Best Robot Cameramen or Automatic Video Systems

[Hutber]

Hey everybody, sorry to highjack the thread

I’ve a SS2 and loved it, I then bought the SS3 and had to wait like everybody else for what seemed like forever.

It turned out in the end that the SS3 just wouldn’t work at all and the fact I couldn’t use a custom camera which meant the video quality wasn’t really there for me. I also managed to crack the screen of the SS3 and there is no way to control it without the screen sadly

Anyway if anybody has any SS2 spare or at least the tags that they are willing to part with I’d very much appreciappreciate it. This is all based on the assumption that you guys no longer need your SS2 because you have SS3’s

Thanks and sorry again

[myamego]

Just the thread I needed to be revived! Any other opinions on the SS2 and SS3? Also, does anyone use just a tracking system that you can use your own phone/camera with, like the Swivl? I have a nice little camera that would work great with a tracking system, and I wouldn’t mind using my phone either, so I don’t really need a tracking system that comes with a camera (but I’d consider it).

[TakeAChanceinVA]

I have the Pixio and love it. They are just about to release the new Pixem which is the same thing but designed to be used with your smart phone, basically turning your phone into a tracking camera. I love the evolving technology - its really helpful for me to evaluate my riding!!

[bip]

I’ve used my Pixio maybe 10 times and managed to screw something up every time. My horse is coming back from some time off and feeling a little funny, so I set it up yesterday to see what’s going on. I managed to set it so that on the far long side where one would get the best view, the Pixio panned/zoomed in on the top of my head. You can only see the horse as she’s coming straight at/straight away from the camera. The time before that, I got it all set up for a jump lesson in the outdoor but it wouldn’t track. I thought maybe the outdoor was too big, but when I went to collect the beacons, I noticed one was flashing so that was probably the issue. The time before that, in the indoor, it was a bright day outside so we did not have the arena lights on, so every time I would go from light to dark, the exposure couldn’t adjust quickly enough so over half the video is just black screen. Time before that I filmed a lesson but accidentally trained the Pixio on beacon 2 instead of 1 during setup so it tracked just behind my horse the whole time. I’ve had it since last December and I figure eventually I will learn how to use it. It really isn’t user-friendly though because it has no screen. You have to interpret blinking green and red lights to know what is going on.

At the beginning of the summer, frustrated with the Pixio but determined to get some video feedback on my riding, I bought a SoloShot3. Immediately my horse went out of commission for the entire summer, so I’ve only been able to use it recently. It is soooo much easier to use than the Pixio. However, I’ve used it twice (in the exact same place) and the second time it was cloudy and the camera said “poor GPS signal” and it wasn’t able to track the tag. Sigh. It was a bummer because I needed the footage to send to my vet to ask if my horse was ready for the next step of her rehab. I ended up just setting it to film static (without tracking/zooming), so it cut out a lot of what I wanted to film. I wanted to use it today to get the footage I didn’t get yesterday with the Pixio, but I couldn’t find the armband for the tag anywhere. I found it tonight so maybe I’ll have good news for y’all tomorrow, lol.

[outerbanks77]

I bought the SS3 65 in about February of this year. At first, the tracking was a little hit-or-miss. It’s had about three updates since then, and it tracks beautifully now. If they still have the SS3 25 for $399 like they were advertising a couple weeks ago, I think it’s well worth it. If they would come out with the indoor accessory, it would be perfect. The video quality is way better than with the little Sony Handycam I was using for a while.

[bip]

Update: I got some good footage. It took me about 20 min to get it tracking because I had pushed buttons on the tag in the wrong order (it appears that if you accidentally start videoing before you are tracking, the camera gets confused. Or maybe I was the only one who was confused). But the footage was very useful and I expect to be able to easily use the thing regularly until winter when I will have to master and defeat the Pixio.