42 replies to this topic

[MrSlow]

At the Malaysia race I realised how much the cameras distorts the view of the track and how much they amplify the "accordion effect" of the cars. A car that is 0.5 seconds away looks like it is half a lap down and while braking into a corner it seems like the car in front is stationary, just to enter warp speed the next millisecond. When the cars comes to a hairpin, the hairpin looks like a high speed corner. The two 180's at the end of Sepang feels like 130R and subsequently the 130R looks like the Hangar Straight at Silverstone.

Older F1 in car footage show a narrower FOV and cars fighting eachother looks like they are actually close to eachother and a corner looks like a corner.

On the positive side with wide angle is that it might be giving an increased sense of speed and you can see a car coming up beside. But the wide angle also makes the pictures unaturally stable and that kills the sense of speed.

Am I alone thinking this?

[F1Fanatic.co.uk]

That's an interesting point - I certainly agree that more should be done with the television footage to improve the impression of speed that you get. The cars look small and slow - they should be using kerb-mounted cameras, in-helmet and in-cockpit cameras and, as you point out, zooming them so as to give a better impression of speed.

As it is, they do a very good job of making an extraordinary sport look very ordinary...

[baddog]

I would favour a narrower camera angle yes

[WACKO]

The potential of television is hardly used in Formula One and I think that's quite shocking in the 21st century now, especially as everything in the sport is high standard. Since Bernievision stopped they don't seem to bother the slightest, which I think is wrong because in profiling F1 worldwide there is no better way than by using appealing and spectacular footage techniques.
It's not that camera angles and special effects should disturb or take attention from the race, but you can improve by timed use.

[prty]

I think that cameras that can rotate like in NASCAR and in-helmet cameras would be a great addition. And yes, reduce the FOV a litttle.

[Ally_D]

I enjoyed the in helmet cameras when they were used in the Champ Car series circa 2002/3, however there's one good reason why they won't be used in F1 - you can't see the sponsors of the car in them. Champ Car got around this by displaying sponsor's logos in the corner of the screen, but there's no way Bernie will allow this and clutter his F1 broadcasts.

[prty]

Well if that's the case, it's a shame. For those who haven't seen those kind of onboards, here is an example. Imagine that in circuits like Monaco or Monza, or in the 2005 Japanese GP in Alonso's and Kimi's helmets

[mach4]

A smaller FOV would actually decrease the sensation of speed in a straight line.

[MrSlow]

Originally posted by mach4
A smaller FOV would actually decrease the sensation of speed in a straight line.

Partly true, the peripheral vision increases the sense of speed. However, the fact that the turns looks like straights, the car looks miles apart and the reduction of bumps etc, kill the sensation quite effieciently and on top of that it distorts the action.

[Alaweni]

Slight change of topic - Is everyone getting "stuttering" on the in-car feed? It's as if the new cameras are trying to transmit more information than there is available bandwidth.

[nigel red5]

Originally posted by Ally_D
I enjoyed the in helmet cameras when they were used in the Champ Car series circa 2002/3, however there's one good reason why they won't be used in F1 - you can't see the sponsors of the car in them. Champ Car got around this by displaying sponsor's logos in the corner of the screen, but there's no way Bernie will allow this and clutter his F1 broadcasts.

They were tested 12 years ago, on Mark Blundell's Tyrrell-Yamaha at Spa in 1994. The pictures were stunning, much better than what we saw from Paul Tracy's champcar years later, partly because IIRC the Tracy cam was located inside the visor, and the Blundell one was attached to the bottom-left of his lid. It's a big shame that they don't try this again.

[OssieFan]

Some different camera angles would be good as we only seem to get the standard roll bar or front wing position. I quite like the camera angle looking over the drivers shoulder.

[windsok]

BAR-Honda tested a helmet cam with Sato last year.

[MrSlow]

Compare:

Smaller FOV


Bigger FOV

Closer to what a driver see

Close racing, narrow FOV

[Corners]

I want a driver eye view and if I can't get it something closer than what we've got.
Why can't they just put one giroscopically stabilised camera somewhere at eye level. Just above his right shoulder would be ok inside the car with a window of some kind Most circuits have right hand bends it annoys me that they never think to put any 'other' camera on the side of the car that sees the apex.
Its very unrealistic this T bar thing I've always thought that.

[Corners]

Originally posted by MrSlow
Compare:

Smaller FOV


Bigger FOV

Closer to what a driver see

Close racing, narrow FOV

Mansell cracks me up he's such a ********.."the camera's cutting out now that's because we're snapping 9G"

[F1Fanatic.co.uk]

Stop me if I'm wrong, but is this something we've all been in agreement on so far?

Shocking...

[Witt]

The 'old' style on board camera, the ones that vibrated and meant you could bearly see a clear track ahead, gave the best sensation of speed IMO. Anything mounted at driver's eye level was much better than what they use now. The current camera make you feel detached from the action, reinforcing the fact that you're a spectator, when the old ones made you feel you were there with the driver.

Not to mention the cars look butt ugly with their t-cams on top of the roll hoop.

[BorderReiver]

Originally posted by Witt
The 'old' style on board camera, the ones that vibrated and meant you could bearly see a clear track ahead, gave the best sensation of speed IMO. Anything mounted at driver's eye level was much better than what they use now. The current camera make you feel detached from the action, reinforcing the fact that you're a spectator, when the old ones made you feel you were there with the driver.

Not to mention the cars look butt ugly with their t-cams on top of the roll hoop.

Agreed.

[Memory Loss]

Originally posted by Corners


Mansell cracks me up he's such a ********.."the camera's cutting out now that's because we're snapping 9G"

He may have had a point... I'm pretty sure those small cameras for sports coverage were significantly cruder than they are now.

[Dudley]

Originally posted by Ally_D
I enjoyed the in helmet cameras when they were used in the Champ Car series circa 2002/3, however there's one good reason why they won't be used in F1 - you can't see the sponsors of the car in them. Champ Car got around this by displaying sponsor's logos in the corner of the screen, but there's no way Bernie will allow this and clutter his F1 broadcasts.

They still use them in ChampCar. AJ Almendinger had them at several races and I'm pretty sure I saw one from Paul Tracey.

[rhm]

It is a bit sad that F1 which prides itself on being so hightech has such basic in-car camera facilities. AFAIK it's only relatively recently that they've placed cameras in both of the "dummy cameras" that all cars are required to carry at each race. I bet even now a lot of the less interesting cars aren't fitted out at all. And even with two cameras all you get is the front and rear views - no zoom or pan.

With all the money teams insist they have to spend on electronics that make no difference to "the show" and the hundres of channels of telemetry they relay to the pits, you'd think they could be now have come up with a system that allowed for a pannable, zoomable camera on the top and several other fixed views broadcasting in real time *all* the time and being recorded to hard disk recorders so that every possible view was always there for replays.

I'd be a lot more interested in that than I am in Renault's "step 11" combined engine and chassis electonics.

[TT6]

I'd like to have the front wing camera removed completely. It makes me dizzy. The only use of it was the nice animations about "does the wing move, is it illegal" seen here.

[pongkai]

Yup, I hate the stuttering. I thought it was just a one-off glitch for Bahrain, but nope, Malaysia had it too..

Could be something to do with the nasty vibrations of the V8's?

Originally posted by Alaweni
Slight change of topic - Is everyone getting "stuttering" on the in-car feed? It's as if the new cameras are trying to transmit more information than there is available bandwidth.

[F1Fanatic.co.uk]

I've never noticed any stuttering. But then the onboards are used so rarely it's hard to tell.

[stefmeister]

FOM actually used a smaller FOV in 2004 at Spa with Schumacher & then again with Pizzonia at Monza:

http://img87.imagesh...302154255tl.jpg

This is what the same camera showed with a wider angle lens:
http://img87.imagesh...302154102wq.jpg

The problem here is you can't see the steering wheel or the driver's helmet so it would make it more difficult to not only identify which car your OB but also how the driver is working the wheel.

As for the post above about somebody saying the OnBoard's stutter, they do. From last year's Japanese Gp FOM started using a ground based Digital reciever to pick up the Onboard's when before they used a Analoge reciever on a Helecopter, this is why we got Break-up under bridges Etc... With the new Ground based Digital reciever we don't get the break-up under the bridges or tree's.

By the way if anyone has any screenshots or video of the Helmet cameras used in F1 back in 1994 on Blundell would be much appreciated if you could post them

[stefmeister]

Originally posted by rhm
AFAIK it's only relatively recently that they've placed cameras in both of the "dummy cameras" that all cars are required to carry at each race. I bet even now a lot of the less interesting cars aren't fitted out at all. And even with two cameras all you get is the front and rear views - no zoom or pan.

From the start of 2003 (And single lap qualifying) all cars are now fitted with an active forward/Rearward facing T-Cam (Cam above drivers head). Other cars carry additionally side/nose mounted cameras facing forward, backwards or sidewards.

FOM actually take far more OnBoard camera to a race than any other MotorSport category that I can think of. In F1 all cars have at least 2 active camera's, in IRL I think its 6 cars, ChampCar has 4 & occasionally 5. NASCAR have around 15 or so cars carrying OnBoard's. FOM also supply upto 4 GP2 teams with active T-Cam's as well 2 2 Porsce Supercup car OnBoard's.

[jonpollak]

Originally posted by stefmeister
The problem here is you can't see the steering wheel......

.....funny you should mention this stef.

I was just thinking about how the lower frame graphics obscure the drivers hands on the in-car shots.
Jp

[rhm]

Originally posted by stefmeister


From the start of 2003 (And single lap qualifying) all cars are now fitted with an active forward/Rearward facing T-Cam (Cam above drivers head). Other cars carry additionally side/nose mounted cameras facing forward, backwards or sidewards.

FOM actually take far more OnBoard camera to a race than any other MotorSport category that I can think of. In F1 all cars have at least 2 active camera's,

So what do they do with the footage from these cameras then? We never saw any replays from Ide or Albers cars at the start in Imola where it would have been very interesting. They don't have a Bernie F1 channel to supply any more so it's not that they are keeping stuff back from the free-to-air TV like they used to.

[stefmeister]

Originally posted by rhm


So what do they do with the footage from these cameras then? We never saw any replays from Ide or Albers cars at the start in Imola where it would have been very interesting. They don't have a Bernie F1 channel to supply any more so it's not that they are keeping stuff back from the free-to-air TV like they used to.

While all cars carry working OnBoard cameras not all are active. Due to bandwidth limitations with the reciever (And other issues) they can only have 6 OnBoard cameras active at any one time, it used to be 4 but the new Digital link brought it upto 6. A1GP tried having all cameras active at once at Brands Hatch but they had to run the cameras on a real low bandwitch & the quality was quite poor so after a few races they copied F1 & had only 4 to 6 active at once.

There would only be footage of the Ide/Albers crash at Imola IF the FOM OnBoard operator had a camera active on one of those cars, however as far as I know he didn't.

FOM do occasionally hold footage back for the end of year review, as they did before F1 Digital+ was around, when F1D+ was active from mid 1996 to the end of 2002 FOM never held footage back, if they caught it, they showed it on F1D+ those without F1D+ had to wait untill that footage either turned up on the net or wait for the end of year review.

AS for FOM not having revolving IRL/NASCAR style Pan-Cam's, i don't think there's much need for them in F1. In NASCAR & IRL cars regularly run side by side for long periods of time so having cameras that can revolve 180 degress is usefull. However in F1 cars never run side by side for more than a few meteres so Pan-Cam's woudn't really be very usefull.

Visor-Cam would be nice, the one's they use in ChampCar, IRL, NASCAR & ALMS is nice, gives a decent impression of what the driver sees. Speaking of Helmet-Cam's Alonso had one on during a recent test at Barcelona for a Renault promotional video, only have a few seconds of the footage, here's a screengrab.

http://img87.imagesh...251407572gn.jpg

[stefmeister]

Originally posted by jonpollak

.....funny you should mention this stef.

I was just thinking about how the lower frame graphics obscure the drivers hands on the in-car shots.
Jp

This is partly true, with the new graphics been used from 2004 the timing data isn't obstructing the steering wheel. If you look at the screenshot you see the timing data is all slightly to the left, it only obstructs the wheel a bit when a split time comes up.

http://img87.imagesh...262116261ze.jpg

[RedBasio]

Its hard to say. If they tried a few different ones on the cars in races more often and let race fans vote maybe on the best ones to use . Id dare say it would be better.

[jimpo]

This problem can be easily solved with some handicarft, no need to chance the broadcasts.

Make two big pieces of out of paper or cardboard. Then attach them to your TV using tape (glue is probably not a good idea).



You can also fabricate more advanced solutions but this is the "entry level" narrov FOV for sensation of speed -kit.

[lustigson]

It shouldn't be too hard to have a large viewing area (for lack of better words) to see some kind of overtaking manoeuvre (God forbid there being one ;)), and a smaller viewing area to experience the speed of the car, with one single camera, should it?

[anbeck]

Originally posted by jimpo
This problem can be easily solved with some handicarft, no need to chance the broadcasts.

Make two big pieces of out of paper or cardboard. Then attach them to your TV using tape (glue is probably not a good idea).



You can also fabricate more advanced solutions but this is the "entry level" narrov FOV for sensation of speed -kit.

You are aware that the use of wide angle and tele lenses also distorts the perspective (ever seen a fish-eye lens?)?

You cannot change that by cropping.

Or can you crop yourself a tele lens from this pic:

[anbeck]

Originally posted by lustigson
It shouldn't be too hard to have a large viewing area (for lack of better words) to see some kind of overtaking manoeuvre (God forbid there being one ;)), and a smaller viewing area to experience the speed of the car, with one single camera, should it?

Of course not with the camera, but with the lens. And unless it's a zoom lens or the lens is mounted in a way it can be changed during a pit stop, you're stuck with the one setting you've got.

I am in favour of a normal lens, as everything else just does not give a proper idea of what is going on and how far the cars are away from each other.

[Corners]

This is what I would like to see http://www.clipshack...3BA01FA69D55A04

[De Weberis]

Why we only have lateral images from Ferrari, and not the top camera showing the steering and RPM, etc?

[DaleCooper]

Originally posted by Corners


Mansell cracks me up he's such a ********.."the camera's cutting out now that's because we're snapping 9G"

yeah from -4.5g in one direction to +4.5g in the opposite direction, so yes it is a difference of 9g laterally, I think his comments make sense. But i guess if you don't like someone, it is easy to act like a ******** by putting them down


Cooper

[Corners]

Originally posted by DaleCooper



yeah from -4.5g in one direction to +4.5g in the opposite direction, so yes it is a difference of 9g laterally, I think his comments make sense. But i guess if you don't like someone, it is easy to act like a ******** by putting them down


Cooper

I like Mansell so you're wrong in your assumption also 9G huh? going from -4.5g to +4.5g in the middle of that is 0 there is never a load of 9G and besides whats 4G of a camera's weight ?
The car vibration under heavy G loads may make it crackle a bit but its still a stupid thing to say 9g, the interference stops at the point of inflection anyway.
A difference of 9g laterally you say ? what a dope, try 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1, 0.5, zero, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 as a basic shift pattern, the biggest g load on silverstone is not the exit onto hangar straight anyway its probably copse and stowe and exiting bridge. Swallow your pride and stop rolling your eyes at people.

[prty]

Just saw for the first time a helmet cam recording from a Formula 1, so I thought it would be a good idea to share it (and Bernie, if you are listening, make some of these during races). It was Alonso's from the Brazilian TV intro apparently. Download it from here.

[Calorus]

Originally posted by Corners
I like Mansell so you're wrong in your assumption also 9G huh? going from -4.5g to +4.5g in the middle of that is 0 there is never a load of 9G and besides whats 4G of a camera's weight ?
The car vibration under heavy G loads may make it crackle a bit but its still a stupid thing to say 9g, the interference stops at the point of inflection anyway.
A difference of 9g laterally you say ? what a dope, try 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1, 0.5, zero, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5 as a basic shift pattern, the biggest g load on silverstone is not the exit onto hangar straight anyway its probably copse and stowe and exiting bridge. Swallow your pride and stop rolling your eyes at people.

No he's right - it's a 9G instantantaneous force, -4.5 to +4.5, it's like waving a ruler, you end up with the momentum, and elasticity of the part exerting a force as well.

[rhm]

Forgot all about this thread...

Originally posted by stefmeister


While all cars carry working OnBoard cameras not all are active. Due to bandwidth limitations with the reciever (And other issues) they can only have 6 OnBoard cameras active at any one time, it used to be 4 but the new Digital link brought it upto 6. A1GP tried having all cameras active at once at Brands Hatch but they had to run the cameras on a real low bandwitch & the quality was quite poor so after a few races they copied F1 & had only 4 to 6 active at once.

There would only be footage of the Ide/Albers crash at Imola IF the FOM OnBoard operator had a camera active on one of those cars, however as far as I know he didn't.

That's exactly my point really. Because only 6 cameras can transmit at once, only 6 can ever be available for replays. Only some cars are likely to be involved in interesting action and the director will concentrate on them. Occasionally a Midland might be involved in an incident (or have a good view of another car's incident), but because it's not expected, it's camera isn't broadcasting so there is no replay. Essentially there may as well not be a camera in the car if it isn't broadcasting all the time so that it can be recorded for replay purposes.

I hear what you're saying about needing a certain level of quality (and the A1 in-car footage was rubbish), but to me it defies belief that with all the money in F1 they can't develop a system that allows them to relay 22 channels of video. If they were really trying they ought to be able to do it in HD, never mind the soft, washed-out images we get now.

Originally posted by stefmeister

AS for FOM not having revolving IRL/NASCAR style Pan-Cam's, i don't think there's much need for them in F1. In NASCAR & IRL cars regularly run side by side for long periods of time so having cameras that can revolve 180 degress is usefull. However in F1 cars never run side by side for more than a few meteres so Pan-Cam's woudn't really be very usefull.

It would be nice to go from the rear facing roll-hoop camera to a choice of side looking wing-mirror cameras and then to the forward rool-hoop camera. But again, unless all cameras are able to transmit all the time, it relies on the director seeing the move coming.