Stump Camera

[Psycosis]

I was playing cricket this weekend and i had a thought. With all these new tiny cheap cameras i should be able to build one of these that writes to an SD card for pretty cheap.

Cricket stumps are between 3.81cm and 3.29cm, so i would plan to use either a copper or steel pipe core to house the batteries to give me 8 hours of use.

This is still in the early stages, but i reckon if i put these together well i could flog them on ebay and make a tidy profit.
I plan to cut the stump approx 1/5 the way up and create a 20mm tunne. The depth depends on the batteries required. The bottom half holds the batteries, the top half contains the camera.
The two sections will be screwed together.
I need a "on" light on the back and some way to stop/start the recording. I guess this could be simply be performed when the camera is put together.

I see the pen cameras on ebay which will be nice and skinny, but have no external buttons, which mean i need to fiddle with it, plus the lens doesn't protrude so i need to work on that.

The original wireless/wired cameras should still fit, but they are a lot bigger and its far more complicated to record directly to some media.

So i just wanted to see if anyone had any good ideas, something i may not have thought of. I have spent the past few days looking into this and i think i can make it work, i need the use of a workshop to drill things, but the prototype can be created in its pipe without runing a perfectly good stump.

 

[Ajax]

who would want one of these? I mean its ok for a TV company wanting a fancy view of the action, but would the lay person really want or need this view of the game.

 

[Psycosis]

I thought about this, but many teams have highlights or want to see footage of particularly good games, also handy if its a wide len to see what the bowler or batsmen is doing at the crease, maybe to help people improve their game.

I think its not going to appeal to a huge market, but if i can build one of these and its quick enough for me to put together, its worth £40 to anyone who is vaguely interested since its not a lump of cash.

 

[Hermit]

I say go for it. You never know, it might be the next big thing in cricket. Good luck

 

[flecc]

There are other sporting uses for these stumps too. For example:

One just in front of each goal post facing inwards to accurately show the goalmouth line. (Could have been useful in a certain game yesterday!)

Similarly used in tennis.

At the finishing line in amateur cycle racing.

At the finishing line in amateur athletics.

and many more.
.

 

[Psycosis]

I guess i never thought about other uses, but your right.
Anything where an inexpensive camera on a stick is required for small clubs, it could be perfect.

 

[Barnowl]

There are other sporting uses for these stumps too. For example:
One just in front of each goal post facing inwards to accurately show the goalmouth line. (Could have been useful in a certain game yesterday!)
.

You mean like this:

 

[Psycosis]

Well i finally got my sample camera and it uses a rechargable 280mah 3.7v battery which is good for 2 hours apparently. I will need to take a look and see what i can implement to extend the life out.
The quality is not too bad, but i can see i will have a problem with storage. Since nothing can be adusted relating to the resolution my 25 second sample took up 22MB, that will give me about 2.2 hours on an 8GB SD card.
Thats not long enough unfortunately, but long enough for the battery.
Here is a sample taken through the window, its a little blurry since i was holding it and with no image stabalisation, but you can see it can take quality shots.

Maybe second plan is to use a transmitting camera which pushes the video to a laptop wirelessly. That way storage isn't an issue, but more juice will be required and the camera is a lot bigger.

Anyone got any ideas on what i could do.

This video looks worse on youtube, but you get the general idea.
YouTube - Camera test

 

[Psycosis]

Here is my first cricket related test, it got bashed a few times but it still works. I should have deleted the other tests from the 2GB memory card then i would have got more than 13mins of footage.

But it seems sturdy enough and produces decent enough footage, adds a new element to the game

YouTube - Stump camera mk1 test

 

[CeeGee]

A suggestion:
If the camera was sited a little further down the stump you would be able to see the crease - always handy for stumpings and run-outs.

Colin

 

[Psycosis]

yeah, i had the same thought as well.
i looked at the level of the cameras they use in the regular cricket and they seem to use wide angle lens, which for budget reasons i can't use.

But moving it a fair bit further down is a good idea.

 

[CeeGee]

I preferred the lens you have used to the ones on Sky, although I am amazed you have less budget than them.

Would it be easier to change the angle of the camera so it is pointing down a couple of degrees. At present you have a lot of wasted space at the top - you don't appear to need a lot, if any, above the lowest level of the tree line.

Colin

ps: hasn't that club heard of sight screens? I wouldn't fancy facing the Aussie's Tait on that pitch without one.

 

[Psycosis]

well we sometimes have to stop for the trains as they go past and they are a bit of a distraction. But we use a pink ball to help when ferreting around in the bushes.
Sight screen would be nice, or maybe even a well prepared wicket!
The guy bowling is actually pretty fast for our club, and he ended up taking 3 wickets that game.

I think if i angle it down and lower the height it may be ok.
I have spent the past 30mins dicussing the plan with a chinese manufacturer.

I figured nothing does exactly what i need but i am basing it on a "USB spy pen camera", since they are cheap and already thin and produce decent enough footage as seen.
I need to adapt one however to give me external controls (not exactly essential but useful)
The guys i am chatting to actually sell a wireless pen, thats a nice idea so i can record using a laptop or some other method and get the full footage. Maybe i can figure something out so it can go straight onto an ipod or something.

 

[CeeGee]

Well i finally got my sample camera and it uses a rechargable 280mah 3.7v battery which is good for 2 hours apparently. I will need to take a look and see what i can implement to extend the life out.

This may be the answer, if the battery is not too long: 2x 18650 3.7V 2400mAh Rechargeable Battery+CHARGER SALE on eBay (end time 18-Jul-10 08:57:47 BST)

Colin

 

[Psycosis]

Ultimately i have a whole stump to play with.
I had a chat with a manufacturer in china and for a minimum order of 10 units they will build my little creation for me and all i have to do is drill a stump on a lathe.

One nice product this company has is all the regular DVR recording camera in that size, but also wireless transmitting capability, that adds another interesting element.

I spend 2 hours discussing this, as its quite difficult to explain exactly what i want, and why i want it that way when the people i was speaking to don't know what cricket is.
The question i had was "what is it for", which i answered with "its a camera, its to record things"

 

[CeeGee]

... the people i was speaking to don't know what cricket is.

Egad sir - methinks you should take your team out to China immediately and educate the natives.

The ability to transmit the live picture to a laptop for recording, and immediate playback would be useful if the umpires and teams agreed to its use in some circumstances. With the focal length of the camera you used on You Tube it is possible that the stump camera at the bowlers end could help with LBW decisions for where the ball pitched. However, you will have to make sure it is capable of transmitting the necessary distance from the wicket to the boundary or the bar.

One other improvement would be to change the ratio of the camera, whilst retaining the focal length from 1:1 to 4:3 or preferably 16:9, to show a better view - but with the size of the camera and cost this is probably a non-starter.

Colin

 

[Patrick]

Ultimately i have a whole stump to play with.

You could use the other stumps as well, if you have trouble getting enough batteries and the camera into one stump you could move the batteries into another one and connect them with a fly lead. Seeing as cricket games can drag on for ages a long battery life might be useful.

If you can get the camera to transmit a signal so that a standard laptop can can handle the monitoring, recording and playback then I think the setup would be much more flexible. Also the controls on the stump would be simpler; you wouldn't need to download anything from them it would just be a case of switching them on and off.

 

[Psycosis]

I think powerwise i should be ok, if indded the 280mah battery lasts for 2 hours, the 2400mah unit Colin mentioned, 2 of them will do nicely and provide ample power (the wifi option uses heaps of power)

In answer to your question, over open ground its actually got quite a reasonable range for something so small. Its not like there will be much in the way, but i can use the stump as an aerial to get better range.
The transmitted footage can be captured with a 2.4Ghz (i think) dongle which can be supplied, and connected directly into a TV, very sweet for a small club.

With looking into this, it does make me wonder why no-one has done this before, since the technology is there, just needs someone with an idea what they want.

Maybe you will see me selling cameras to county clubs in the near future.

 

[flecc]

Maybe you will see me selling cameras to county clubs in the near future.

I hope so. The quality you showed above is perfectly ok for the job and I think there's real potential. If you do get it going and it seems to take off, you'd be wise to get some protection for your idea. Even if the sales potential doesn't justify a patent, a dated letter sent to yourself by recorded delivery in which you spell out all the details and the purposes of the device will lay claim to the intellectual property of the idea.

That won't stop Chinese copying, but it could make life awkward for anyone in Britain selling something from China using your idea.
.

 

[Psycosis]

probably a good idea to do that, keep myself semi protected.
I imagine the chinese haven't thought about copying it yet, since they aren't at all interested in cricket, so i have the advantage