1 (edited by w0t 2017-07-31 07:15 AM)

Topic: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

I documented the following cheap camera/media streamer build that our team used to successfully stream video to RaceCast.me during the Wilwood Grand Prix at Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway this past weekend (ChumpCar event).

I expect someone else will find it useful, too:

https://externalhippocampus.wordpress.c … streaming/

Let me know if you have any questions!

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Awesome write up,  I use the Cerevo Liveshell for one car, but really want to add one to another car we race.    I find there's issues with the gopro sometimes disconnecting.. So I love the idea of a single unit/device.. 

Any thoughts around making it as a SSH server so you can connect to the car if there's any issues with the camera and restart the unit ?..  My experience is these setups almost never last the entire day of racing without messing with it during a pitstop or two..

A couple of questions..

- Can you also get this to save to the SD card at the same time ?

- Can a PI3 run multiple camera's,  I was thinking of using it as a cheap second camera too,  or is it better to just buy another set of Hardware..  and save the output the the SD card device, and not stream it..

Cheers !

3 (edited by w0t 2017-07-31 07:05 AM)

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

kiwiracer wrote:

Awesome write up,  I use the Cerevo Liveshell for one car, but really want to add one to another car we race.    I find there's issues with the gopro sometimes disconnecting.. So I love the idea of a single unit/device..

Thanks! Yes, I've found that relying on WiFi and/or Bluetooth is a problem, even when the devices are close. We have a bunch of other gear in the car that I'll write up in a separate blog post for telemetry that can be finicky because it's all connected wirelessly.

kiwiracer wrote:

Any thoughts around making it as a SSH server so you can connect to the car if there's any issues with the camera and restart the unit ?..  My experience is these setups almost never last the entire day of racing without messing with it during a pitstop or two..

I too was concerned about having access to the Raspberry Pi during the race so I had also configured a reverse SSH tunnel to be able to access it behind the mobile hotspot's network address translation layer. I'll write up how this worked on the blog entry.

In the end however I didn't really end up making any configuration changes while the car was on track, but it was nice to have the option.

kiwiracer wrote:

A couple of questions..

- Can you also get this to save to the SD card at the same time ?

Yes, it's definitely possible by changing the ffmpeg command line to output to two locations. You could even upload to two different RTMP network locations simultaneously like RaceCast.me and FB Live (given enough cellular data speed).

kiwiracer wrote:

- Can a PI3 run multiple camera's,  I was thinking of using it as a cheap second camera too,  or is it better to just buy another set of Hardware..  and save the output the the SD card device, and not stream it..

I was using the Raspberry Pi's own camera module, but it would be possible to have it run another simultaneous upload (or record to SD) for a second USB-connected camera as well. You could add a second supervisord service that uploaded this additional feed to RaceCast.me (under a separate RaceCast.me account).

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Correction, I already posted the update to the blog post that shows how to get SSH access while the car is on track.

Have a look at the link in the original post above.

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Your write up is awesome, especially with the reverse SSH for remote management !  it's great way to do that, I run a linode I will do that to :-)

Im looking around for other cases,  Vibration is probably my biggest concern, but it sounds like your ok with that.. 

As far as writing it to the SD Card concurrently, I was looking at the ffmpeg commands, it looks like I can write to the RTMP stream and also in a higher resolution to the SD card..  Very Cool !!

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Oh, yea.. 

Im thinking of perhaps using something like this, where I can run RaceCapture and also the ffmpeg in the background..

here's something RC has been working on..  https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapt … spberry_Pi

7 (edited by w0t 2017-07-31 09:06 PM)

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

kiwiracer wrote:

Oh, yea.. 

Im thinking of perhaps using something like this, where I can run RaceCapture and also the ffmpeg in the background..

here's something RC has been working on..  https://wiki.autosportlabs.com/RaceCapt … spberry_Pi

Interesting. I haven't messed with RaceCapture before. The Pro device is too much for my budget. I'll probably stick with running Harry's Lap Timer on my iPhone for the time being (upcoming blog post on the in car telemetry+OBDII+GoPro setup).

If you go the RC route, let me know how it works out.

What part of the country are you in?

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Race capture track is pretty reasonably priced

I'm in so cal

9 (edited by w0t 2017-08-07 06:53 AM)

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

Let me know how the RC solution works out, I might check that out at some point.

BTW, I recorded a test video over the weekend to RaceCast.me with the camera bitrate turned up higher than it was at Laguna Seca (the cellular service through AT&T was pretty bad there).

https://live.racecast.me/profile/buffharder (see video "3mbps test w/Raspberry Pi camera (windows open)")

10

Re: HOWTO: $110 RaceCast.me camera/streamer DIY

I was able to sort out the audio "pop" that happened every two seconds with an updated command line that increased the audio input buffering.

The last thing to do now is to find a way to muffle the sound & wind buffeting so I'm not over driving the microphone.