FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

the threat you linked has 13 pages to read, could you mabye tell me what part of it i should look at ? that'd be really nice.
geekmaster wrote:
malicor wrote:50 feet and indoors would be fine for my purpose.
what i'm looking for indoors is a maximum quality of video stream

any suggestion what exact transmitter i should use ?

regards, malicor
Unfortunately, affordable wireless media devices have the weight at the transmitter end, but the receiver is portable (for a portable Rift):
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 47#p118380

For FPV, not so good. There are chipsets available, so if you cannot find a suitable portable HDMI transmitter, you might be able to design and build your own (or hire somebody to do it for you).

What is MUCH more commonly done for FPV is to let an HD camera (Hero, etc.) on the aircraft record HD video for later use, and use a low-definition analog camera to fly the aircraft with FPV.
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:i do need it for livestreaming, so recording and playing later won't do the trick. i do need a livestream with maximum quality.
though indoors / 50feet range would be sufficient.
If you do not fly behind obstructions (or have multiple receivers) perhaps you can use optical HD transmission, like this:
http://www.geek.com/mobile/hd-video-dem ... b-1410085/
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

this sounds like a fun idea, but i think there'll be two big problems:
- range will probably be pretty limited, and it'll probaby happen often that the stream of light will not hit the receiver anymore
- obstacles seem to be a huge problem, since they immediately and completely block the complete stream

what about my idea of transmitting analog but not on one channel but on four, or six or whatever many ? and somehow fit the data back together on the other side ?
geekmaster wrote:
malicor wrote:i do need it for livestreaming, so recording and playing later won't do the trick. i do need a livestream with maximum quality.
though indoors / 50feet range would be sufficient.
If you do not fly behind obstructions (or have multiple receivers) perhaps you can use optical HD transmission, like this:
http://www.geek.com/mobile/hd-video-dem ... b-1410085/
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:
geekmaster wrote:
malicor wrote:i do need it for livestreaming, so recording and playing later won't do the trick. i do need a livestream with maximum quality.
though indoors / 50feet range would be sufficient.
If you do not fly behind obstructions (or have multiple receivers) perhaps you can use optical HD transmission, like this:
http://www.geek.com/mobile/hd-video-dem ... b-1410085/
this sounds like a fun idea, but i think there'll be two big problems:
- range will probably be pretty limited, and it'll probaby happen often that the stream of light will not hit the receiver anymore
- obstacles seem to be a huge problem, since they immediately and completely block the complete stream

what about my idea of transmitting analog but not on one channel but on four, or six or whatever many ? and somehow fit the data back together on the other side ?
Although "top posting" is the preferred style in email and mailing lists, it is considered to be bad "netiquette" in most forums such as this one. I rearranged your post in my quote to conform with the existing style commonly used here. Your posts should follow the local posting style as well.

Your aircraft could spread the LEDS around its surface, and you can place multiple receivers around the room, so at least one LED is always visible to at least one receiver. Light range is NOT limited. You can see superbright LEDs from miles away.

Combining multiple channels of analog requires more free channels, or at least one of them will have interference from other devices (and close proximity transmitters will certainly interfere with each other). Also, there are only 4 Wi-Fi channels allocated for analog video transmission, and they overlap with other digital Wi-Fi transmissions. Digital communications with FEC (forward error correction) may be more robust and with h.264 compression would also use less bandwidth, and can be broadcast on ANY available Wi-Fi channel. Combining the analog signals at the receiver would be complicated, and splitting the analog signals at the aircraft would also be complicated (requiring power-hungry processing).
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:the threat you linked has 13 pages to read, could you mabye tell me what part of it i should look at ? that'd be really nice.
Sorry, I copied the thread link instead of the post link. Here is a link to the post that I meant to link:
http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 86#p123086
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

doesn't this here sound really promising ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dkau47GWZ4
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:doesn't this here sound really promising ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dkau47GWZ4
It does look interesting, but I can only find transmitters in stock. Receivers are on backorder at many online stores. Total price $229 (or more):
http://www.shoptronics.com/nyrius-aries ... ptops.html

The detailed product specifications look promising (160-feet range):
Wireless Technology GigaXtreme Technology
System Requirements Any source device with an HDMI® such as a Blu-ray, PS3®, Xbox 360® or cable box.

Optimized for use with a laptop or desktop system containing an HDMI port including popular models from these manufacturers: Alienware, Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, Apple (Display Port cable not included)
Ports and Interfaces HDMI, Micro-USB
Environmental Requirements Operating temperature: -10° to 40° C
Storage temperature: -20° to 80° C
Relative humidity: 15 ~ 8 5 %RH
Power 5V / 1A (Transmitter)
5V / 2A (Receiver)
Video Formats TV: 1080p, 1080i,720p, 576p, 480p
PC : 1024x768, 1280x1024, 640x480, 800x600
Audio Formats Supported PCM , DTS , Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound
TV Compatibility Any high-definition television including 3D TVs containing an HDMI port, including popular models from these manufacturers: Hitachi, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, NEC, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizio, Westinghouse
Wireless Range 160 feet open space (clear line of sight)
Transmission Frequency 5.15 ~ 5.25 GHz
5.25 ~ 5.35 GHz
5.47 ~ 5.725 GHz
5.725 ~ 5.850 GHz
Transmitter Dimensions Length: 3.85 inches (98mm)
Width: 1.14 inches (29mm)
Height: 0.57 inch (14.5 mm)
Receiver Dimensions Length: 3.89 inches (99 mm)
Width: 2.2 inches (56 mm)
Height: 0.81 inch (20.5 mm)
But beware that it uses wireless media frequencies, which are restricted by FCC regulation to indoor use only (in the USA). Most wireless media devices only claim a range of only 15 to 50 feet, and the farther you get between transmitter and receiver the poorer the signal quality. Unless this product exceeds maximum allowed transmit power, they may not be accurate on their "160-feet range" claims.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

http://www.amazon.com/Nyrius-Transmitte ... B009E6R89C

amazon seems to sell it, but there seems to be -loads- of systems like this. i wonder which one's the best for my purpose.
Grix
Two Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 68
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:01 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by Grix »

I don't understand why you need HD anyways. The oculus only have a resolution of 640*800 on each eye, and most analog FPV systems are not much worse than that (400 lines or so IIRC). The usable resolution on the rift (the part of the screen you can actually look at) is even lower, if you downscale the image a bit you will have no problem reaching the max potential resolution.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

Grix wrote:I don't understand why you need HD anyways. The oculus only have a resolution of 640*800 on each eye, and most analog FPV systems are not much worse than that (400 lines or so IIRC). The usable resolution on the rift (the part of the screen you can actually look at) is even lower, if you downscale the image a bit you will have no problem reaching the max potential resolution.
The consumer version will have higher resolution, plus geekmaster pointed out that analog is only 320x200, which is way way less than 2 times 640x800
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

maybe it's possible to use YPbPr as method of analog transmission and gain in quality ?
from what i've seen all those tx/rx systems have 8 channels, wouldnt it be an idea to use three of them for YPbPr ?
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

some more links on the wireless hd-indoor idea:
i'm just tossing them into the room, and i don't know if many, if any, of those will actually help.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/wifi/hp ... -2012.aspx
http://go.iogear.com/lp/GW3DHDKIT/
http://sr-systems.de/content.php?show=H ... &style=std (no idea if any of these products here are of any help actually)
http://www.advmw.com/uav.html (no idea if/where one can buy these, or how much they'd cost)
http://www.ubnt.com/airmax#picostationm (the picostation is with 100g pretty heavy, and might not be suitable at all either)
http://www.imt-government.com/vstx (probably great, and probably expensive)
http://www.eaglecctv.co.za/e-cofdm-tx-m ... ransmitter (probably great, and probably expensive)
http://www.ecbub.com/byp_3458506_Cute-M ... mitter.htm (the same as cheap and maybe useless chinese version?)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... order.html (people mentioned this to be good, though it's expensive)
http://www.airborneinnovations.com/ai/?page_id=469 (again, pretty expensive, but still below <1000$)
http://www.adaptiverf.com/COFDM-OEM-Module.php (maybe too heavy?)
Grix
Two Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 68
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2013 4:01 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by Grix »

malicor wrote:
Grix wrote:I don't understand why you need HD anyways. The oculus only have a resolution of 640*800 on each eye, and most analog FPV systems are not much worse than that (400 lines or so IIRC). The usable resolution on the rift (the part of the screen you can actually look at) is even lower, if you downscale the image a bit you will have no problem reaching the max potential resolution.
The consumer version will have higher resolution, plus geekmaster pointed out that analog is only 320x200, which is way way less than 2 times 640x800
Analog is not just 320*200, it is an interlaced format and resolution depends a bit on what transmitter you use, but it should be able to send NTSC which is equivalent to 648*486. (480i IIRC)
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

Grix wrote:Analog is not just 320*200, it is an interlaced format and resolution depends a bit on what transmitter you use, but it should be able to send NTSC which is equivalent to 648*486. (480i IIRC)
Analog doubles its vertical resoltion with vertical interlacing. Each 60Hz field is combined into a 30Hz frame, but there can be complications with digitizing this, with various "pull-down" or "bob and weave" methods to help combine interleaved video frames, but you still get ugly artifacts in some cases. NTSC encoding also alternates the checkerboard artifacts created by the 3.58MHz color encoding, resulting in "dot crawl" along brightlight colored edges in the video (especially computer generated video such as OSD).

NTSC video is actually 360 non-square pixels per line (determined by the 3.58MHz colorburst frequency), but many video digitizers use a wider pixel clock to create square pixels, resulting in only 320 pixels per scanline, but many digitizers also let you select non-square pixels (i.e. 360 pixels per line). To digitize more than 360 pixels per line you either need to turn off colorburst (and its low-pass filter) at the transmitting end, giving monochrome video, or you need to transmit S-Video (monochrome and composite color signals occupying two channels).

Before the colorburst signal is injected, the video is low-pass filtered to remove high-frequency components that could cause "picket fence rainbow" artifacts like old non-filtered video cameras did in the early color days (commonly visible on pin-stripe suits in video recorded in the early days of color). This low-pass filter is bypassed when shooting in Black & White (monochrome) allowing 720 grayscale pixels per scanline instead of 360 colored pixels.
http://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/feature/Video-resolution-standards-primer wrote:CIF, known as either Common Intermediate Format or Common Interchange Format, is the standard bearer for most Web conferencing solutions and consumer video chat products. CIF itself is defined as having an image resolution of 352x288, pushing images at 30 frames per second. The full CIF standard is a similar resolution to standard definition television broadcasts.
Despite the claims you read about resolutions (such as above), you can double the vertical resolution with interlacing, but because the combined fields came from different times, the result can be very ugly for motion video, and is therefore often sacrificed when digitizing still frames. When ditigizing video, various forms of interpolation can be used to synthesize the missing scanlines from the "other" 60Hz field, but that can cause time-domain artifacts.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

what do you think about my YPbPr idea ?
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:what do you think about my YPbPr idea ?
You can do YPbPr at 480p, but higher resolution needs extra bandwidth for the Y channel, and you really do not gain anything over the benefits of S-Video (Y/C) while requiring more analog channels. For HD, you need at least FOUR times the bandwidth just for the Y component alone, and splitting C (chroma) into PbPr has no benefit but costs an extra channel.

IMHO...

To understand this stuff completely, you really should read "Video Demystified" which is reference by just about every video book that came after it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=6dgWB3 ... frontcover
Download link:
http://www.nerdsprime.com/stuff/Electro ... ied_3E.pdf
http://bks5.books.google.com/books?id=6 ... fAkaKKI51-

Image
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

right now i'm fighting with the raspberry-pi + the eascap.
"lsusb" shows me an additional device, if i plug it in, but leaves the name empty and "usbdevices" shows it, but again with no name.
i can't find any entry in /dev/... though.

i tried this here:
Hi,

It's working for me, I can capture video with the Easycap STK1160 on my Raspberry Pi !

I have just installed the latest Raspbian image (2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian, kernel 3.6.11+) :
+ apt-get update/upgrade
+ install & run 'rpi-update' to update kernel
+ remove SPI & I2C from the blacklist (modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf)
+ apt install vlc, mplayer and gstreamer-0.10
+ reboot with the easycap connected

'lsusb' shows the "STK1160 Video Capture Device"
'usb-devices' shows the driver 'easycap' for audio and video
And the video device has been created as /dev/video0

To display the video stream, from a desktop session :
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:norm=PAL_BGHIN:width=640:height=480:outfmt=uyvy:device=/dev/video0:input=1:fps=10 -vo sdl -hardframedrop -msglevel all=6

It also works with VLC !
i do have the eascap dc60 though, maybe i'll need to do other stuff ...
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:right now i'm fighting with the raspberry-pi + the eascap.
"lsusb" shows me an additional device, if i plug it in, but leaves the name empty and "usbdevices" shows it, but again with no name.
i can't find any entry in /dev/... though.

i tried this here:
Hi,

It's working for me, I can capture video with the Easycap STK1160 on my Raspberry Pi !

I have just installed the latest Raspbian image (2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian, kernel 3.6.11+) :
+ apt-get update/upgrade
+ install & run 'rpi-update' to update kernel
+ remove SPI & I2C from the blacklist (modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf)
+ apt install vlc, mplayer and gstreamer-0.10
+ reboot with the easycap connected

'lsusb' shows the "STK1160 Video Capture Device"
'usb-devices' shows the driver 'easycap' for audio and video
And the video device has been created as /dev/video0

To display the video stream, from a desktop session :
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:norm=PAL_BGHIN:width=640:height=480:outfmt=uyvy:device=/dev/video0:input=1:fps=10 -vo sdl -hardframedrop -msglevel all=6

It also works with VLC !
i do have the easycap dc60 though, maybe i'll need to do other stuff ...
Not just any EasyCap DC60 will do. Some clones use a different chipset. Does yours contain the STK1160 chipset? If not, that could be your problem.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

how would i find out ? do i have to open the thing somehow ?

the manual at least has a sentence:
...should see the "stk1160 atv bda" ...
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:how would i find out ? do i have to open the thing somehow ?

the manual at least has a sentence:
...should see the "stk1160 atv bda" ...
Uses for a fake EasyCap:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KsyFLafxA

Raspberry Pi and Easycap devices:
http://easycap.blogspot.com/2013/03/raspberry-pi-and-easycap-devices.html?showComment=1365555483389#c8887109089605719538 wrote:Sebastien WarinApril 10, 2013 at 2:58 AM

Hi,

It's working for me, I can capture video with the Easycap STK1160 on my Raspberry Pi !

I have just installed the latest Raspbian image (2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian, kernel 3.6.11+) :
+ apt-get update/upgrade
+ install & run 'rpi-update' to update kernel
+ remove SPI & I2C from the blacklist (modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf)
+ apt install vlc, mplayer and gstreamer-0.10
+ reboot with the easycap connected

'lsusb' shows the "STK1160 Video Capture Device"
'usb-devices' shows the driver 'easycap' for audio and video
And the video device has been created as /dev/video0

To display the video stream, from a desktop session :
mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:norm=PAL_BGHIN:width=640:height=480:outfmt=uyvy:device=/dev/video0:input=1:fps=10 -vo sdl -hardframedrop -msglevel all=6

It also works with VLC !

ps: the video is green if there is no signal connected to the easycap
It looks like he is capturing 640x480 video with his RasPi and EasyCap device. I do not have an EasyCap, so the best I can do is provide links and quotes that I found with Google...
User avatar
zacherynuk
Binocular Vision CONFIRMED!
Posts: 296
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 2:56 pm
Location: England

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by zacherynuk »

Hi there,

I have used my DIY rift (5.6") quite a bit for FPV flight and it's very good.

This was my basic flight setup: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDpolBRDKcQ

Getting stereo is another matter, however as the bandwidth used by the transmitter is very high. I fly with 2.4Ghz video and old 35mhz control - I can 'get away' with two cameras on 2.4 - but you need to be in a secluded spot away from wifi and ESPECIALLY other flyers - you will be tarred and feathered, normal model flyers hate FPVers, generally speaking. In the UK anyways.

I also rigged up a wifi stereo camera, but latency was far far to high for real time usage.

My rig was based around Fat Shark, to to get my feed I just took the AV out of the fat shark goggles and into my 7in1.

It's worth pointing out that I find flight in stereo pretty, but unnecessary. For cars / trucks and tanks however it is very cool indeed.

With the 'real' rift, due to the partial overlap and HDMI/DVI requirements, I am expecting to have to run the feed through a laptop to processes first, which as you suggest, may cause some bad lag - but we'll see. hopefully soon.

PS - I got some of my stuff (tranny, camera and fat shark from here: http://www.firstpersonview.co.uk/ )
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

i now tried to use the easycap dc60 with my windows7-fullhd-laptop.

it's recognized, but when i directly plugin the horyzonhd-v3 camera (via it's analog cable), i get no picture, just grey.

any idea what i could have to do here ?

regards, malicor
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:i now tried to use the easycap dc60 with my windows7-fullhd-laptop.

it's recognized, but when i directly plugin the horyzonhd-v3 camera (via it's analog cable), i get no picture, just grey.

any idea what i could have to do here ?

regards, malicor
According to this:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1810451
it is a 1080p digicam with h.264 output. Although you did not say, perhaps your receiver provides an analog video output, which the EasyCap needs for its video input. If you are indeed feeding analog video from the camera to the EasyCap, perhaps you need to select a different video modulation method (NTSC/PAL/SECAM)? The video out and video in need to use the same modulation. The receiver may have some way to select video format, but the EasyCap driver software should also have such a selection. Just make sure they match.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

i didnt go via a tx/rx at all so far. i directly plugged the mini-hdmi <-> analog cable into the yellow analog-port of the easycap-dc60
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:i didnt go via a tx/rx at all so far. i directly plugged the mini-hdmi <-> analog cable into the yellow analog-port of the easycap-dc60
What sort of digital to analog converter did you use? Or are there analog wires embedded in that mini-hdmi connector? I did not see that listed in the camera specs.

EDIT: In a discussion about your camera, others who seem to be knowledgeable on this device have this to say about what you are trying to accomplish:
At http://www.camerabestsellers.net/blog/exploding-quadcopter-and-foxtech-horyzonhd-fpv-v3-camera-review-turnigy-9xr-rmilec-uhf/, Neill Campbell wrote:The real problem is that HDMI is digital and RCA is analog. You will need a converter box, which normally run something like 30 – 40 bucks, but which are relatively lightweight for your aircraft.
Obviously that means you cannot do this on a very small aircraft, but really for just about anything that is not absolutely minuscule this will work fine.
A GoPro Hero3 HD camera has analog video out buried in its mini-hdmi connector, so perhaps yours does to, in which case a converter box would not be needed:
http://hackaday.com/2013/05/13/gopro-ha ... uadcopter/
You did not really provide enough details (and neither does the product spec), so perhaps that IS what you are doing.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

you're right, it's not listed anywhere, the cable looks something like this:

Image

i can plug it directly into the horyzonhd
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:you're right, it's not listed anywhere, the cable looks something like this:
...
i can plug it directly into the horyzonhd
Apparently, "experts" at that other forum were not aware of this optional analog video cable.

So back to your problem: be sure the camera and EasyCap are using the same video modulation standard (NTSC/PAL/SECAM). You can probably select that in the camera menus, and also in the EasyCap software.

It is typical to digitize NTSC as 640x480i 30FPS, or PAL 800x600i 25Hz. Or you may be able to run half resolution (QVGA) at twice the frequency, depending on your available options and personal requirements.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

i checked that already, and tried with both PAL and NTSC on both sides. the computer allows me various versions of PAL/NTSC though (PAL-B, PAL-D, and 10 more).
i didn't try all yet. the horyzonhd offers only either PAL or NTSC.

no combination i tried yet worked.
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:i checked that already, and tried with both PAL and NTSC on both sides. the computer allows me various versions of PAL/NTSC though (PAL-B, PAL-D, and 10 more).
i didn't try all yet. the horyzonhd offers only either PAL or NTSC.

no combination i tried yet worked.
Have you tried digitizing OTHER analog video content with your EasyCap (such as the analog output of an "antique" VCR)? Also, can you view the video out from the camera on a different device (such as the analog input on a TV or VCR)?

When troubleshooting such problems it helps to "divide and conquer", splitting the problem in half and figuring out which side is not working, until you solve the entire problem. In this case, start by figuring out if the problem is with the camera or EasyCap video digitizer. If EasyCap, then test whether it is hardware or software (perhaps by trying a different EasyCap device). If software, test to see whether it is the driver software or the configuration settings. And so on... Just like any other hardware or software debugging...

When I buy hackable hardware (and hackability strongly influences my purchasing decisions), I almost ALWAYS buy two, so that I have one for hacking and/or part-swapping to help with diagnosing problems with the other one. In fact, I currently have FIVE Razer Hydras (but sadly, only ONE Rift DK).
:D :(
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

if i just turn on the camera itself, i can see the video on the small camera-intern screen, so there -is- a picture.
once i connect the hdmi->analog cable, that picture goes off. (with the cable plugged into the computer or not)
though this might be default and correct behavior, since the camera "thinks" that it's plugged in somewhere else.

i'll try some more troubleshooting:)
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show ... e=activity

these guys seem to do digital video transmission, though with a huge plane ...
that would be waaay over my league, i wouldn't want to crash something like this, but maybe that could give some advice about getting some smaller digital video transmission setup ?

any ideas on this ?

regards, malicor
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show ... e=activity

these guys seem to do digital video transmission, though with a huge plane ...
that would be waaay over my league, i wouldn't want to crash something like this, but maybe that could give some advice about getting some smaller digital video transmission setup ?

any ideas on this ?

regards, malicor
They are talking 1W wifi, and they have not yet solved the quarter-second h.264 encoding lag. Very bad latency there...

You need an amateur radio license for more than one watt of wifi transmit power (up to 200 watts ERP), and you need to stay on the lower wifi channels that overlap the amateur radio band (2400-2450MHz). I have both a license and 2W wifi equipment, but I am using 2.4GHz analog video (also 2W) at this time... For high-power wifi, you need to add your amateur radio callsign to your SSID.

For long distance FPV, not only does analog video have essentially zero latency, but it also degrades gracefully (which is why I use it). Digital will have sudden unexpected dropouts, and of course, much higher latency. High bandwidth needs large packets to efficiently use the radio spectrum, but large packets incur high latency costs. And the digital codecs (on both Tx and Rx ends) add their own latency as well, (usually) only returning a fully-decoded packet. It would be possible to implement a streaming protocol that sends unfinished packet bytes, but that could be bad on the Tx end (RF channel retention, and increased battery consumption during encoding delays during increased image complexity). For streaming digital video, a variable framerate may help improve throughput, but it may harm latency...

For FPV, analog video is safer in many ways, IMHO... That is why I selected it, but YMMV...
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

this seems to be a nice idea, too:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/camera-board

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/oculu ... vr-goggles
Here is my two cents and wishes for developers.
Raspberry Pi camera module with 1080 5 mpixel sensor is in production this week, probably out for sale in a few weeks. estimated 30$ or so, and 2x2cm size ish.
Combine with a Raspberry PI with a camera module on plane, with Wifi link streams video straight to basestation with another Raspberry Pi with HDMI out into the Rift glasses, Live video. 2.4 ghz are cheap and easily availiable for cheap. Standalone solution and you can pick up the video stream on another computer at the same time for recording.
Do some more hacking and get the Oculus Rift head tracking connected to The Raspberry and send via Wifi up to the plane.
If someone manages to get that working i will be thrilled!
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:this seems to be a nice idea, too:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/tag/camera-board

http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/oculu ... vr-goggles
Here is my two cents and wishes for developers.
Raspberry Pi camera module with 1080 5 mpixel sensor is in production this week, probably out for sale in a few weeks. estimated 30$ or so, and 2x2cm size ish.
Combine with a Raspberry PI with a camera module on plane, with Wifi link streams video straight to basestation with another Raspberry Pi with HDMI out into the Rift glasses, Live video. 2.4 ghz are cheap and easily availiable for cheap. Standalone solution and you can pick up the video stream on another computer at the same time for recording.
Do some more hacking and get the Oculus Rift head tracking connected to The Raspberry and send via Wifi up to the plane.
If someone manages to get that working i will be thrilled!
If you can live with the increased latency from digital encoding/decoding, great! I have been testing some of my Rift code on my Raspberry Pi. I think it will be a useful portable VR platform. It does need you to offload some of the processing onto the CPU though. You cannot get a high framerate with the CPU and framebuffer alone. My mplayer port with compiled in Rift support only gets about 4 FPS on my RasPi. That would not be good for decoding an FPV digital video stream. I need to work on that...
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

how do you plan to increase the fps ?
geekmaster
Petrif-Eyed
Posts: 2708
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:47 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by geekmaster »

malicor wrote:how do you plan to increase the fps ?
GLSL ???

In reality, you can buy a license for codecs that run on the GPU, so I am not sure how effectively we can do it in software that is able to pre-warp the display. It should work for app-generated content, but with the code running in the GPU, I am not so sure just how much we can do in the CPU. Perhaps with 320x240 resolution or something...

The RasPi will certainly have stricter limits than a desktop environment, regarding what you can do on it. But some things will be a good fit for a Rift DK and a RasPi. We just need to create or discover them.

I think FPV will be easier with analog video, unless you can get a digital camera that puts out something easy to decode quickly. The problem is the tradeoff between bandwidth and decoding speed. Here is a good intro to video decoding:
http://emericdev.wordpress.com/2011/08/ ... -decoding/

Perhaps I just need to work in a different colorspace to get a higher framerate, but just letting the CPU TOUCH all the pixels in the framebuffer prevents a full 1280x800 60Hz speed. Full framebuffers are better processed by GLSL shaders.
malicor
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 47
Joined: Tue Apr 16, 2013 1:23 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by malicor »

is the really low resolution really no issue for you ? even though both the cameras and the oculus rift have way better ? (and the consumer version of the rift will probably even have 1080p, too ?)

i wonder what the best way with a flying raspberry-pi would be, regarding sending data down.
emrlabs
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 9:44 pm

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by emrlabs »

Hey guys,

We're working on a community driven FPV solution for the Oculus Rift. Check out the worlds first Oculus Rift FPV flight. Were calling the solution the Transporter3D. We're looking at doing a production version and are crowd sourcing the final features.

Check it out, set it to high res and have your Rift ready to put on when instructed by the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u74rf4ztJTI

We'd love to have your feedback.

Trevor
wileythecoyote
One Eyed Hopeful
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Feb 04, 2013 8:54 am

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by wileythecoyote »

50ft+ So 2 wi-fi cameras should do the trick. Then you need a software that makes them side-by-side stereoscopic image. After that it would be as simple as capturing that side-by-side feed with oculus overlay and feeding it on to your headset. You'd need a small laptop, but that could be easily carried in a backbag with oculus control box and batteries.
Opentrack supports rift so maybe it could be utilized to feed the tracking data to your tx and from there to the camera servos.
User avatar
zacherynuk
Binocular Vision CONFIRMED!
Posts: 296
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2010 2:56 pm
Location: England

Re: FPV (remote control planes) and the Oculus Rift

Post by zacherynuk »

emrlabs wrote:Hey guys,

We're working on a community driven FPV solution for the Oculus Rift. Check out the worlds first Oculus Rift FPV flight. Were calling the solution the Transporter3D. We're looking at doing a production version and are crowd sourcing the final features.

Check it out, set it to high res and have your Rift ready to put on when instructed by the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u74rf4ztJTI

We'd love to have your feedback.

Trevor
This looks pretty bloody awesome - exactly what I was looking for, I think. Though I would appreciate more technical info on the website - especially frequency usage :) - I'll sign up cheers

Edit: Is there a forum / more info ? I guess I can use my fat shark transmitter & reciever with your 3D camera; where does the OR warping happen?

My DIY rift is excellent as a FPV goggle... ooh i'm exited to get this working without using a laptop to to the image blending (That's huge lag added)
Post Reply

Return to “Oculus VR”