ir_fuel

LOL, that's not what I meant. Of course you can, since that's what i've been doing for 2 years with our race car.
I'm talking about using Youtube vs Racecast.

Frank 993 C4S

Got it (I'm a little slow at my age)!

You can use Youtube, Facebook or others. In my research what I have found most useful about Racecast is its integration with Racemonitor. In essence, it allows you to pull up a Racemonitor event and identify all the participants that have live streaming and then watch whichever participant you want to follow.

ProCoach

^^THIS^^

dan212

I explored this topic a couple of years ago with some coaches and a plan to support it.. The problem as I saw it is 3G / cell saturation. Needed some investment and I didn't push the plan very hard.

For a few cars, its not that big a deal, but if enough people start doing this, the limited cellular throughput available at a track will be saturated.

Cell capacity is a real problem, My daughter in law went to USC. Cell service was routinely saturated on game day and altogether hopeless on graduation day. The carriers know this and the two majors sell cellular repeaters (to give better coverage on hilly terrain) and 3G to Cable/Fiber uplinks that bypass the carrier's limited cell tower throughput and go to their dark fiber/cable transit (e.g.. it still goes through their network, just doesn't overwhelm their 3G capacity.

Imagine 30-50 people streaming reasonably high def video at the same time. Do the math and you will realize that winds up being a lot of data for a low population venue.

I came up with a design to use a meshed wireless (WIFI) network with either a broadband link (Cable) or Satellite uplink. A bit more pricey for that infrastructure, but with Satellite uplink it could be portable.

There is a reason that the networks show up at big races with in car video with big satellite trucks.

My meshed WIFI design actually downverted (lowered resolution) the stream locally before live streaming in order to limit total live uplink load while saving the full def content locally for later upload. Same thing could be done using cellular repeaters and a hard link cell to land line uplink (very common in large offices). The meshed WIFI could still stream full def locally as WIFI even if the live uplink was downverted to control uplink load.

To be clear, I am not pushing a solution or suggesting that my own design should be used. But I am pointing out that we will have a problem if enough people start streaming over cell. Never mind that most carriers try to cap monthly 3G data transfer totals and it gets expensive.

ir_fuel

Absolutely. Our solutions only work as long as we are one of the few doing it at the race (and if there aren't 100K+ crowds saturating the network with their Snapchat/Instagram/FB Live/... stuff).

If you arrive at a point where 75% of participants want it, I think it is time to talk to the organizers and come up with a better solution.

911racer

I agree with the cell service.

The other issue is that most of the track are in rural area, so not strong cell service to begin with.

I had tried this a couple of years ago with 'livestream' and my gopro through my iphone at Road America. The picture locked up in the pits. Sound was still good. Of course, this was 2 years ago.

I plan on trying again this year with my 360Fly through my iPhone using Livit.

Thanks

Ed

ProCoach

This stuff is fine for following from afar what folks are doing, but Dan's plan for a hi-power LAN wireless mesh (or microwave repeaters around the track back to somewhere central) is good enough for any real-time feedback.

Livestream, RaceCapture Pro, FB Live and Periscope (RIP) all go through central servers via IP, so there is latency piled on at every transfer... It's good entertainment, but that's all, right now.

When it works (and is at a reasonable scale), I WILL buy and implement it for my work. It'll be a good tool, then.

ir_fuel

We only do it for the fans. Go through youtube and you have 30s latency. Completely useless for any real-time stuff. But fun to watch in the box and at home nevertheless.

ir_fuel

Mine arrives on the 2nd of January

ir_fuel

Seems it doesn't. It arrived today

Configured everything to connect with my mifi router and it works fine with my Gopro, streaming to youtube. Will test it in my car later today.

Frank 993 C4S

I checked out my system yesterday with my GoPro by installing it in my car and driving around. Latency was at about 10 sec which is not bad. The GoPro does not have to be recording in order to transmit data.

There is a Chump Car race at Sebring today with three cars live streaming. Their streaming quality is excellent all the way around the track. You can watch their live stream through RaceMonitor.com.

ir_fuel

I just managed to get streaming up and running on the Facebook page of our race team. This is going to be fun next season

ProCoach

Good deal, guys!

Frank 993 C4S

System is installed and working. I will be using a forward facing GoPro mounted to the passenger side B-Pillar. Streaming via iPhone personal hotspot. So far so good....

Frank 993 C4S

Any feedback from those that watched my live stream from the Sebring Club Race last weekend? Cell reception was NOT good at the track.