Daisy chaining dash cams
Multiple cameras within a vehicle, such as placed at multiple locations inside and/or outside a bus or semi-truck and trailer, may be chained together to provide a consolidated video stream that may be recorded and/or transmitted wirelessly to a cloud storage device. Rather that each of the cameras independently recording and/or streaming video content, each camera may be configured to deserialize an input video to identify video streams from separate cameras (e.g., such as based on associate virtual channel identifiers) and reserialize its own video stream with the other video streams in the received input. The serialized video stream is then transmitted to a next camera in the daisy chain and/or a video storage device.
1 . A media controller configured to:
connect to only a first of a plurality of camera devices coupled in a wired serial configuration, wherein the plurality of camera devices are positioned on a vehicle;
detect sequential powering-on of individual camera devices of the plurality of camera devices in response to communications from respective individual camera devices via the wired serial configuration;
in response to detecting a newly powered on camera device, dynamically assign a virtual channel identifier to the newly powered on camera device, wherein each of the plurality of camera devices is assigned a unique virtual channel identifier by the media controller based on the power-on sequence;
receive, via the wired serial configuration, a combined serial data stream comprising a deterministic sequence of virtual channel identifiers each immediately followed by corresponding video data from respective camera devices; and
extract video data streams of respective camera devices based on associations between the virtual channel identifiers and the video data in the combined serial data stream.
2 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein the combined serial data stream is transmitted on a single cable.
3 . The media controller of claim 2 , wherein the single cable comprises a single wire or twisted pair of wires.
4 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein the combined serial data stream includes audio data streams associated with respective camera devices.
5 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein the media controller is configured to communicate separately with each of the plurality of camera devices.
6 . The media controller of claim 5 , wherein the media controller is configured to communicate separately with each of the plurality of camera devices regarding one or more of exposure control, focus control, white balance, HDR, and distortion correction.
7 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein each camera is associated with a unique physical address and includes an ethernet switch.
8 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein the video data from respective camera devices is compressed.
9 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein each of the plurality of camera devices includes a deserializer configured to receive a data stream from a downstream camera device and to convert the data stream into one or more separate video data streams.
10 . The media controller of claim 9 , wherein each of the plurality of camera devices includes a serializer configured to generate an output serial data stream including a captured video data stream from the camera device and the separate video data streams.
11 . The media controller of claim 1 , wherein the vehicle comprises one or more of an automobile, buses, recreational vehicle, semi-truck, or trailer.
12 . A computerized method, performed by a media controller having one or more hardware computer processors and one or more non-transitory computer readable storage device storing software instructions executable by the media controller to perform the computerized method comprising:
connecting to only a first of a plurality of camera devices coupled in a wired serial configuration, wherein the plurality of camera devices are positioned on a vehicle;
detecting sequential powering-on of individual camera devices of the plurality of camera devices in response to communications from respective individual camera devices via the wired serial configuration;
in response to detecting a newly powered on camera device, dynamically assigning a virtual channel identifier to the newly powered on camera device, wherein each of the plurality of camera devices is assigned a unique virtual channel identifier by the media controller based on the power-on sequence;
receiving, via the wired serial configuration, a combined serial data stream including a sequence of virtual channel identifiers each immediately followed by video data from respective camera devices; and
extracting video data streams of respective camera devices based on associations between the virtual channel identifiers and the video data in the combined serial data stream.
13 . The computerized method of claim 12 , wherein the combined serial data stream is transmitted on a single cable.
14 . The computerized method of claim 13 , wherein the single cable comprises a single wire or twisted pair of wires.
15 . The computerized method of claim 12 , wherein the combined serial data stream includes audio data streams associated with respective camera devices.
16 . The computerized method of claim 12 , wherein the media controller is configured to communicate separately with each of the plurality of camera devices.
17 . The computerized method of claim 16 , wherein the media controller is configured to communicate separately with each of the plurality of camera devices regarding one or more of exposure control, focus control, white balance, HDR, and distortion correction.
18 . The computerized method of claim 12 , wherein each camera is associated with a unique physical address and includes an ethernet switch.
19 . The computerized method of claim 12 , wherein each of the plurality of camera devices includes a deserializer configured to receive a data stream from a downstream camera device and to convert the data stream into one or more separate video data streams.