Image stabilisation

The big problem with recording your own videos for cycling (for the interactive trainer) is quality.

Resolution: This is a perennial issue and the current GoPro Sessions camera is an economical place to start. The current model supports 4K or Super HD.

Image stabilisation: This is the big issue and can be resolved by throwing money at the problem but I am not recommending that. The drone community has a lot to offer in terms of add on products. The Feiyu WG2 is a good camera stabilisation device but is not directly mountable on the bike. It is alow cost device and the motor strength and response time is too slow.

You can wear the WG2  as recommended by the manufacturer for this application, however there are a number of products that can help with directly mounting on the bike. The issue with wearing the device is you get extraneous bits of bike and you in the shot.

I therefore decided to use a handlebar mount and solve the stabilisation issues.

 

It all looks a bit clumsy but I have tried all sorts of solutions before settling on this one. The design has 6 parts as follows:

1) Camera: GoPro HERO5 Session Action Camera Camcorder
Otainable through varios on line sources
2) Feiyu WG2 Waterproof Wearable Gimbal for GoPro Hero6/5/4 Session Action Cameras
Otainable through varios on line sources
3) Anti Vibration Damping Rubber & Anti-drop Pin for DJI Phantom 3 2+ Camera Gimbal
Based in China, lover-world has been an eBay member since 12 Mar, 2012
eBay item number: 391261888114
4) STO Universal wire rope anti-vibration mount
https://www.facebook.com/AlturnUSA
eBay item number:273120516399
5) 3M EAR Classic Foam Ear Plugs - PP-01-002
Based in United Kingdom, rubber_soul_01 has been an eBay member since 31 Mar, 2002
eBay item number:330844252101
6) Carbon Fiber Camera Gimbal Mount FPV Damping PTZ for DJI Phantom Drone GoPro 4
Based in China, xubolucky has been an eBay member since 17 Jul, 2017
eBay item number:152967290599

Here is a recent video with the new stabilisation strategy: https://videos.kinomap.com/en/watch/4927rp

I am well pleased with the result, here is a video describing how it was done:https://youtu.be/natWF6QINtM

Kinomap

Kinomap is another interactive cycling app. It has the virtue of uploading geo located videos and playing them back with realistic resistance on your trainer. It has the current ability to run on either the Apple I Phone or Android platforms. They have ambitions to bring out a MS-PC version.

I decided to give Kinomap a try as my ambition is to record videos of my favourite rides in Scotland upload them to Kinomap or equivalent  then ride them in the winter.

As an experiment I uploaded three videos on a trial basis:

* Inneos to Linlithgow                      4.94ml    150m         26:30
* Bathgate Alps from Linlithgow   17.06ml    544m      1:43:27
* Torphician 29-1-18 (b)                  9.92ml    318m          57:57

My first attempt was: * Torphician also listed  but the geo located data file had an error. The first try always has mistakes I guess.

The main problem recording videos for Kinomap is attention to detail and preparation. They take up a lot of memory and you have to take care of any stops (reducing the file size) by switching the camera off/on and GPS at the same time. Who wants to look at a man eating his sangwages or worse. I have a Garmin VIRB camera with built in GPS. However when first powered on it can take up to 30 seconds for the GPSto lock on to available satellites. You must therefore not start up the video till lock has been achieved. If you do screw up there are a number of GPS editors available that can bail you out.

* FitFileRepairTool       http://fitfilerepairtool.info/
* On line GPX editor      http://www.gpxeditor.co.uk/

If you record large (long) videos, you will find that you have numerous video files. A number manufactures of cameras limit the maximum file size and you also need to stop sometimes mid ride. The GPS will sometimes start a new file after being powered off. The FitFileRepair Tool is good for combining the GPS files and Kinomap provide a very efficient concatenation app for combining Video files. I use the concatenation tool and a PC app called Filmora to edit unwanted footage and reduce the size for uploading. Care should be taken when editing the video footage as the GPS has to be edited at the same point in time by the same amount. I would therefore recommend switching off the video when getting ready or stopping for any reason and make sure you switch off the GPS (very important). I keep two GPS's going at the same time, one for uploading to Strava and one for Kinomap videos. Your video may be shorter than the total ride length. It makes little difference that the GPS is built into the camera.

Quality

The other problem is vibration and horizontal stabilisation. The Garmin VIRB has rudimentary stabilisation via software but no horizontal stabilisation. This limits the quality of a lot of image taking on Kinomap.

I have invested in a Sports Camera 3 axis stabiliser but I have not resolved the application on a bike yet as vibration is still an issue. The alternative is to wear it which I think is a bit of a hazard having had some accidents on a bike. This will be the subject of a further blog.

Resolution

I take my videos in 1080P resolution in an attempt to future proof them in case Kinomap should support that resolution in the future.

As an example the Bathgate Alps video in MP4/1080p takes 14.7Gbytes of disc space and rendered down to 720p takes 3.7Gbytes in other words a doubling in resolution takes 4x more memory. A 4K video on that basis would take 16x more memory or 240Gbytes.

The upload time is restricted by the broadband pipe that you can budget for. My standard package from Virgin media has an upload speed of 5 Mbit/s. So for the examples given above the following upload times at best will result.

720p        3.7Gbyte         1.64hrs
1080p     15 GBbyte        6.66hrs
4K        240Gbyte           107hrs (4.4 days)

Engagement

The thing that keeps me going on Kinomap or Zwift is a large screen and something interesting to look at and listen to for at least an hour. I  find rides of about an hour at my physical limit of climbing is what I am looking for. Kinomap has lots of rides in that category. I don't crave human company or competing with avatars on Zwift for an hour. That is why I have not listed any rides so far more than 1.5hrs. I think my future videos will not exceed 2hrs riding time for an average rider.

The music issue can be solved easily technologically and I will not dwell on that but the large screen is an issue on Kinomap. They only support smart phones and tablets which do not trip the threshold of engagement for me. I need a 22" display at the end of my handlebars or an even larger screen further away.

I have purchased Chromecast for $25 and a good quality graphics display for $80 from Amazon. As my Samsung S7 supports Cromecast problem solved...........well not quite. I have a technical issue outstanding with Kinomap support. I will update this blog if resolved.

The main issue with engagement is resolution. In this day and age 1080p is the minimum. Kinomap only supports 720p HD, even if you upload 1080p. 720p HD is fine on a 10" tablet but not very good on a 22" screen. Some of the scenes become very blocky (sometimes).

The main issue is quality and variability, some peoples view of a good quality video differs from mine.  I think a star system should be invented by Kinomap to help with selection. You have to try before you ride otherwise you could be disappointed. The Kinomap web page is very good, the filtering mechanism works very well and you can run them on a large PC screen in straight video at 2x or 4x speed recorded. Some videos are recorded from a vehicle. There are two issues that come to mind so I avoid videos recorded that way:

1) They tend to ride faster than you can cycle so quality can be impared when you slow them down.
2) They will not be doing any scenic cycle tracks without breaking the laws in most countries.

I upoloaded one of my videos to YouTube to compare Kinomap quality vs YouTube, try it yourself. Make sure you select the correct resolution:

https://youtu.be/GZegp4hXaEs

Gps to resistance

This is Kinomaps star feature in my opinion. Rides that I have recorded the realism is spot on.

Real life ride adpopted as training workout

Zwift has the ability to import custom workouts using a web based tools that simulate your favourite "in real life " (IRL) ride. My favourite IRL is a hill just outside Linlithgow called Kingscavil Castle ride. It is a hill about 1000 ft and has a 17% section as part of it. I have a Strava record (IRL.gpx) of one of my attempts and I used that as a starting point.

One of the reported problems with using an IRL.gpx record is; there are a lot of inconsistencies in the record of altitude vs time, so you get a number of spikes and dips which result in sudden changes to resistance on the trainer which is unpleasant to ride. You can use a route gpx instead and assign an average speed to each record but that gives an unrealistic effort pattern to compare against.

The above graph was produced by a tool called gpxsmoother. The blue line is the original IRL.gpx file from Strava and the green line is the workout friendly  IRL smoothed.gpx

You then take the IRL smoothed.gpx and load it into a tool called gpx-to-zwift-workout, which produces a a IRL.zwo file (Zwift workout file format) you then insert this file into  Documents/zwift/workouts/.

The method of doing this is also explained in real-world-to-zwift-workout.

After loading it into Zwift and trying it out on the trainer I observed a couple of things that are worth noting.

1) This example IRL ride is two hours long, and although this representation  is realistic it is a bit long for my attention span on Zwift. There is a lot of idling below 150W for my liking. However there is a large chunk in the middle of the workout in green (<150W) that can be removed and still preserve the essence of the ride. The problem if you remove this is you will not return to the same height as you started.

2)  The intensity is normally set by default to your ftp which is stored within Zwift. The first time I ran this the hill peak was a bit too easy.  It normally takes me all my short term watts to get over the summit about 225W at least for 4 minutes.

 

The results from Strava before adjusting the ftp to 211W