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How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet? Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket

How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet? Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? It makes absolutely no sense.

soperj 8y ago
Bigger issues to take care of...
ethbro 8y ago
> Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Yes. > Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast.
- aphextron 8y ago
  >Yes. Great, I guess that settles it then. >Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast. Because streaming delays aren’t a thing?
  - CydeWeys 8y ago
    They don't use streaming delays. They broadcast it live. There's a huge difference between watching something LIVE and watching it on a delay. Sports are also broadcast live, and also wouldn't be the same on a delay.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
walrus01 8y ago
It makes absolute sense considering the live video feed is probably coming via a motorized 3-axis tracking Ku-band maritime VSAT system. If you look at aerial photos of the drone ships you can see the radome. I suppose if they wanted to keep a feed up it would be possible to connect the cameras/network equipment on the ship to something with an ordinary 10Gbps 1310nm LX fiber SFP+ in it, attach 1 km of submarine rated fiber optic cable to a series of floats, and run a fiber optic cable to a small nearby ship with the satellite uplink mounted on it.
- drcross 8y ago
  Great idea. Fouling the rotating props as they maintain GPS dead reckoning may be a risk they don't want to take.
  - walrus01 8y ago
    Yeah, it'd have to be some kind of weird setup with the fiber coming off an extension arm sticking out from the side of the barge, and then at an angle into the water. Dynamic positioning vessels generally don't take kindly to having rope shaped things hanging around in the water near their thrusters. If you have a ship nearby with the VSAT uplink, another way to do it would be a really low cost IP data point to point link in the 900 MHz band, even if the fresnel zone is deep into the water, it'll be good enough for 15-20 Mbps of traffic. Way more than the bitrate of the video coming off that camera. Something like two Cambium PMP450i radios, two dual polarity 3 ft long yagi antennas, set up as a layer 2 ethernet bridge. The spread of that type of link's RPE in the 900 band means that as long as the VSAT uplink ship had some ability to stationkeep relative to the barge, you wouldn't even need motorized tracking antennas on both barge + uplink ship.
    - dzhiurgis 8y ago
      Or just use something like Iridium... Or keep it as it is. Adds to the drama.
      - walrus01 8y ago
        Iridium in its current form is 2400-3000 bps... The next generation network is not really commercially available yet. Can't squeeze much h265 video through that.
        dzhiurgis 8y ago
        That's Iridium Go - pocket sized device. Certus devices (new constellation) does 360kbps, probably more if you signup for something.
ncallaway 8y ago
> How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet? It's probably technically challenging and not a high priority. Why would this be something you want them to spend any significant resources on? > Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Probably. > Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? They literally do this all the time. Look at their YouTube channel, and you can see that they release the completed landings after the fact, even if the live broadcast cut out. > It makes absolutely no sense. I disagree. I don't think your expectations make any sense.

soperj 8y ago

Bigger issues to take care of...

ethbro 8y ago

> Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Yes. > Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast.

aphextron 8y ago
>Yes. Great, I guess that settles it then. >Yes, but then it wouldn't be a live feed. Which is what they typically broadcast. Because streaming delays aren’t a thing?
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  They don't use streaming delays. They broadcast it live. There's a huge difference between watching something LIVE and watching it on a delay. Sports are also broadcast live, and also wouldn't be the same on a delay.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

walrus01 8y ago

It makes absolute sense considering the live video feed is probably coming via a motorized 3-axis tracking Ku-band maritime VSAT system. If you look at aerial photos of the drone ships you can see the radome. I suppose if they wanted to keep a feed up it would be possible to connect the cameras/network equipment on the ship to something with an ordinary 10Gbps 1310nm LX fiber SFP+ in it, attach 1 km of submarine rated fiber optic cable to a series of floats, and run a fiber optic cable to a small nearby ship with the satellite uplink mounted on it.

drcross 8y ago
Great idea. Fouling the rotating props as they maintain GPS dead reckoning may be a risk they don't want to take.
- walrus01 8y ago
  Yeah, it'd have to be some kind of weird setup with the fiber coming off an extension arm sticking out from the side of the barge, and then at an angle into the water. Dynamic positioning vessels generally don't take kindly to having rope shaped things hanging around in the water near their thrusters. If you have a ship nearby with the VSAT uplink, another way to do it would be a really low cost IP data point to point link in the 900 MHz band, even if the fresnel zone is deep into the water, it'll be good enough for 15-20 Mbps of traffic. Way more than the bitrate of the video coming off that camera. Something like two Cambium PMP450i radios, two dual polarity 3 ft long yagi antennas, set up as a layer 2 ethernet bridge. The spread of that type of link's RPE in the 900 band means that as long as the VSAT uplink ship had some ability to stationkeep relative to the barge, you wouldn't even need motorized tracking antennas on both barge + uplink ship.
  - dzhiurgis 8y ago
    Or just use something like Iridium... Or keep it as it is. Adds to the drama.
    - walrus01 8y ago
      Iridium in its current form is 2400-3000 bps... The next generation network is not really commercially available yet. Can't squeeze much h265 video through that.
      - dzhiurgis 8y ago
        That's Iridium Go - pocket sized device. Certus devices (new constellation) does 360kbps, probably more if you signup for something.

ncallaway 8y ago

> How on earth could they have not solved the drone ship landing video feed issue yet? It's probably technically challenging and not a high priority. Why would this be something you want them to spend any significant resources on? > Is it really that hard to keep a video camera working near a landing rocket? Probably. > Even if the feed cuts out, can they not just record it locally and rebroadcast? They literally do this all the time. Look at their YouTube channel, and you can see that they release the completed landings after the fact, even if the live broadcast cut out. > It makes absolutely no sense. I disagree. I don't think your expectations make any sense.