How to sync EagleTree data with video?

[Maciolus]

I have seen few interesting videos with synchronized ET data. Do you know what is the easiest way to add ET info to exsting video file?

[Finnster]

Otello did some cool vids, but they are not too easy to do. You need to get a viseo screen capture of the ET data. Basically play the et file on the dashboard and capture that into a vid file. Then you overlay that w/ the RC vid file, being careful to sync the videos. I think he used adobe premere to do it (ie its beyong movie maker to do it.)

Maybe he can give more details, but thats the gist of it.

[MetalMan]

Finnster is right. It would help to watch the battery(s) being plugged in with the camera so you can use that as a reference point for the beginning of the video/data.

[othello]

It takes some time to do it. That is why i'm not doing it that often.

Stillshot form the latest Video with synched ET data.


Here is the link to the video: http://194.158.136.73/ds/rc/protis_run96_750kbits.wmv

Just goofing around on wet grass with the wrong tires. And testing a newly fitted kyosho 46t plastic spur, which came unscrewed at the end of the run ;-)

Here are some guidelines how i did this video. I wrote those lines via pm to rcmonster member "HugeOne". After exchanging a few pm's he managed to make a video byhimself.

------SNIP-----

Message 1

There are a few steps to follow if you wish to add the eagletree Data in a video. You have to familiarize yourself with Windows Media Encoder (free Software on Microsofts website) and a video editing software like Premiere Pro.

1) When shooting your video. Start Rec on your cam first and only then plug your batts to your ESC. This will help you finding the starting point of your eagletree recording in the video. Makes it easier to synchronise the video of your buggy and the video of your eagletree data. While running your car always keep the camera in rec mode (don't stop it). At the end of your run first unplug your batts and then stop recording.

2) After downloading your eagletree Data to your PC, you have to screen capture the whole replay of your run within the eagletree software (Play button). Windows Media Encoder is a free software which is able to screen capture a specific window on your desktop (In this case the eagletree window). You will get a WMV Video file.

3) Open your prefered video editing software (Premiere Pro) and capture the video of your buggy from your cam (DV cams typicaly connects trough firewire).

4) Open the screen capture video of your eagletree data in your video editing software and match the start with the video of your buggy. I had to slow down the screen capture movie to 99,6% from its original speed to match it perfectly from start to end of the run.

As you can see it's not that simple, but after getting familiarized with both software packages you should manage to do it by yourself.

message 2

>However I still have a little problem, the eagletree >insert is blurry. I figure it's because I scaled it down >to fit my video.

Yep, downscaling the eagletree screen capture video is troublesome, as the readings are very small in size. Premiere seems only be able to downscale this type of video content with a blurry kind of effect. I had the same problem after i finished the project and wanted to reduce the resolution to make the video smaller in Megabytes.

I choose my Premieres project resolution width in accordance with the width of the screen capture video (or at least the part i wanted to integrate into my video). I remember it to be around 806 pixels. As i shot my video with a HDV cam my video of the buggy had a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. So i could downsize this video to fit it to the width of the screen capture video. This way i could get around the blurrying which occurs when downscaling this kind of video content.

I don't know if this is an option for you. Typical video content comes from a DV cam which has a resolution of 720x576 pixels. If this is the case (or your buggy video is even smaller in resolution) and your Screen capture video has a width larger than that, you could upscale the video of your buggy in premiere. Then you have to save your final video as AVI uncompressed with the same resolution as your project (if you upscaled your buggy video it might look blurry, but it will be alright after downscaling your final video with a other software). If you try to downscale your video at this stage (with premiere) the blurry kind of effect on the eagletree part will reemerge.

That is why i used a 3rd programm to downscale the video properly. It is called Cleaner XL from Discreet. There may also be a free trial version of this program on discreets website. It is one of the best video compression programs i know of.

The smallest size i could downscale the width of the video was 640pix starting from 806 pix. Smaller made the eagletree Graph readings unreadable.

message 3
I forgot to mention that you could choose the width of your premieres project in accordance to your eagletree capture video (or the width which corresponds to the part of the video you wish to integrate in your project). If your Buggy video is smaller in width, you will have to upscale it to the width of your eagletree video.

Then: save your video as Avi uncompressed. The Buggy part could be blurry as a result of the upscaling.

After downscaling it to 640pix with CLeaner XL the part of the video with the footage of your buggy should look allright again.

An other option would be to use one part of the eagletree inserts on the upper part of the video and the other part somewhere else in the video. This way you could choose your project settings in accordance to your buggy video and no upscaling would have to take place.

Either way. Downscaling the final video requires Cleaner XL or a similar compression program with a good downscale filter.

message 4
The reason why you had troubles with Cleaner XL was the size of your screen capture video. width and height of the video must be even numbers (805x331 could result in a distorted black/white video. 804x330 would be alright). Make sure when using windows media encoder that the preview monitor shows even numbers for width and height. If this is not the case resize your eagletree window accordingly. I know this is annoying but it is caused by limitations of the windows media format.

For best results with your buggy video, you should set the frame rate of you eagletree screen capture video to the same frame rate of your buggy video. Look at Properties/compression and then edit your compression settings in windows media encoder. NTSC DV cams do capture video with 29.97 Fps.

After this step, open Cleaner XL and follow some basic settings marked by a red arrow in this picture: http://www.braintrust.at/2007/ds/cleaner_xl.gif

1) Before adding your screen capture video load the "square pixel progressive" input profile

Edit the output profile after adding your screen capture video

2) For best output quality choose Avi File. uncheck enable audio.
3) choose full frames uncompressed (for best output quality but biggest video file size)
4) Adjust the width to the width of you buggy video (640 seems to be the lowest possible value before everything becomes unreadable. Calculate the height: width of your original screen capture video divided by your entered width in Cleaner XL (for example: 880/640=1.375). Now divide the original height of your capture video by the calculated value (402/1.375=292). Now enter this value for height ... don't forget to round it to an even number.
5) Choose your frame rate in accordance to your buggy video. The same value you entered in windows media encoder.

Save your project and choose "Encode now"

The final movie should then be ready for editing in premiere.

------/SNIP------

Hope this helps. There might be easyer ways to achieve the same result. This is how i did it about one year ago.

[Maciolus]

That's gonna help :) Thanks!

[Hardstyle]

Thats funny, just tryed to do the same thing to one of my videos, but lost my mind eventually =). But thanks othello for the instructions, now I will try it again, hehe.
Ps. Freez screen video capture works too for the ET data and its free..

[othello]

Here we go again. 2 new videos with eagletree Data inserts:

Driving my truggy on grass: video


Driving my truggy on a bumpy track: video