New perspective

Just got a new doctor yellow with dual cameras.
I tried the app and the image quality is better than I expected. Can't wait to build a big layout for it to run.

It's quite different from the S-07 doctor yellow my son wanted at my local Toys"R"us, but I think it will do

[Super]

Hello Hy

Anxious to see the videos from the cab. Isn't there 2 cameras? One looking out the front window and one from the side? If I remember Mr Ripley had one of these but since the App was all in Japanese he had trouble getting it to work for him. No fault of the train but it would have been nice if there was also an App in other languages.

Hi Super,

There are indeed 2 cameras, one in the front and one towards the left. I ran it around a quick layout this morning, here are some footage. It's quite shaky at times, stabilising with video editing software such as iMovie will make it smoother, though I only uploaded the original for review.

Front camera:


Left camera:


Layout:


I found the front view better suited for large layout with long straights and few turns. Maybe next time I'll run it on dual tracks between rooms, and capture some incoming trains.
Also, running a large circle counterclockwise with other trains and scenery inside looks quite nice.

I haven't encountered problems during setup. There's an faq page here:
https://www.takaratomy.co.jp/products/pl...te/faq.htm
You can view the setup videos here and download the faq.pdf and upload it to Google Translate. Upload app screenshots to google translate may also work.

So far, I'm quite satisfied with this train. It's quite fast for a heavy train, can go forward and backwards, looks nice with bogies, too. In addition, it challenges me to consider what the "driver" and "passengers" will see when building a layout. Maybe one day I can drive it through a lego city when my son grows up a bit 

[ripley802]

@Super,
Yep this is one I tried but failed with..lol. The app needed downloaded from the Japanese iTunes Store as it was not available in the US store, so that required an email account being setup to access that store. Once I had the app, yes it was all in Japanese, so I used my phone with google translate to hover over the app while it was running on my iPad to try and see what to do. I was trying all this probably a month after the train came out so I was unable to locate an FAQ or any video in English to help at the time. It also needed connected to WiFi I believe.

[Super]

@Hystudio

Thank you for the video's. I notice that both videos are only in 480p resolution...is that the highest resolution the on board cameras record at or is it limited to what your phone can record or for size of the video file? That would be a neat perspective with a side view run through a Lego Village.
Also noticed some nice Chuggington Scenery pieces in the Layout. BTW: Love the play room.


@Ripley

Hi Ripley!

The videos are probably the resolution of the onboard cameras. They are 640x480 @ 15 fps. The compression method is quite outdated. It's using the Motion JPEG format, which is basically a stream of JPEG still photos, instead of the more efficient H.264 format.

I guess the designer has to balance between video quality, bandwidth, battery life, heat dissipation and cost, etc. The front unit is already warm to the touch after running for 10 min.

One drawback of the app is that, on most phones you only see the bottom half of the video on the driving screen because of the UI. It's not optimized to take advantage of iPad's 4:3 screen either. Only on some android tablets, you may see more of the video, I think.

[Super]

I am surprised that the resolution is so low seeing its so new...heck, even Muddy Poppins is now making videos in HD