Video-Based Measurement of System Latency

We describe an end -to-end latency measurement method for virtual environments. The method incorporates a video camera to record both a physical controller and the corresponding virtual cursor at the same time. The end-to-end latency can be concluded based on the analysis of the playback of the videotape. The only hardware necessary is a standard interlaced NTSC video camera and a video recorder that can display individual video fields. We describe an example of analyzing the effect of different hardware and software configurations upon the system latency. The example shows that the method is effective and easy to implement.