GeorgeCo

I've been instructing for a couple of years and was trying to find a (relatively) inexpensive way to integrate video and telemetry data, but take the system along when I hop in a student's car too. Here's what I have so far:

1. CruiseCam In-Car Headrest Camera Mount
2. OptrixHD iPhone 4 case with wide-angle lens
3. Dual XGPS150 Bluetooth external GPS
4. PLX Devices KIWI Wifi OBD-II wireless interface
5. Harry's Laptimer Pro software for iPhone

The CruiseCam arm mounts to the passenger side headrest. (Doesn't work in P-cars.) The Optrix HD mounts to the arm via quick release. The GPS mounts to the windshield via Velcro (everyone here has an EZpass toll device so velcro is in most cars). The PLX device plugs into the OBD-II port and the cable is stuffed away or strapped up using Velcro straps. Download the track you want to drive and Laptimer Pro starts recording automatically once you cross the designated starting point.

Anybody else use the Optrix HD and find a decent place to mount it in car without a cage and/or in a way that can be moved easily from car to car?

If I can't use the CruiseCam headrest mount, I use an external camera (in this case a ReplayXD) with a clip-mount and integrate the video to your data later. This took a little experimentation to figure out but here's a relatively painless way to do it. You just need to know the visual reference for your start/end point in Laptimer. If it's a track, it's the start/finish line. I'm using an iMac, I imagine there's a similar path for Windows.)

1. Figure out what the format of your video file is first. If it is a format that the iPhone can understand natively, skip ahead to step #3.
2. Convert your video to a format the iPhone will understand. In this case, convert the file from AVI to M4V using Quicktime export.
3. Export your video to the iPhone. You can do this in several ways: load the file into your iTunes movie library then sync to the iPhone; attach and send to yourself via email and save from email on your iPhone; or iMessage it to your iPhone and save to the camera roll.
4. Review the data your recorded in Laptimer and decide which lap you want to overlay with data. Laptimer overlays data one lap at a time.
5. On your computer, find the runtime of the video when that lap ends.
6. View the lap data in Laptimer.
7. Select Edit.
8. Select Add Video.
9. Select the video you just uploaded to your iPhone.
10. Set the end point of your lap based on the runtime noted above.
11. Select the frame in the video matching the end of the timed lap. (Start/Finish line)
12. Then select Overlay.

Laptimer Pro will do the post processing and your video will show up in your camera roll.

Video with the OBD-II data in a MINI Cooper S.

Same track in my 996 daily driver without the OBD-II data.

(Let me know if the links are not working.)

pontifex4

The additional captions over the video are interesting. I like the vMax and vMin in particular.

This has changed since I used it last.

Did you manually enter "Braking point for T5" in the Mini video, or is it something the app does?

GeorgeCo

vMax and vMin is cool but very sensitive to the quality of your GPS signal. Before I got the external GPS, I would get a corner speed of 14MPH from the iphone GPS when you could see the center speedo reading 65.

The break point for turn 5 and exit for turn 9 came over in the SP Main download. They are used for sector times as well.

Gary R.

Looks good but too many things to deal with, toss a standalone SmartyCam in and be done with it!

GeorgeCo

I thought about that, but I'm cheap and I was trying to make the most of stuff I already had laying about. Besides I want something to work in other cars besides my own. The PLX cable I was using with an OPD-II code reader app (sunk cost). The ReplayXD camera I've had for a couple of years but stopped using. I already had the iPhone 4, and the CruiseCam arm I bought on fleaBay for around $10 five years ago. So the only incremental costs were the Optrix case which is about $100, the GPS which I bought with Amex points, and HLT which is about $20.