Data over video: What software?

[mrmr96]

Ok so you can use apps like Harry's Lap Timer (and loads others) to capture things like Speed, G Force, Direction, Position using your phone. You can also use a wireless ODB2 dongle to beam engine parameters to your phone and log those too. Then you can use a camera to capture footage and overlay using PC software. (In fact Harry's Laptimer to capture video and do data overlay right in the app, but you're limited to just the phone camera I think.)

So I've used Dashware:
http://www.dashware.net/
and it was OK. Bit basic looking.

I've also tried Race Render:
http://racerender.com/RR2/Features.html
And I couldn't figure out how to sync data and video.

Is there anything else that people use to overlay a data file and a video? (I want data from any iPhone app, which captures ODB2 via a dongle I'm yet to buy, and I want video from GoPro 3 which I own.)

Cheers

[mmm-five]

You can use Harry's LapTimer with a GoPro, but you have to import the GoPro video into the iPhone and do the overlay there.

[Jon999]

Why not use the iPhone for video too? With a clip on lens the quality is as good if not better than the gopro.

[GreigM]

surprised you say dashware is basic looking - its very customizable and I've seen some great looking displays with it - what exactly are you wanting it to do?

[mrmr96]

mmm-five said:

You can use Harry's LapTimer with a GoPro, but you have to import the GoPro video into the iPhone and do the overlay there.

Seems like a PITA since the go pro video files will be several GB. But it's an option I suppose. (I also considered seeing if I could take a blank video, ie. tape over the lens, to get Harry's to write overlay onto black and then use some clever colour replace software to treat black as transparent and then overlay that over go pro)

[mrmr96]

Jon999 said:

Why not use the iPhone for video too? With a clip on lens the quality is as good if not better than the gopro.

Because I've two go pro cameras to do PiP. (Will do this in SW before overlaying data onto the result.) I also don't want my phone bolted to the outside of the car where the cameras are!

[mrmr96]

GreigM said:

surprised you say dashware is basic looking - its very customizable and I've seen some great looking displays with it - what exactly are you wanting it to do?

Maybe I need to learn to use it better. But the output looked pretty clunky compared with Harry's. I particularly like the peak on straights and min speed on corners. Also corner names. Can Dashware do that?

[mrmr96]

mrmr96 said:

mmm-five said:

You can use Harry's LapTimer with a GoPro, but you have to import the GoPro video into the iPhone and do the overlay there.

Seems like a PITA since the go pro video files will be several GB. But it's an option I suppose. (I also considered seeing if I could take a blank video, ie. tape over the lens, to get Harry's to write overlay onto black and then use some clever colour replace software to treat black as transparent and then overlay that over go pro)

Ok I found a basic (and somewhat annoyingly voiced over) tutorial for green screen in the Sony movie studio software I have.
http://youtu.be/CWpKht8TIcM
If she can manage I'm sure I can too! So i think I'll do a test to see how it looks if I get Harry's to render the dash over a black screen (if I cover the camera up) and then use that as a 'green screen' overlay over my go pro footage.

[Wh00sher]

I use Racerender and once you get your head round it, I find it easy to use TBH.

What format is the data you want to overlay ?

[mrmr96]

mrmr96 said:

mrmr96 said:

mmm-five said:

You can use Harry's LapTimer with a GoPro, but you have to import the GoPro video into the iPhone and do the overlay there.

Seems like a PITA since the go pro video files will be several GB. But it's an option I suppose. (I also considered seeing if I could take a blank video, ie. tape over the lens, to get Harry's to write overlay onto black and then use some clever colour replace software to treat black as transparent and then overlay that over go pro)

Ok I found a basic (and somewhat annoyingly voiced over) tutorial for green screen in the Sony movie studio software I have.
http://youtu.be/CWpKht8TIcM
If she can manage I'm sure I can too! So i think I'll do a test to see how it looks if I get Harry's to render the dash over a black screen (if I cover the camera up) and then use that as a 'green screen' overlay over my go pro footage.

Right, done my test on a short (30 sec) clip and it worked. I didn't bother to sync the harry's overlay with the underlying video from the go pro, but that would just be a case of lining them up. The main thing proven is that it's possible to point your phone at the desk, record 30secs of "black" then overlay the Harry's data on that on the iPhone itself. Then take this video which is black plus harry's needles etc on and port into Sony on PC. The underlay a gopro video under it, by making the black area on teh harry's video transparent. Works perfect.

One thing I've noticed about harry's is that it doesn't allow much customisation of the dashboard. So what i'm now thinking is:

1 Record video on 2x go pro, data on harry's. Also have harry's record video (black).
2 Use harry's to overlay just the corner names and straight peak speeds/corner apex speeds over black. (Plus any other elements I like from his overlay)
3 Export the black harry's overlayed video from iPhone, and the two go pros into Sony. Bottom layer is bumper cam fullscreen from gopro 1, then inset 2nd gopro as Picture in Picture. Finally overlay harry's by making black transparent. This concludes the main video.
4 Export the .csv data from harrys app, and bring that plus main video from step 3 into dash ware. Use dashware to add highly customised overlays for the other data.

I'd do this because I want the corner names/speeds from harry's, which I don't think dashware does (correct me if I'm wrong) but I also want to be able to customise the display size/format of the other parameters captuers which harry's doesn't allow. A bit of a work around, but I think it will work.

Wh00sher said:

I use Racerender and once you get your head round it, I find it easy to use TBH.

What format is the data you want to overlay ?

Does it support the corner names/peak straight/min corner speeds stuff like on harry's?
The data is in a .csv but I think harry's can output in other formats too.

[GreigM]

I've had a look at dashware again and you are right, the only thing you don't get is the corner names/peak speeds (although might be worth emailing the developer and asking if there is a way to do this - there are some very complex stuff which I've seen done that I couldn't figure out myself).

I see that harry's lap timer is trialling some integration with a gopro 3 - must use the wireless mode to take video across....imagine there's some sync issues though...

[mrmr96]

GreigM said:

I've had a look at dashware again and you are right, the only thing you don't get is the corner names/peak speeds (although might be worth emailing the developer and asking if there is a way to do this - there are some very complex stuff which I've seen done that I couldn't figure out myself).

I see that harry's lap timer is trialling some integration with a gopro 3 - must use the wireless mode to take video across....imagine there's some sync issues though...

Yeah I suppose there's no harm in asking if dashware supports those functions, maybe they could explain to me how. But as noted above, I do have a workaround which would allow both.

I think the harry's intergration with gopro wifi is really to do with starting and stopping the camera rather than streaming video from the gopro to the phone. I could be wrong though as I'm still learning!

[Sonic]

I've starting looking into this also, with Harry's and a gopro, but immediately stumbled because my ECU isn't OBDII and ended up writing my own for a Raspberry Pi to capture the data, integrating with my ECU, Zeitronix and a GPS receiver.

If Harry's can get the filename and position through the GoPro wifi that should make it a piece of piss to integrate with.

Failing this, TrackVision or DashWare seem to be the way to go.

[Wh00sher]

mrmr96 said:

I think the harry's intergration with gopro wifi is really to do with starting and stopping the camera rather than streaming video from the gopro to the phone. I could be wrong though as I'm still learning!

I don`t own Harry`s but I`m certain it is only to start/stop the GoPro via wifi. The GoPro doesn`t streaming live data.

As far as I know, only Harry`s supports the corner name and automatic max/min speed integration.

RR which I use allows the overlay of multiple video and data sources which are very configurable but there is no data analysis such as the automatic corner naming. Getting it to Sync is the trickiest part, I can synchronise my projects withing a couple of minutes for 2 cameras, ECU and GPS data, but the first time took a bit longer

As you say, recording `blackness` then overlaying your video in RR or Dashware would let you have the Funtionality of automatic corner naming with Picture in Picture as required.

Edited by Wh00sher on Saturday 22 June 06:01

[themanalive]

I have Harry's but I have found it to not be very accurate (up to a quarter of a second out per lap) and the speedo lags behind - tI havent tested the latest version though.

Instead I use Racechrono on an android phone. The timing is very accurate, but the best thing is that there is a dedicated piece of software called racechrono2video (or something like that) that creates an overlay of the data for you. Its already on a black background that you can then drag onto a video.

Here is a video using the setup:

http://youtu.be/dvhzwwSdueo

[funtimee]

Do they do Racechrono for the iPhone? I can't see it but not sure whether I'm looking in the right place!

Also what version of Harry's are people using? Going to get it but there's about 3 different versions - just want to be able to overlay the data onto GoPro video! :-)

[mrmr96]

Cheers for comments everyone, I'll check some of those software names out tonight.

funtimee said:

Also what version of Harry's are people using? Going to get it but there's about 3 different versions - just want to be able to overlay the data onto GoPro video! :-)

The cheapest version of Harry's is data only, the next one up does video and the top one does video and enhanced features.

The testing I've done has been using the cheapest version of harry's to get the data log. I can then overlay that onto a black video in the app. (I have to record a black video separately) And then overlay that black video with a go pro video in Sony Movie Studio. Alternativly you could load your gopro video onto your iphone and have harry's do the overlay. But I think it's easier to load both into Sony. This lets you compensate for any lag in Harry's, because you sync the video stream with the overlay and the video from go pro yourself.

I also got in touch with dashware to see if they can add straight speeds, corner speeds and corner names. They said the product doesn't currently support that, but they may add in future.

So I think the workflow I explained before will be best:
- Use basic harry's to caputre data, then overlay corner names/speeds in app on a black video I shot with my iPhone.
- Use gopro to get vide.
- Combine gopro video and "harry's over black" using Sony Movie Studio.
- Then if I want other data parameters then use dashware to combine the Harry's data stream (.csv export) with the video created above. Best of everything, but a fiddle!