General Discussion (Model Railroader)

I've seen some videos made with those mini-cameras that are mounted onboard one's trains.  Does anyone here have any experience with these?  If so, please share...

Thanks.

dlm

I've got the one from Micro-Mark, and I've loved it.  Works very well.  The receiver plugs into one of the VIDEO IN jacks on my VCR, and the camera's mounted on a flatcar.

Kevin

Mine is from SJT Enterprises.  I mounted it inside the front car of a subway train.  It's a permanent installation, and uses their DCC power supply rather than the traditional battery.

This is an old video taken with the camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g82i9arQMyw

I've done some experimentation, and I'm pretty sure that most of the dropouts are related to the wireless transmission from the camera to the receiver, rather than power pickup drops from the track.  (For example, the video was made with the battery before I had the DCC supply, and it still has dropouts.)

These need more light than I had available.  I've since added LEDs both inside the tunnels and on the front of the lead car.

The whole thing is kind of cool, but it is a gimmick.  I use it when I show off the layout, particularly to either tech geeks like myself, or to kids.  Normally, I don't use it much.

I was at a layout open house in November, and they had one in an N-scale locomotive.  There was a high-gain antenna mounted in the ceiling, which gave a much better picture than most of these I've seen.

I also found that my camera's image would degrade significantly after running for just a short time.  The CCD sensors in these are very temperature-sensitive.  I disabled the interior lighting in the front of this car, and also removed a couple of the side windows to give it a bit more ventilation.  This helped a lot, but it still gives its best picture right after I've turned it on.

One of our members at the Boothbay Railway Village model railroaders loaned one of these to us last summer, and it was a big hit with our visitors. He mounted it in a gondola car and built a styrene 'crate' over it that was pushed on front to the locomotive. We transmitted to a receiver connected to small flat screen TV so visitors could see a real-time locomotives eye view of the layout. We found a few places on curves where visitors could stand and see themseves on TV as the train went by - kids of all ages liked that one.

The only problem we had was as the 9V battery on the camera ran down, we had to occasionally retune the receiver on the TV to clean up the picture. The guy that owned it was considering purchase of the track power adaptor. Now if only they can get sound with the picture; imagine putting it in front of a sound equipped locomotive!

One of the things I like about it was seeing what a scene looks like as the train goes by. As the train ran by the depot in our fishing village, we could see that it was looking very good even though it was a few buildings on plywood and plaster. When we get going again, we may transmit to a VCR and convert the recording to something we can put on the museum website.

Mr B, GREAT VIDEO!! If you had a few sharp grades, it would make me think I was in Space Mountain at Disney!!

I need to dig it out, but I have a wedge plow that is on the end of a Gon that I modified so it looke like I was pushing a plow, but it was the camera. The blade looks a little funny with a hole drilled in it though. 

I installed  mine in a Athern F-unit dummy. Lines up perfectly with the lower headlight hole. 9v battery life is about 6 hours. Will even pick-up sound from the loco behind it and passing locos. The children that visit our layout love to figure out which train has the camera and then watch themselves on the TV in the room.

What's the method for recording and saving the videos from the onboard cameras. I'm way behind the curve with a lot of this new technology.

jecorbett:

   What's the method for recording and saving the videos from the onboard cameras. I'm way behind the curve with a lot of this new technology. 

The camera unit transmits a wireless video signal, typically at 1.8 or 2.4 GHz.  This signal is picked up by a small receiver box with a video output cable.  You can plug the output directly into the analog video input of a TV, or a VCR or camcorder.  I did mine with the old family camcorder.  After that, I transferred it to my computer (via a video input board I added to the computer) and then I could edit it and put it up on YouTube.  My camcorder is old tech.  I'd imagine the new ones come with USB interfaces for computer transfer, but don't quote me on that one.

This is the equipment mounted inside the subway car.  The camera itself is the small black cube, about an inch on each side, to the left in this picture.

Here's the view of the camera lens visible through the front porthole window of the subway car:

MisterBeasley:

jecorbett:

   What's the method for recording and saving the videos from the onboard cameras. I'm way behind the curve with a lot of this new technology. 

The camera unit transmits a wireless video signal, typically at 1.8 or 2.4 GHz.  This signal is picked up by a small receiver box with a video output cable.  You can plug the output directly into the analog video input of a TV, or a VCR or camcorder.  I did mine with the old family camcorder.  After that, I transferred it to my computer (via a video input board I added to the computer) and then I could edit it and put it up on YouTube.  My camcorder is old tech.  I'd imagine the new ones come with USB interfaces for computer transfer, but don't quote me on that one.

OK, my next question is what type of video output cable does the mini-cam receiver box have, S-video, coaxial, USB, HDMI, other? I still have a VCR but rarely watch anything on it and can't remember the last time I recorded something. I'm not even sure any of the old blank tapes are even usable. I was wondering if any of these mini-cam systems might record to flash memory or something similar. I've had two DVD recorders and both died early deaths and I'm not going to get another. I'm considering a DVR but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

jecorbett:

OK, my next question is what type of video output cable does the mini-cam receiver box have, S-video, coaxial, USB, HDMI, other? I still have a VCR but rarely watch anything on it and can't remember the last time I recorded something. I'm not even sure any of the old blank tapes are even usable. I was wondering if any of these mini-cam systems might record to flash memory or something similar. I've had two DVD recorders and both died early deaths and I'm not going to get another. I'm considering a DVR but I haven't taken the plunge yet.

I don't have one of these, but If you look at this wireless camera that Micro Mark offers, you'll see that the camera receiver is equipped with analog AV connections.  The yellow RCA connector is your video output and the red is the MONO sound output.

As far as capturing goes, I don't see why you couldn't connect the camera receiver directly to the capture device on the computer.  Sending the video to a VCR and then transferring the video from the VCR to the computer probably degrades the image some.  Skipping the middle-man, VCR in this case, might yield a better picture and save some time by not having to transfer the video over.  This is just a theory, but I don't see why it can't work.

The output from my receiver unit is also an RCA plug, and it's the standard yellow color.  Mine does not have sound, so that's the only cable.

(Sometimes it weirds me out to realize that this picture of RCA plugs is on a server somewhere in England, and that's just the way we do things.)

There should be no problem going right from the receiver to an RCA video input on your computer, if you have one.  However, I've found that the range of the wireless system is a bit limited, so it's better to keep the receiver as close to the layout as possible.  Similarly, running a long wire from the receiver to a computer in another room is also going to degrade your picture a bit.

I used the camcorder because it's easier for me to control the recording right in the train room.  Also, if you're recording a lot of video, your computer's hard drive is going to fill up pretty quickly.  A camcorder's tape will hold a lot more video than your computer will, so it's probably better to record on tape and then only transfer your best video sections over to the computer for further processing.

I don't see any difference between those hundred dollar hobby cameras and this cheapie I bought off of Ebay. It set me back about twenty bucks as I recall. It's seen here mounted on a flat car in a very sophisticated way (yes, those are Legos and a rubber band):

This setup yielded this video:

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i89/mononguy63/Model%20Railroad/?action=view&current=MainLineEastBrakemanView.flv

The camera has an internal microphone that I didn't have connected, as I intended to add a soundtrack, but Photobucket wouldn't allow me to upload that music-added version due to a copyright violation. 

I had to get an adapter that had RCA jacks on one end and a USB plug on the other (also a cheapie off of Ebay) that allowed me to plug the receiver into my computer and capture the video using Windows Movie Maker.

Jim

mononguy63:

I don't see any difference between those hundred dollar hobby cameras and this cheapie I bought off of Ebay. It set me back about twenty bucks as I recall.

I think you're right about that.  I paid about $80 for mine, and it looks exactly like the one on your flat car.

But what else could I do?  I don't have any Legos. 

I took an older F unit that I have no idea what brand and gutted it out for my camera train. It is a dummy unit and I push it around the layout during shows connected to a TV. It looks like it belongs on the consist when running on the layout. People sure enjoy seeing this and themselves on the TV screen.