Remote Interface (Video Player, Pro Version)
Manual traffic counts are now often conducted by recording a video of an intersection and then completing the count while in the office (away from the sun, cold, rain, noise, and traffic). The Video Mode of the Turning Movement Count app is designed for the traditional “counts from video” approach. However, the Remote Interface takes video counts to a greater level of control and efficiency. Using a combination of your tablet/phone you can control a video recording of an intersection: play, pause, speed up, slow down, skip ahead, and skip forward.
Why do this? Well, when your device is connected to the video player via the IP address (you should be on the same network for this to work) then when you tap a button to make a vehicle observation that observation time and date are based on the time of the video and not on the current time. This means that you can go to an intersection at 7 AM and record video for 3 hours. You can then go back to the office and play that video using the PortableStudies.com Video Player, specify that the video recording started on April 11, 2015 at 7:00 AM and tap the buttons on the tablet/phone as you were at the intersection. As far as your device is concerned you were at the intersection. However, you can pause the video when you need a break, or speed up the video when traffic volume is low. Study data is stored on the device as well as on the computer running the video player.
Steps to Start a Count Using the Remote Interface
First, make sure that you load a video on the PortableStudies.com Video Player by selecting File -> Open Video. When asked for a time and date select the time and date of when the video recording started. Then, on your Android device start a new study by selecting Four Approaches (Remote).
Once you select the Remote interface you will be presented with a screen where you will enter the study information. This is interface is similar to all the other ones with one particular difference: you are asked for an IP address. The IP address requested is that displayed on the Video Player running on your computer, i.e., the IP address of your computer. Once you enter the IP address you can proceed and select Continue/Start. The phone will attempt a connection to the Video Player to make sure that the IP address is valid. If the connection attempt is successful you will be taken to a data collection screen as the one in the figure ahead.
On the interface shown you have your traditional interface that enables making pedestrian and vehicle observations (including different vehicle banks: 1, 2, 3, and 4). In addition to that, the blue buttons (the ones in the center of the screen) allow you to control the video player. For example, the play/pause buttons does exactly what the name suggests: plays or pause the video. The next buttons to the left and right that have a small 5 embedded skips the video forward or backward by 5 seconds. The remaining blue buttons, one on the extreme left and the other on the extreme right are used to control the speed of the video playback. The left extreme one slows down the speed of the video while the right extreme one speeds up the playback thus allowing you be more efficient during low volume periods.
More Advanced Stuff
Feel free to ignore the content past this point. However, for anyone interested here are some details that might be useful for those on complex networks. The video player app that works with the Turning Movement Count Pro app version 3.0+ listens for commands on port 4999. Technically you don’t need to be one the same network, i.e., if your router is configured to forward network traffic on port 4999 towards the computer that runs the video player than means that you can have a cellphone that is not on the same network as the video player control it if instead of the IP Address of the video player you input the IP address of your router (your public facing IP).
