Project: Final Table with cameras!!

pokeroptimist

I was informed that the required info for this could be got here!

Here's the plan....

An 8 foot kidney shaped poker table with dealer position. This part is already made two weeks.

However, I've a friend who's an big into the I.T side of things, and he reckons that it would be possible to rig up a final table with logitech webcams so that the action could all be recorded and put on dvd and given out to players.

I personally don't think it could work...from the technicial side of things. Has anyone any exerience or info relating to this?

Basically housing all the webcams/wires etc in the table is the easy part, the hard thing is to find a program that could allow one to record live feeds from a possible 14 webcams.
Each player would have their own "hole cam" with four other webcams to record the board and the playes around the table.

Any help on this will go along way to ease frustration in the long term

BIG-SLICK-POKER

These are great for wat u want

pokeroptimist

what are they?

Bandara

pokeroptimist wrote: »

I was informed that the required info for this could be got here!

Here's the plan....

An 8 foot kidney shaped poker table with dealer position. This part is already made two weeks.

However, I've a friend who's an big into the I.T side of things, and he reckons that it would be possible to rig up a final table with logitech webcams so that the action could all be recorded and put on dvd and given out to players.

I personally don't think it could work...from the technicial side of things. Has anyone any exerience or info relating to this?

Basically housing all the webcams/wires etc in the table is the easy part, the hard thing is to find a program that could allow one to record live feeds from a possible 14 webcams.
Each player would have their own "hole cam" with four other webcams to record the board and the playes around the table.

Any help on this will go along way to ease frustration in the long term

Why on earth would you want it?

for an hour of play your probably going to have about 15-20 hands covered in ten hours of footage (one hour from each camera)

Are you going to edit all this into one hour?

If so, why bother?

CoolBoardr

pokeroptimist wrote: »

I personally don't think it could work...from the technicial side of things. Has anyone any exerience or info relating to this?

Basically housing all the webcams/wires etc in the table is the easy part, the hard thing is to find a program that could allow one to record live feeds from a possible 14 webcams.

wat? finding a program that works with multiple web cams is the easy part. Google is your friend.

Sounds like an interesting project - good luck!

pokeroptimist

Hammertime wrote: »

Why on earth would you want it?

for an hour of play your probably going to have about 15-20 hands covered in ten hours of footage (one hour from each camera)

Are you going to edit all this into one hour?

If so, why bother?

No what we're planning to do is to record the live feeds from each camera onto one screen. Therefore no editing work needs to be done. My friend has done all the calculations for the technicial aspects and we reckon that for 14 webcams to run live for a 4 hour final table then this would take up approx 25 Gigabytes of space. The final table has been made with the compartments to allow the camera's etc... to be inserted whenever we want. Is it possible for me to post an image to explain better?

RasTa

Huh? You are going to need a program such as Final Cut or Adobe Premier to do this. Near impossble to do it without editing.

axer

You could possibly use Adobe OnLocation. I think somehow you will have to use some sort of video editing software.

Mr. Flibble

So you want to put the image from every camera onto one screen? There's got to be loads of CCTV hardware that does this. Not sure if you'll find USB stuff though.

m83

You could do it without editing but it wouldn't work well. Adobe Premier Pro 2 is your friend.

Great sounding project btw

stevire

If you had all 14 cameras setup on the one computer monitor, you could then use a program like Camtasia to record the screen. The webcams wouldnt have to record and your recording all cameras to the one video file. So it'd save a lot of space and run smoothly on most modern day pcs...

A cheap idea that might work... The only problem would be the dimensions of each frame of the webcam window on the computer monitor i.e each webcam viewer may be quite small to fit all fourteen on the screen. But then you could set up dual monitors and have 7 webcams on one screen and 7 on the other...

Just another suggestion!!

Mellor

stevire wrote: »

A cheap idea that might work... The only problem would be the dimensions of each frame of the webcam window on the computer monitor i.e each webcam viewer may be quite small to fit all fourteen on the screen. But then you could set up dual monitors and have 7 webcams on one screen and 7 on the other...
Just another suggestion!!

That shouldn't b a problem, the res of each will be quite low, but all they are showing are the cards, not a big need for high res.

There is plenty of CCTV software and hardware that can do this, any number of video feeds into split channels.
The option above works well also.

Recording the players is the hardest part. Trying to get static cameras to record 8-10 players is tricky.

zuroph

at the end of the game, theres only gonna be one person who wants to re-live it...

Four of a kind

Hammertime wrote: »

Why on earth would you want it?

for an hour of play your probably going to have about 15-20 hands covered in ten hours of footage (one hour from each camera)

Are you going to edit all this into one hour?

If so, why bother?

I asked pokeroptimist to post here on boards regarding this project, as it is for me he's doing it.
We've been playing with the idea of a custom made table with the possibility of adding webcams to record the action for a long time. So we decided to go ahead and build a decent sized table that has a dealer position and is also foldable to that it can be transported easily.

The progress so far on the final table can be viewed here:

http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbum.jsp?MemberId=3670984123&PhotoNbr=1&PhotoAlbumId=4868287319

zuroph

table looks awesome, good job, any chance of blueprint or at least measurements, id love to make one!

as for the cameras, are you also going to mic up? and the other four cameras, are they being mounted above the table? cos the dvd would be very hard to follow without sound and chip counts.

now i dont know if its possible, but what if each position had a button that activated/de-activated its camera. centre the feed from the overhead, with pop up windows around that open when a hand is live, and close when a hand is folded, thanks to the button being pressed. it could be a switchboard the dealer had also. itd make for an interesting way of tracking who is still in etc.

not that i know anything about it, but ud need someone to write up the program to do that i think.

newbie2

Lights may be need too. With someone leaning tover the table the cards are going to be very dark and webcams are notoriously bad and seeing stuff in darkness.. Small LED's built onto the lip may be an answer to this problem.

Is it your plan to record all 14 cameras and then edit after the game? If so, I suspect you'll need a very large HD.
If it's your plan to cut between the different cams on the night - a la vision mixing desk - then this would mean you can have a higher res on each of the under table cams. Would look better

It sounds an interesting project that could become useful to other event organisers if they wanted to broadcast a final table live into another room or something. I ssupect though that you would need "pencil cams", a vision mixing dexk, a few monitors, sound equipment, lights and a couple of people to operate the gear if you were to take it seriously.

strewelpeter

Nice project, looks like you have it well thought it out.
Why did you not opt for the camera under glass option?

Four of a kind

newbie2 wrote: »

Lights may be need too. With someone leaning tover the table the cards are going to be very dark and webcams are notoriously bad and seeing stuff in darkness.. Small LED's built onto the lip may be an answer to this problem.

Is it your plan to record all 14 cameras and then edit after the game? If so, I suspect you'll need a very large HD.
If it's your plan to cut between the different cams on the night - a la vision mixing desk - then this would mean you can have a higher res on each of the under table cams. Would look better

It sounds an interesting project that could become useful to other event organisers if they wanted to broadcast a final table live into another room or something. I ssupect though that you would need "pencil cams", a vision mixing dexk, a few monitors, sound equipment, lights and a couple of people to operate the gear if you were to take it seriously.

To be honest with you, the technicial side of things is not my area ! All we've done is design the table and leave the compartments under the table to allow the webcam option to be inserted later if desired.
By our reckoning, the costs to install the cameras(with built in LCD lights), some sort of basic sound/mic system and the software needed to record the feeds live would be somewhere in the region of €1300.

The project started out with the intention to built an 8 foot by 4 foot table, with a designated dealer position. Blue velvet felt, 6 inch wide black leather arrm rests, and the four of a kind logo in the center of the table.

The camera option was suggested by my friend who's the technicial expert. He said it could be done fairly easily so we set up a webcam under the arm rest as the photo's showed and the quality was very good. We just need to find a suitable piece of software that will allow us to record live onto the screen a total of 15 webcams.

I'm interested to know if a project like this was ever attempted before? From what we've done to house the webcams...its very easy. Its the technicial side of things that could prove the big challenge.

zuroph

^^+1 u wouldnt have to wrry about remembering to show hand to camera etc etc. u can buy cheap webcams with leds built in with dimmers so u could get the focus right.

Four of a kind

strewelpeter wrote: »

Nice project, looks like you have it well thought it out.
Why did you not opt for the camera under glass option?

The glass under the table option was the original idea, but then that would have meant cutting into the table itself. The other option(and the one we took) meant that the cams could be hidden under the arm rests and therefore if anything went pear shaped down the line regarding whether or not we're going to install the cameras, the the table itself will have remained uncut. You know what I mean.

The table itself will have cost €700 by the time everything is finished. This will have included the wood, felt material, leather arm rests, cushions, underlay material, stainless steel and yellow paint for the strip between the felt and arm rests, screws/nuts/bolts etc.. and the labour for the guys to put the felt on etc..
The old man made the table himself so that saved a few quid

Four of a kind

newbie2 wrote: »

Lights may be need too. With someone leaning tover the table the cards are going to be very dark and webcams are notoriously bad and seeing stuff in darkness.. Small LED's built onto the lip may be an answer to this problem.

Is it your plan to record all 14 cameras and then edit after the game? If so, I suspect you'll need a very large HD.
If it's your plan to cut between the different cams on the night - a la vision mixing desk - then this would mean you can have a higher res on each of the under table cams. Would look better

It sounds an interesting project that could become useful to other event organisers if they wanted to broadcast a final table live into another room or something. I ssupect though that you would need "pencil cams", a vision mixing dexk, a few monitors, sound equipment, lights and a couple of people to operate the gear if you were to take it seriously.

I'd be happy to give you all the details for the table once we get it finished and are happy with it.
I tried to base the dip from the arm rest to the felt on the following table.....

http://www.gotpokertable.com/CameraPokerTables.html

its the middle table in the photo.

I like that idea where there's abit of a dip....like the ones in vegas.

zuroph

what will u use for underlay under the felt?

Four of a kind

zuroph wrote: »

what will u use for underlay under the felt?

The Upholstery shop where we ordered the materials said that they have a suitable 2mm cushioned underlay material that will be just right for whats needed. Enough give to allow a nice bounce on the felt but not too much so as the chip stacks can be stacked up real high.

stevire

Looks great... A lot of love and care goin into her

How you gonna get a camera to record the board??

Four of a kind

stevire wrote: »

Looks great... A lot of love and care goin into her

How you gonna get a camera to record the board??

Well if/when we install the camera's, the camera for the board will be on an adjustable pole that will be positioned either to one side of the dealer position or behind the dealer. We tried this out and it works really well. Maybe there's another suggestion?

Four of a kind

More updated photos from the last bits of work on the table:

http://www.bebo.com/PhotoAlbum.jsp?MemberId=3670984123&PhotoAlbumId=4868287319

All thats left is for the table to be felted and covered with arm rests.

It will measure a massive 16 inches in depth when folded. Will take 2 people to carry though, which is the only negative to this whole project....but worth it in the long run I think.

stevire

Four of a kind wrote: »

Well if/when we install the camera's, the camera for the board will be on an adjustable pole that will be positioned either to one side of the dealer position or behind the dealer. We tried this out and it works really well. Maybe there's another suggestion?

You could get the dealer to try this out.. Tutorial included!!


Sam Noyoun has posted a step-by-step guide to make a helmet cam. WARNING: By doing this you will destroy the structural integrity of your helmet… Falling on the bolt could also cause you serious injuries.



Tools and materials that you’ll need..

- a standard helmet (skating, cycling, or kayaking)
- a stainless steel bolt (5mm in diameter; up to 10 cm in length)
- 2 washers, and a nut
- a wire coathanger (optional)
- some fuse wire (optional)

http://www.dphotojournal.com/diy-make-a-helmet-cam/


Didn't know it was a foldable table. Very nice, very nice indeed! Whats the average running total/expected cost?

Four of a kind

stevire wrote: »

You could get the dealer to try this out.. Tutorial included!!


Sam Noyoun has posted a step-by-step guide to make a helmet cam. WARNING: By doing this you will destroy the structural integrity of your helmet… Falling on the bolt could also cause you serious injuries.



Tools and materials that you’ll need..

- a standard helmet (skating, cycling, or kayaking)
- a stainless steel bolt (5mm in diameter; up to 10 cm in length)
- 2 washers, and a nut
- a wire coathanger (optional)
- some fuse wire (optional)

http://www.dphotojournal.com/diy-make-a-helmet-cam/


Didn't know it was a foldable table. Very nice, very nice indeed! Whats the average running total/expected cost?

LOL!!

Well for all the materials and the labour to cover the felt and arm rests the cost will be around the €700 mark. The table was made by my old man so that saved a couple of euro.

The table is rock solid and built to withstand frequent use.

Four of a kind

Looks like getting logos etc printed on the felt won't happen, due to the fact that it would need to be done with a UV type printing machine. Not too many of those around. Also it would have to be done before the felt is laid down...which is today!

Anyone know of any other solutions to get a logo etc on the felt?

Culchie

Four of a kind wrote: »

Looks like getting logos etc printed on the felt won't happen, due to the fact that it would need to be done with a UV type printing machine. Not too many of those around. Also it would have to be done before the felt is laid down...which is today!

Anyone know of any other solutions to get a logo etc on the felt?

Erm... you could bring the felt to a sign company that might be able to digitally print your logo onto it?

I presume this would work.

Culchie

Four of a kind wrote: »

The old man made the table himself so that saved a few quid

lol, in the short run maybe .... there's no flies on your old fellah. You'll be a long time paying back that debt Carlo;)

zuroph

iron on tshirt transfers? its not like it needs to be washed regularily..

Four of a kind

zuroph wrote: »

iron on tshirt transfers? its not like it needs to be washed regularily..

Would this work? If they got torn would it ruin the cloth underneath if I was to take them off?