Camera over table

M

Mitchorama

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
Has anyone put a camera over their table and stream it to your computer. Wondering what would be the best camera to buy that would capture the whole table and have the best picture. thanks, Mitch
 
You mean raised so you can see the table or like a bird's eye view aimed straight down from above?
 
I believe a Canon HV40 can stream to a computer via firewire. I had a discussion with someone on a live feed about the setup and they mentioned their Canon was for sale. The quality was good. PM me and I'll see if i can find their site.
 
Guys, I'm real ignorant about this stuff. Can these pocket cameras like the Kodak and Flip be used to stream pool on the internet, or does streaming require going to a higher price point?

Thanks.
 
My experience is with the zi8, it doesn't support live streaming. I simply upload to youtube, or vimeo for sharing. At the current price of $79 it has better picture than the 720 camcorder I bought 2 years ago at twice the price.

Here is a sample showing off slugdoctor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw6eghkQXCg

You can also do live streaming with a USB webcam. There are a whole bunch in 720 and 1080HD which you can hook up with a 15 or 30 foot USB cable. Perfect for mounting on a ceiling and leave the cable for connecting to a computer. You can check the forum at ustream.com for reviews and results on different models.


Which ever camera you get, the key is lighting. Bright lights, as the inexpensive cameras don't have good low light sensors. Thats why they're marketed for outdoors and bright rooms.


DogsPlayingPool said:
Guys, I'm real ignorant about this stuff. Can these pocket cameras like the Kodak and Flip be used to stream pool on the internet, or does streaming require going to a higher price point?

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
We have an HD Logitec 310 that works very well. Mounting it above the table has been an issue though. It's very difficult to calculate the distance you need to be above the table in order to capture all of it. Our ceiling is just about a foot too low to get the whole table properly.

Tried mounting it to the ceiling but not enough room. Then we built a jib boom and went at with a little angle and that works to get most of the table. You can find a lot of DIY jib booms on YouTube and on Instructables. Ours is actually just a boom and not a jib. The jib is where you can control the camera's pan and tilt from the base of the boom. Still working on that one.

Basically you can take your camera and stand far enough back from the side of the table to get it all in frame and that will tell you how high you need to be.

Also if you go with a webcam like we did then you will want to get a special cable called an active usb repeater cable so that you don't get signal loss. A normal usb cable will not work well. It might work for a while but when your computer gets slow then it won't work. The active USB is made to boost the signal. They aren't expensive.

The only thing I don't really like about the logitec is the software that comes with it. A better interface would be nicer, we have tried a few and can't find one we like enough yet.

You can see various experiments on our youtube channel to see what the issues are with capturing the whole table user is jbideastoo
 
You can mount a video camera over your table but you need a way to control it remotely or you will be climbing on your table and on a ladder constantly. They make converter boxes to plug into so that you can connect your video camera to your pc. Also there is software which acts as a converter box to allow your video camera to function as a webcam as well as software which allows video from your video camera to be recorded on your pc.

We wanted to mount a CCTV camera with full pan/tilt/zoom functions above the table but the resolution is not convincing and as yet we have not found a way to accurately test one to see if it would really work. Theoretically a good cctv camera should have enough resolution for web video but as yet the only we for us to test it would be to buy it and that's not going to happen on pure speculation.

Information on the web that we have found so far hasn't been helpful to answer the questions we have about whether a good cctv camera would deliver a crisp enough video feed.
 
Although the Kodak Zi8 would not fulfill the streaming ability that was mentioned in the OP, it is a excellent choice for recording pool. I was more than impressed by the picture quality after uploading my first video onto YouTube. It is also light enough that when attached to a spider tripod it can be mounted almost anywhere. The drawback I'm encountering is that the display is on the opposite side of the lens, so it can be an difficult to initially position the table in the frame if using a tripod.

Again, it will not stream, but for the price it can give you this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B27Y8lWigZg
 
Isee the Kodax Zi8 HD for 79.99 at Officemax today. I think I will run out and try it. thanks for all the help. Mitch
 
Mitchorama said:
Isee the Kodax Zi8 HD for 79.99 at Officemax today. I think I will run out and try it. thanks for all the help. Mitch
Click to expand...

If the Zi8 is like the Flip Camera then you can forget it for mounting it above the table easily. We have a flip and the only way it's good is getting video the normal way. It takes great video though but you should forget it 100% if you want to get overhead shots.

For that you need a camera which you can see and adjust from the ground. Unless you like getting up on the table all the time. We had a logitec with pan/tilt and it was great until it decided it didn't want to work with Windows7 anymore. We didn't want to spring for the new one with pan/tilt/zoom so we got the 310 which has great video but has no pan/tilt.

However, for recording and manipulating the video from the PC as well as easy streaming an HD webcam is pretty sweet. Just remember to get the active USB cable and NOT a normal long USB cable - no matter WHAT the guy at Best Buy tells you.
 
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