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Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

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111–120 of 175 posts

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#111

Looks to be an amazing piece of engineering but seriously, what's the usecase? It looks to be targeted at the amateur market ('shoot like the pros') and I just don't see the demand or workability in this space. To pick on a few hinted at on the page: A game of football: Leaving a camera on a tripod on the sideline while I'm focused on the game? Not in any park I've ever played in. Taking the stick from my teammates f…

Immediate use: presentations, accurately tracking the speaker without having to hire someone to keep camera on subject the whole time. Even moreso when multiple cameras. Just need one A/V control booth person, much cheaper to buy several of these than hire several cameramen. Think TED Talks, Apple Keynotes, anything fairly big-budget where chasing the random motions of the speaker just doesn't look on par with the mo…

Except this product is outdoor-only.

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#112
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will all due respect, for an old guy, I like large fonts :)

Then zoom-in your pages. I'm not old, but I also like large fonts. Except for sites that completely break if you zoom too much (like HN), there's not problem with designers using small ones.

If only I could time travel into the future and ask your 30 year older self whether you agree with your 30 year younger self's comment. :)

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would theorize that they have GPS in both units, and the tag sends its position to the base. Along with a compass, you can pretty accurately tell where the camera is looking, and you can probably gauge the distance between the tag and camera by the time it takes for the signal to travel to the camera, but I'm not sure how that's useful.

Why not use bluetooth low-energy for this stuff? Or would you need to have three beacons to triangulate?

1) range 2) clock precision (you can't measure time fast enough to actually measure position using bluetooth)

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#114
post #103

As a hobby, I drive racecars. I have been thinking about something like this near the track to video me going by. (Far away vantage points look boring.) It seems like for much less than $500 you could build an RPI and just track moving objects via optical flow (assuming you are alone on the track.)

LeMons racer? That's the first application I thought of but when are you ever alone on track?

You could throw one or two of these in common passing places and combine that feed with in car video. You could get some really neat video.

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#115

Looks to be an amazing piece of engineering but seriously, what's the usecase? It looks to be targeted at the amateur market ('shoot like the pros') and I just don't see the demand or workability in this space. To pick on a few hinted at on the page: A game of football: Leaving a camera on a tripod on the sideline while I'm focused on the game? Not in any park I've ever played in. Taking the stick from my teammates f…

A few drone flying things that are sort of similar: https://hexoplus.com/ https://www.airdog.com/ https://www.lily.camera/ I'm not sure these are the ones I originally read about, so there may be a few more. This would probably work better for the skiing/hiking/other type case, provided the drone doesn't fly into something or drown. I like that it can do the motion time lapse thing too though and it obviously would h…

None of these actually exist yet. It's just a bunch of concept videos.

Here's what the current experience is actually like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td5fZhGNz9M

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#116

Not the same but there exists a microphone which can be thought of as an audio version of this: https://www.acousticmagic.com/ It senses the direction of the speaker and outputs audio from that direction filtering out audio from other directions. As different speakers in different locations speak it changes the direction it uses. It also outputs a location signal that can be used by software to, for example, have a c…

That has got to be the worst intro text I've read in a long time:

> The Voice Tracker™ I can be used as an auxiliary microphone with conventional conferencing systems that have a good AEC. The Voice Tracker™ II has its own built in AEC, and consequently can be used with VoIP systems that do not have a robust AEC.

Looks really cool, though.

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#117
post #109

Place a remote controlled gun next to that camera and you have a remote hunting system? (probably illegal in most jurisdictions though)

Uh, one that shoots at you? How are you going to get the tracking beacon onto your target?

Re: Soloshot: Automatically film outdoor activities without a camera operator

#119
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We kitesurf and use GoPros, often on tripods on the beach. People come up and take them as soon as we're more than 200m away. It's quite easy for us to spot them, confront them and get it back. But it happens all the time No. 1 rule - don't leave anything of value on the beach.

So next we need to add some stabilization to this platform and then you can just stick it out on a bouy ^_^

or weaponize the camera so that it can protect itself... :)
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