A camera is quickly fitted to an aircraft. Video synchronised to the millisecond with the parameters, compressed without destroying what you need to read in it, and recorded without saturating the link is another trade altogether.
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THE PROBLEM
Video changes the arithmetic of an installation: one camera weighs more, in bits, than a thousand sensors. Three consequences follow.
A single 1080p stream can outweigh the whole parameter set. Resolution, frame rate and compression have to be chosen for what the image is for, and the decision of what goes down the link and what stays on board has to be taken again.
A frame timestamped at the recorder rather than at the camera lies by tens of milliseconds, and a debrief built on it draws the wrong conclusion. Timing has to be taken at the source, on the same clock as everything else.
Vibration, temperature, sun in the lens and long cable runs are the daily life of an airborne camera. Power over the same Ethernet cable and several viewpoints on one network keep the installation sane.
THE ANSWER
A camera made for the aircraft, recorders that treat video as data, and one clock for both.
Ultra HD camera with microphone, GPS and time overlay, powered over Ethernet, qualified for the environment it will live in.
The DVR for video-first missions up to 2 TB, NanoX and the mission recorders when video rides alongside buses and sensors, the Sentinel when it has to survive a crash.
PTP over rugged NetSwitch units puts camera, acquisition and recorder on one clock; D.T.MUX Viewer replays video and parameters together, frame against sample.
VSplit takes four HD-SDI sources to one or several displays, so the crew sees what the recorder sees.
RELATED PRODUCTS
From the lens to the replay: the camera, the recorders that take it, and the network that keeps them in time.
4K airborne IP camera with mic, GPS overlay and PoE.
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Full HD / 4K airborne video recorder, H.264 / H.265, up to 2 TB.
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High-speed 1 Gbps acquisition / recording / replay / transmit.
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Video splitter, 4x 3G HD-SDI to one or multiple screens.
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8–24-port GbE managed switch, IEEE 1588 PTP, PoE+ option.
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GO FURTHER
Video is the cheapest witness on a test aircraft and the easiest data to get subtly wrong — a practical look at compression, bit rate, timing and installation.
Design & architectureFour budgets have to close at once — bit rate, storage, telemetry and mass — and they are coupled. Here is the arithmetic, done all the way through on a real-shaped installation.
Design & architectureEvery other measurement can be repeated. A timing error cannot: it is discovered months later, during analysis, and it invalidates every comparison that was built on it.
Acquisition & recordingThe file exists, it opens, and the curves look plausible. None of that is evidence. Here is the list of things that can be wrong with a recording, and which of them you can actually detect.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
The limit is bit rate and storage, not ports: each camera adds a stream to size against the recorder and the link. Several viewpoints on one rugged Ethernet switch are routine; the arithmetic is in our sizing article.
It depends on resolution, frame rate and what the image is for. As a rule of thumb, a single HD camera with good compression costs more than the entire parameter set of a typical installation, which is why video is decided first.
Yes, that is the point of the common time base. D.T.MUX Viewer plays the video against the parameter curves, frame by frame, and exports standard video files when they are needed elsewhere.
OTHER APPLICATIONS
Tell us how many viewpoints, at what quality, and what the images are for. We reply with the bit rate, the storage and the recorder that fits.
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