Neuros Technology Forums

....A market for this product with racers. I got to this site from a racing site that recomended the recorder for use in race cars. I am "video challenged" at best so please skip this if it bores you.
What I think the average racer needs from this unit is: 1. An easy way to start recording without having to reach the unit or actually touch it. (To protect the device in a race car it needs to be secured in a box or bag in the floorboard.) A  hand held remote would be hard to use with the unit covered. 2. It would be good to be able to see where the attached bullet cam was shooting before the race is recorded. ( Maybe you could test with a PC to see if it was angled right.)  Sorry if these things seem dumb, but if something can be worked out to make this device racer friendly, I think lots of the sports car and cycle racers will become customers. 
Mac

We have been building and testing such a system in racing.
A good add on for the video is, on screen text display and Trackvision.

Hi IPRESS / Mac,

Are you an SCCA guy?  :)

I have been working on a project with Ex-Navy & the folks at Olson along with some input from the Neuros team.  I have 2 R2 units,  an Olson circuit, and a 5V BEC  in a racecar.  The project revolved around a 6-hour endurance race.  We had a camera pointing forward and one pointing out the back window.  Each R2 had an 8 gigabyte CF card, which would hold 8 hours (each) at the highest quality video setting of 640x480, including audio, of course.  We ran two 12v stereo microphones in the car, and I even installed an extra radio inside the car* and ran the feed to one of the Neuros units to record race communications.

In short, the R2 is a great solution for incar video, and the Olson circuit can make operation much easier.  There is something to be said about solid state electronics!  We've learned a lot from our experiment, and look forward to sharing the info soon.

For your racer-types, below is a list  of the electronics we ran.  All electronics were housed in a custom dash center-stack enclosure:  :)

2 Recorder2 units
1 Olson Circuit, which operated BOTH units
5V BEC
2 bullet cameras
2 stereo mics
Data acquisition (DL-1)
Race radio
Cool Suit (flow control)

Each had its own illuminated switch, fuse, etc.

We made provisions in the custom dash to be able to see the LEDs on the R2 units (which were removed from their OEM enclosures).  We also used an illuminated switch to trigger the Olson circuit.

More to come!

Cheers,

Will

*edited!

Glad to read I'm not the only one thinking along these lines.  I've just gotten a couple of OSD units for use in our Grand Am Cup race cars.  I'm planning to use them in conjunction w/ an AIM DaVid Video system tied in w/ our AIM MXL data acqusition unit  (basically a video multiplexer that combines two cameras and data into a single video feed).  For now, I'm planning to manually start the recorder w/ the remote prior to a race/session start, but eventually I'd like to have a hardwired switch.  i'm also planning to use an independant power source for the unit, just in case the main vehicle power shutoff is flipped by accident during a pit stop / driver change.  I'm still trying to figure out how to tie into the radio to get race comm. audio as well.

Hey Rara,
Thats a cool idea.
Check out what Will powered just sent us:

 http://www.miata.tv/vidproj/

His complete install project with 2 R2 recorders, two cams, all wired inboard, our Ir circuit to start both recorders.
He used Trackvision software, Picture in Picture seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmtIKVFEXQI

No Audio during this race. Minor troubleshooting as this install is the first of it's type with 2 Neuros units.

The audio from the radio can be wired in pretty easily. I recommend removing the 2.5mm AV board connectors and
replacing with 2 BNC connectors. The radio audio can be pigtailed from the helmet to a quick disconnect on the front
panel. The R2 has line level in for audio

How are you mounting the cameras??

Will-powered, that looks like a great setup!

Ex-Navy,
I am actually planning to use one OSD (not the R2) and only one per car, because the AIM DaVid system we have in the car already does the same thing as the trackvision software, but it does it real time, so I only have to record one video signal, and I still get both cameras plus data.  I'd show you an example, but everything I have is on miniDV tapes, and the camcorder is broken . . .    The cameras we run are bullet cams that came w/ the DaVid system, and they are mouted on small swivel mounts that strap to the roll cage.  We mount ours with one facing out the windshield, and one down on the driver to watch what he's doing w/ his hands and feet.

As far as the radio audio, I'm going to have to break into the vehicle radio harness somewhere, because our series requires driver changes, and I can't afford an additional connector for the driver to have to disconnect/reconnect during a a changeover.

And, fwiw, I may have to get with you about an Olsen circuit that will work w/ the new OSD.  We have only one race left this year, but expect to hear from me during the off-season, lol.

Ooops...I've been outed by Ex-Navy!   ;) ;D
Thanks for the comments.  ;D

We did get audio during the race and during all of the other track time I've recorded with the 2 R2 units.  The video with the data overlay was done in TrackVision, which for some reason could not handle the audio.  I'm sure it is a problem with the audio codec.  For whatever reason, the DV files (or any files) I've exported from Final Cut Pro do not play well with the TrackVision software.  I've tried everything short of outputting the FCP project to a DV tape and re-capturing on a Windows box.

A note of caution on recording:  I had intermittant problems getting the system to STOP recording.  This is a PROBLEM!  Why?  If the system is powered down while recording, whatever you've been recording will be LOST!  I was able to work around the problem by triggering the "stop record" command several times repeatedly, but we are still looking into the source of the problem and a solution.

With regards to grabbing race comm, I wouldn't splice into the wiring harness to grab the signal.  As great as grabbing video and audio is, the actual racing has to come first.  I would not want to deal with extra connections or adding potential sources of problems to anything directly related to the race car or racing in general.

My work-around was to use an extra radio in the car.  The radio should grab all communications and be a nice stand-alone system.  The only thing you have to worry about is changing out the radio's output (headphone level) to line-level to feed the recording unit.  You need a mini mic preamp, something like the Beachtek DXA-10 (http://www.beachtek.com/dxa10.html) should get the job done.  There are probably cheaper options, but I haven't looked into any (yet).  If you are looking for an all-in-one solution, and it sounds like you are, then you'll be feeding all of the mics into the mixer/preamp, as you'll want to adjust the radio levels separate from the external mics.

My system was designed around having options.  The front camera recorder grabbed audio from a stereo microphone.  The rear camera grabbed right-channel audio from an external mic, and left-channel audio from the race radio.  This setup lets us watch each of the feeds full-screen without any editing, etc.  It also allows us to edit the video and audio to our liking.  For example, the picture-in-picture video samples currently on the site.

I continue to work on making the process as easy and idiot-proof as possible.  Unfortunately, the incompatability of the TrackVision software is making us jump through hoops that shouldn't exist.  Part of this is due to my cross-platform preference for editing, but I haven't had much luck even working 100% on the Windows side with StreamClip.  For example, native Neuros files exported to DV, AVI, or any other StreamClip friendly formats also do not play well in TrackVision.

For the time being, I can come in from a race, connect the CF card to my laptop, and start watching the video immediately.  This of course, is all non-linear.  Jump to any time in the video, replay, fast forward, freeze frame, etc.

As you can see from the site above, the Neuros can capture some good quality video.  I've downloaded episodes of "Lost" from the iTunes store, which are recorded at 320x240, and which look good full-screen on my 23" monitor. I have yet to watch it on TV, but there is a lot more to high-quality video than just resolution/pixel count!  As they say, garbage in, garbage out.  On that note, Apple just announced compatability with 640x480 video with iTunes/iPod video, which should be a significant increase in quality.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to have a season's worth of races (recorded on the R2, of course!) on your iPod?  The TrackVision (or similar) overlay would be even better.  :)

You guys are set up pretty well. I just planned on mounting the R2 in the (miata) dash where the passenger airbag use to reside. I am going to start out with one bullet cam and just use the remote to turn it off and on.
How long a race should I be able to shoot without hardwiring to the car? It would be nice to have a seperate power source so that if the car died during the race ( yes I have gone of track and had it die in a spin) I would not lose my video.
I guess i need to read farther into the forum and find out about the Olson and other stuff that might make things easier for me. Getting ready to start a race has enough things going on that taking care to have your video system working becomes secondary.
Will-Powered, yeah I run SCCA & NASA events.

Sure the engine may need to be restarted but the car's battery wouldn't run out as a result of a spin.  So you can continue to record using the car's battery despite killing the engine.

In regards to power supply, our sanctioning body (Grand Am Cup) requires all power to run through a master cutoff switch, so what i've done for our OSD setup is this.

12V supply to a 5V regulator (basically the internals from a sony PSP car adapter), then run the 5V to an external battery designed for a sony PSP (using one by Intec) and then connect the battery to the OSD.   What this does, is allows the OSD to continue to run if the power gets shut off for any reason (most likely for us is an accidental switch-off during a driver change) and the regular supply keeps the battery topped up during normal use.

Granted, I've just put this into the car in the last few days and haven't had a chance to put it through its paces yet . . . but we are racing in a 6-hour enduro this weekend at VIR, so I should have some decent testing under my belt next week.  As soon as I get some time, I'll get some pics of the setup and a more thorough explanation of what I've done.

Thanks IPRESS.

bobkart is correct about the power.  I pulled the power for the R2 units from the HOT side of my master kill switch.  This setup is just like having the R2 connected directly to the battery.  The only issue is leaving the unit on and draining the power down, which would take some time.  In any event, we used an illuminated switch, so it was always obvious when the R2 units were powered.

I did the same with our radio.  Why?  Well, should something happen to kill power during the race, it would be handy to be able to communicate with the crew.  :)

Installing the R2 where the passenger airbag goes is a great idea.  My next install will have the units in the glovebox with the controls wired to the custom panel.  It is always a great idea to separate the video & power wires, as they can cause interference with each other (and result in noisy video quality).  Putting the R2 units away from other components and wiring is a step in the right direction...   :)