.
3) Occasionally we will get a "No Read" on a chip. If use "hand jammers" who write down plate numbers as people pass thru the chute. But it is not ideal if it is a close finish and one of the finishers is a no read.
So... we are looking at a video system in the "belts and suspenders" approach (and if it works well, we could eliminate the hand-jammers as it is a tiring and rather thankless job to sit there and write bib numbers for 2-4 hours.)
I am very network and computer savvy - but know very little about cameras from a technical standpoint.
We are thinking we could get a very good finish line camera setup with 2 cameras just past the finish aimed down the finish chute (one on each side of the race course), one camera mounted to shoot perpendicular to the finish line (for wheel vs wheel photo finish) and one camera aimed at a computer screen recording the official race clock time as well as the chip passes that pop up (usually with a 1 or 2 second lag from the actual crossing).
I'm estimating that the peak speed of the bikes across the finish line would be less than 20mph (mountain bikes on grass or gravel and we always have an uphill start/finish). 20MPH equates to 29 inches per second. With a 30FPS camera I think we would be able to determine a tie down to 1 inch or so. Faster frame rate would be better but it seems like most IP cams max out at 30FPS.
I think a 80-90degree FOV will be fine. I'm not sure there is any advantage to a wider field of view in this setup but I don't know.
No night vision need. Sun angle is out of our control though as the finish line is where it is. But first race starts at 9:30AM in central North Carolina so sun is pretty high even in Feb/March.
My initial thought for simplicity was something like a LOREX system from COSTCO. NVR with 4 cameras. We run a private IP LAN to support the timing system, so we would be able to access the NVR. (I called Lorex and got offshore support. They told me I could not access the replay without being connected to the internet which we WON'T have. Don't know if that is correct or they just mean I have to have a router to provide IP addresses.)
We run races nearly continuously for most of the day - so I need storage for 4 streams for 8 hours (or multiplexed into a single "image" I guess would work. I also would need to have access to replay WHILE recording is going on.
Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with kind of setup? Am I "smokin' something" to think this could work? (My other reason for buying from Costco is return policy if we try this and it is a complete failure.)
Thanks in advance for any tips or advice.
Hello,
I am on the finish line timing team for our state interscholastic MTB cycling league. We use an RFID chip timing system for our race results.
Works well and have had only a few minor problems:
1) system problems just before a race - successfully rebooted the system and it didn't fall over the rest of the day (ended up having some overheating problems due to a failing power supply.)
2) Last race we had a "photo finish." Actually, we didn't know it was a photo finish. The timing system declared the order (this was for a 13/14th place contest.) Turns out 14th place's mother had done a "motor drive" photo shoot of her son coming up the finish shoot. She reviewed her pics and felt that he had beat the official #13 to the finish line - thus protested the results. Pics weren't great and weren't at a great angle. After much review with timing team and league director, we ended up declaring in her favor with some trepidation due primarily to parallax in the photos from the angle she was at.
The heart of that protest is likely related to the angle that the chips are mounted on the bikes. The RFID is on the back of their race bib which is zip-tied to the handle bars. From the photos we could see that #13 had his plate very "vertical" relative to the ground while #14's plate had tilted back. The timing system takes a series of signal strength readings off of the chip and declares the "peak" signal strength as the crossing time. We suspect that in this case, #14 crossed first but #13 hit peak signal strength first.
3) Occasionally we will get a "No Read" on a chip. If use "hand jammers" who write down plate numbers as people pass thru the chute. But it is not ideal if it is a close finish and one of the finishers is a no read.
So... we are looking at a video system in the "belts and suspenders" approach (and if it works well, we could eliminate the hand-jammers as it is a tiring and rather thankless job to sit there and write bib numbers for 2-4 hours.)
I am very network and computer savvy - but know very little about cameras from a technical standpoint.
We are thinking we could get a very good finish line camera setup with 2 cameras just past the finish aimed down the finish chute (one on each side of the race course), one camera mounted to shoot perpendicular to the finish line (for wheel vs wheel photo finish) and one camera aimed at a computer screen recording the official race clock time as well as the chip passes that pop up (usually with a 1 or 2 second lag from the actual crossing).
I'm estimating that the peak speed of the bikes across the finish line would be less than 20mph (mountain bikes on grass or gravel and we always have an uphill start/finish). 20MPH equates to 29 inches per second. With a 30FPS camera I think we would be able to determine a tie down to 1 inch or so. Faster frame rate would be better but it seems like most IP cams max out at 30FPS.
I think a 80-90degree FOV will be fine. I'm not sure there is any advantage to a wider field of view in this setup but I don't know.
No night vision need. Sun angle is out of our control though as the finish line is where it is. But first race starts at 9:30AM in central North Carolina so sun is pretty high even in Feb/March.
My initial thought for simplicity was something like a LOREX system from COSTCO. NVR with 4 cameras. We run a private IP LAN to support the timing system, so we would be able to access the NVR. (I called Lorex and got offshore support. They told me I could not access the replay without being connected to the internet which we WON'T have. Don't know if that is correct or they just mean I have to have a router to provide IP addresses.)
We run races nearly continuously for most of the day - so I need storage for 4 streams for 8 hours (or multiplexed into a single "image" I guess would work. I also would need to have access to replay WHILE recording is going on.
Anyone have any thoughts or experiences with kind of setup? Am I "smokin' something" to think this could work? (My other reason for buying from Costco is return policy if we try this and it is a complete failure.)
Thanks in advance for any tips or advice.
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