We have studied just about every possible combination and there's just really no good solution yet to stream high resolution still images back to the ground in an efficient manner. If you could maintain Gigabit speeds maybe, but you're not going to do that on a moving plane. And we're about to bump it up to 16MP so we're moving further out of bandwidth capabilities.
We use an iPad to transfer our GoPro footage right at the field to the iPad after each flight and then it's viewable right there in HD, and I was thinking you could have a 3/4g enabled version so you could email off still shots for analysis, or even use a small network printer or portable printer to print in the field with minimal gear. Of course you have to come back and land to analyze the footage, but you could be back up in the air fast and let someone else deal with the initial footage to keep the search in the air and on the ground with extra eyes.
Imagine if the search and rescue teams had a few iPads you could dump the footage to each person and they could review footage collectively and cover a lot of ground very quickly... all in HD.
We've used the IPads to carry images in the field in Illinois on the Lauren Spierer search. They're OK, but really don't have the screen resolution you need to drill down into the images. As for video, the very BEST video you can get these days from a small flyable camera is around 5MP, which we used to use - because that's all we had. It works great for situational awareness and getting a good overview. It will come, but we're all (especially me!) about as impatient as a 10 year old boy on December 22nd!
I'm holding out hope that the new 16MP Fuji that I ordered will deliver on its' promo material. Increasing our resolution by 6MP could be a huge step up! I did find a flyable 29MP camera that took 5FPS but it costs $15K and the DVR costs $14K. Expensive, but does anyone remember the Sony Mavica 2MP cameras? YIKES!
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote