The FlashTiming system includes two radio-linked units, a video camera, digital converter and software that captures and plays back the video on a laptop computer. In a typical setup, the video camera is located at the finish line. It’s connected to the laptop which displays live feed from the video camera. The camera is connected to the laptop through the FT-FAT timer unit and the digital converter.
The second FT-FAT radio is located next to the starter and should be positioned within 2-4 feet of the raised starting pistol. Before the start of the race, it’s essential that the starter communicates with the timing officials that the race is about to start and the timing officials acknowledge that they are ready to time the race. FT-FAT makes this easy.
The starter presses the green ready button on the FT-FAT unit, which causes the green light to blink and sends an “Are you ready?” signal to the timer. The lights and sounds from the timer unit alerts the timing official that the starter is ready. The timing official acknowledges the signal by pressing either the green ready button or the red stop button. The green button sends an "I’m ready" signal back to the starter, which turns the blinking green light to a solid green light, indicating the race is ready to start. If the timer presses the stop button, an “I’m not ready” signal is sent back to the starter and the starter unit will flash the red light and sound the busy signal.
Once the starter receives the “I’m ready” signal, the race may start. The sound of the gun blast starts the race clock. There is no special starting gun or ammunition required to start the clock: a .22 caliber starting pistol is sufficient.
The FT-FAT timer unit encodes the race time on each frame of the video and the times are displayed on the live feed video on the laptop. The FlashTiming operator starts capturing the video to the hard drive when the first runner approaches the finish line.
The video camera records each runner as they cross the finish line. Each frame captured is encoded with the race time. The operator stops capturing when the last runner crosses the line and the captured video is stored on a laptop. Only the relevant video is captured and stored on the computer’s hard drive.
The video is reviewed by a finish line judge at the end of each race. The judge advances the video to the frame that shows the runner’s torso on or over the finish line to determine the athlete’s time. FlashTiming can be configured to exchange data with most popular meet management applications, including Hy-Tek Meet Manager, Sydex’s Track Gold, Easy Meet Manager, TrackMate and Apple Raceberry Jam. With this feature, FlashTiming displays the list of athletes in the event. The finish line judge clicks on the runner’s name or lane in the list and the time is recorded automatically. When all runners are recorded, the results can be transferred to your meet management application with a click of a button. You can set up your FlashTiming System to work with one, two or three computers. One computer is sufficient when you have adequate time between races for one person to review the video and record the times. If you’re using one of the supported meet management programs, then we recommend two or three computers networked together. With three computers, one computer is dedicated to capturing the video, one for playback and review and one for scoring with the meet management application. As soon as a race is recorded and saved on the capture computer, the video file appears on a list of captured videos on the review computer. The capture computer is free to record the next race while the finish line judge reviews the video on the playback computer. The operator of the meet management application spends most of the time entering results from the field events into the meet management application. The finish line judge notifies the meet management operator when all times from a race are recorded and saved. The meet management operator loads the times into the meet management application with one mouse click and the race is scored.
|
