DashWare is awesome, mini review, and 2 small new feature requests

[trhoppe]

So I used DashWare for the first time with this last weekend's videos. Many kudos as this software rules.

- Very easy to use, menus are pretty intuitive, contextual help is a great touch.

- Gauge Toolbox is awesome. I wasn't a fan of the blue of one of the gauges, but liked the rest of the look. In no time I have bigger black gauges with white faces and it was easy as pie. Very nice work on this part of the software.

- Maybe a slight change to the UI in terms of choosing the input for certain gauges. You can only do that on a project by project basis, and it would be nice to just create a new gauge, lets say throttle/brake bar graphs, and just default them to my analog 1 input on my DL1 every time I add them to a new video.

- Synchronization is great and easy to use. Since I have RPM overlay, its super easy to sync with my video. Found the best way for me was to match shifts with the tach. Stays in perfect sync the rest of the video

Now, my feature requests.

- My video camera records in 2GB chunks. Since its throwing down 720p 60fps video, it does about 1GB/10mins so my race video gets split into 2-3 chunks. Now I can add multiple data files to a project, but I think it would be great if I could also add multiple videos to a project. Right now, I have to pull in video 1 and data, sync, export out part 1 and then repeat for part 2. Then join/splice/etc in Sony Vegas. It would be great if I could just pull in a 2nd video like I can pull in a 2nd data file.

- Splicing. Don't only allow splicing on the front and end part of the video, but allow me to cut out some splices in the middle. The UI could be the same as it is today, but allow me to drop in some more of those triangles that are used to splice. I want to make 10 minute "highlight" videos of my races instead of 10 minutes of action, and 20 mins of no passing. Right now, I have to export out my 30 minutes of synced data+video, and then use Sony Vegas to cut out the action pieces into a "highlight" video.

Great software! About time someone came to market with something like this that is so easy to use and supports so many video formats.

Here is a qualifying lap at VIR in an ITA Integra in HD with DL1 overlayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnAEH1pMIYU&fmt=22

-Tom Hoppe

[RandallNoll]

Tom,

Great looking video, and thanks for the suggestions. I'm not sure about the work involved to get those done, but we'll definitely put them on the list to explore for future releases.

Thanks!

[Rolf]

Tom, thanks for the feedback! It is very valuable for us.

- Maybe a slight change to the UI in terms of choosing the input for certain gauges. You can only do that on a project by project basis, and it would be nice to just create a new gauge, lets say throttle/brake bar graphs, and just default them to my analog 1 input on my DL1 every time I add them to a new video.

We are actually working on that one right now. We plan on having "Data Profiles" where you can specify your own input auto-mapping and such. We want to expand our list of gauge input types and allow you guys to add your own custom ones too.

- My video camera records in 2GB chunks. Since its throwing down 720p 60fps video, it does about 1GB/10mins so my race video gets split into 2-3 chunks. Now I can add multiple data files to a project, but I think it would be great if I could also add multiple videos to a project. Right now, I have to pull in video 1 and data, sync, export out part 1 and then repeat for part 2. Then join/splice/etc in Sony Vegas. It would be great if I could just pull in a 2nd video like I can pull in a 2nd data file.

- Splicing. Don't only allow splicing on the front and end part of the video, but allow me to cut out some splices in the middle. The UI could be the same as it is today, but allow me to drop in some more of those triangles that are used to splice. I want to make 10 minute "highlight" videos of my races instead of 10 minutes of action, and 20 mins of no passing. Right now, I have to export out my 30 minutes of synced data+video, and then use Sony Vegas to cut out the action pieces into a "highlight" video.

We eventually would like to have support for multiple video files. Not only the way you described (stitching), but also for showing multiple camera angles (picture-in-picture). Combine that with the ability to splice anywhere and we have to re-think our time line UI. We may have to move towards a Vegas-like time line like most video editing packages use. This is a pretty substantial work item though, so no promises on a release date. :)

Cool video!

Thanks,
Rolf