Video Recording Laboratory Setup

• Four PCs, custom built by Vision1. Each PC has a 500MHz Pentium processor, 256MB memory and 64GB of hard drive storage.
• Four Kodak ES310 cameras. Each camera is connected to one PC. Three of the cameras give grey scale output, and one camera gives color output.
• A sync source, that is used to synchronize the cameras together. The sync source is connected to each PC and to each camera. It can be set so that capturing is done in 30, 60, or 85 frames per second.
• An Ethernet switch, that allows the four PCs to communicate with each other.

For frame grabbing, the PCs use the Bitflow RoadRunner software. For synchronized vide capturing by all PCs, we use IO Industries' VideoSavant software. One of the machines is designated as the "master" machine, and the other three are designated as "slaves". In order to capture a video sequence, we have to start the appropriate program on the "master" machine, and the appropriate client programs on the "slave" machines. Then, using the master machine we can specify how many frames we want to capture, and start the recording. The captured frames are stored on the hard drives in real time. With 64GB of hard drive storage available, we can record continuously for 60 minutes, at 60 frames per second, in all four machines simultaneously, at an image resolution of 648x484 (width x height).

Currently the four cameras are configured in the following way:

• Two cameras make a stereo pair, facing towards the signer, and covering the upper half of the signer's body.
• One camera, the color one, faces towards the signer and zooms in on the head of the signer.
• One camera is placed on the side of the viewer, and covers the upper half of the signer's body.

Click here to see some pictures from the lab.