Identilynx Question

Look at your leader and trailer settings ... turn up the leader on the IdentiLynx camera settings. Also be sure that you are just checking manual and automatic under the camera settings. By default I believe leader and trailer are set to 15. Go higher on your leader. Also be sure that you have time sequence all cameras set under overall option settings.

I've used a system set up by someone else where some of the runners crossed just outside the view of the camera,ie camera on the infield and saw only the first 3 lanes and the runner crossed in 4 of 6, but leader and capture parameters are the likely cause.

I love questions like this. Means I get the system out and do some testing.

Under my leader and trailer settings mine were set to 5 by default. I tried to change it to 20 but it gave me an error saying it was out of the range 0...15. So I set them to 15 and did some testing. With it at 15, you should get about 1 second before and after on Identilynx compared to the Lynx camera from the time Lynx will auto capture.

If that does not help, I would move the camera farther from the finish line and a little higher so that if someone walks in front of it, the camera will not be blocked.

Faulty memory on my part I guess ... I also get 15 as the max on IdentiLynx (don't have my camera hooked up, but just testing on a past event). You can go higher on the EtherLynx leader and trailer, hence my partially wrong statement above about going higher. I am looking at one that I did at 70 earlier this spring. When we use it paired with our IPICO equipment we turn up the lead and trailer to assure that we get capture lines in the finish pictures. I believe if you turn up the side camera, since IdentiLynx is relative to it you will probably get more frontal duration as well. If you have the equipment set up, give it a try :-) Thanks for testing!

My recommendation is to set the IdentiLynx to Auto Capture (IdentiLynx Motion). See attached image. Do not select the Automatic capture box. Only the Automatic (IdentiLynx motion) box.

If you have it set on the Lynx auto capture the IdentiLynx can miss runners because it is using the FinishLynx to tell it to start recording. Having the IdentiLynx to tell itself when to start recording is way better. You will get extra video but hard disk space is cheap and missing a runner is bad.

Hi Rob, et. al. If you choose to follow this advice then definitely learn how to set the active capture area. Otherwise you are likely to be continuously capturing leading to slow save speeds or even memory and crash issues. I don't necessarily agree. I think you are better to not use idlynx motion capture. I used them a lot together and with proper lead/trail I don't think I miss things I meant to capture and I limit the amount of image I take. I use idlynx motion only when not using a side camera. Rob and I are friends and I respect how he does things, but he also has an ideal set up and knows what he is doing.

Earlier this year at our Washington High School Coaches Convention I was talking with Mark Wieczorek with Gig Harbor High School. The Gig Harbor XC program this last season won our state meet in the boy's 4A division and ended up going on and also winning the Nike Cross Nationals competition. So Mark and I were talking and Mark noted the finish line videos that I posted on the internet where I used my IdentiLynx cameras to film the runners coming into the finish line. I also used the IdentiLynx to read the bib numbers for scoring and timing. What Mark complimented on was being able to see the runners from the start of the finish stretch to see what his runners were doing but also to see what runners from other teams were doing, like passing his runners. As a coach he noted having this video review of the finish is an invaluable tool because he can see where as a coach he needs to coach more and so forth. Plus after the event the runners themselves can see how they did.

All of the videos that I made including the one in the YouTube link below were done with an IdentiLynx camera running the IdentiLynx Motion capture mode. If I was using the Automatic (Lynx) capture mode I wouldn't have a clear video because the video would only record a runner when they are at the finish line.

Here is a video of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v2HOytOLms

In my laptop it is an HP laptop with 8 GB of memory, an Intel Core i5 2.6 GHz processor, and a rpm hard drive. I haven't had any save speeds or memory issues. I actually am going to get a solid state drive this year so my read/write speed is faster than what I have now but so far my PC is handling the data.

To GCRacing; I watched your youtube video. I had approximately the same set-up as you in terms of where the camera was placed. I was not using Identilynx but using a web cam. After having a couple situations where one runner's position obscured another runner's bib number, I came up with a solution. I built up a bar that was roughly eight feet off the ground which spanned the entire finish line. The bar length was 20 feet. I set it back about 15-20 past the finish line and centered my camera on the bar. The results were better than expected; even with an inexpensive web cam, you could see everyone's bib number at least 30 feet before the finish line.
This year I am buying actual "rigging" so it is easier to put up and take down (plus it looks a lot better).
The officals who were tasked with the video review were very happy with the results.

Hey bnhsdad. Attached is what I have set-up. I actually use two IdentiLynx cameras from both sides of the chute so I get both angles. It seems to work well and rarely do I get a blocked runner situation. What is nice with the Lynx software is you can show all these camera images on the same window and they are all synchronized with each other. I use a 27" monitor for that then use my laptop for doing results and such. I then put the IdentiLynx cameras on tripods and outside the chute.