Help needed with interactive video playback machine
Dan Pritchard
I really need some help with a project that ive been working on. Its basically a bicycle mounted on a pedestal, it has a projector in a basket and a vintage picture frame with white screen in front. The viewer gets to ride, first listen to an audio introduction, and then gets to watch and control a video. The idea is that the speed of the pedals controls the playback.. slow - normal - pause - rewind
How hard could that be, right? I should at this point say that I have no computer experience outside of photoshop and word :(
So, a friend made me something that almost works using a magnet sensor on the wheel - an Arduino uno and Max msp to run everything. Unfortunately this doesn't work.
I think this is because..
a. the magnet sensor is not sensitive enough to give a smooth experience
b. it doesnt understand rewind
c. quicktime, the player that Max uses, seems to not play so well on the pc that im using.. i.e. very juddery, jumpy and unwatchable
He gave it a good go but he's no expert. I think that it could be done differently.
I posted these problems on the main Hackspace page the other day, and was suggested by Ryan use a program such as Keyframe Mp for the video playback. This has a feature called scrubbing, that lets you cycle through frames forwards and backwards. Ive tried this and it works extremely well. however, it is great as a tool, but not an interactive video experience.
Regrettably, time is against me to deliver this product to my clients, and Im too busy with other projects to learn the mysterious dark arts of computers from scratch.
Heres what im asking.. nay, crying for!
Someone to design for me a way to make a computer..
1: Sense movement
2: Play either an audio, or movie file at normal speed
3: Play a movie file with the scrubbing feature enabled.. so the pedals sense and control movement
4: Stop when the machine has been inactive for a time (maybe 30 seconds)
5: Repeat 1
It has to be slick, fullscreen and foolproof.
It will need a system that recognises or counts the speed of the chain on the bicycle - both forward and reverse. We thought this might be possible by modifying the optical wheel on a mouse/ or something touching a roller under the rear wheel/ or modified mouse buttons touching the spokes?I could probably make this component myself. There is an Aruino Uno at our disposal, but if it can work without one.. i.e just a hacked usb mouse then it might be more simple to replace if it goes wrong.
I have a laptop running widows 7, it will be forever tied to the machine so i dont care what happens to it. . i can get the specs later. But if its not up to the job then i'll have to get something different. would this work on a rasberry?
Finally. just to break it down further.. I cant make this myself, and i dont have time to learn (at the moment). I really need someone to save my bacon and figure this out for me. I have a small budget to give in return for helping me.. I also make cool crazy bicycles, and have access to fine Gin (on behalf of the clients for this project) Any or all of these can be given in return for saving the day. I have, at most a fortnight to make everything work and to keep them happy.
Thank you a million. Please pass this on to anyone you might think can help.
Dan
marc barto
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Paul Maidment
Hi Dan,
My thoughts on this.
* I think it might be possible to use a dynamo for the bike. Arduino has some ADC conversion pins for detecting analogue voltage and this forum thread suggests a method for detecting direction.
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=11803.0
* A reasonably quick and low effort way to deal with frame by frame video can be implemented using Java, as can the rest of your program.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24552486/how-to-read-a-video-frame-by-frame
I unfortunately do not have spare time at the moment but thought I would give my thoughts on what I consider to be your core requirements.
Kind Regards,
Paul
Sam Wray
Hi Dan,
A rotary encoder mounted somehow on the bike could work well for this as it will turn infinitely and you can measure direction and how many clicks the encoder has moved for distance.
I'd probably step down the rotations though with gears or a series of pulleys so that the encoder doesn't get hot / break under speed.
After the encoder has been attached though you could read it through an Arduino board and I could help you write a small Processing script that was controlled by the encoder rather than relying on QuickTime!
I don't really have much experience in mounting the parts but I could easily help you get the encoder spooling through video :)
Best,
Sam