Camera advice

[Tim Falce]

Originally Posted by Finn

I got a gopro motorsports hero camera for chirstmas. I've not had chance to use it properly yet so can't comment on on race quality although there seems to be quite a few decent videos on youtube etc

http://www.goprocamera.com/

www.dogcamsport.co.uk/go-pro-hero-helmet-cameras.html[/url]

I've used one of those and the quality is excellent for the cost of the camera. I would say it easily matches my camcorder and bullet cam with far better sound quality. The two problems I have with it is mounting it on the car and it's heavy battery usage.

[minifox]

vote for the chasecam package here.
run it on a b192 benetton mounted to the tub and it works brilliantly. little button next to the driver and the box hidden behind the seats.
have some very good footage and the mic isnt bad either. not cheap but worth it i think!

[Finn]

Originally Posted by falcemob

I've used one of those and the quality is excellent for the cost of the camera. I would say it easily matches my camcorder and bullet cam with far better sound quality. The two problems I have with it is mounting it on the car and it's heavy battery usage.

Hi Falcemob,

gopro have just released a roll bar mount.

Link below if your interested. Also a video sample for anybody else who is thinking of getting one

http://secure.ultracart.com/cgi-bin/...PRO&ADD=GRBM30

[Clive Brown]

Al - I take it you wear a deep-tinted visor to avoid being momentarily dazzled when the magnesium flash goes off ?

[tristancliffe]

Originally Posted by Finn

Hi Falcemob,

gopro have just released a roll bar mount.

Link below if your interested. Also a video sample for anybody else who is thinking of getting one

http://secure.ultracart.com/cgi-bin/...PRO&ADD=GRBM30

If only someone made a camera mount for non-round roll bars, as found on many a 'modern' single seater. Alas, they do not. So I made my own (can make for others too ).

[GORDON STREETER]

I didn't even think about buying a camera mount, and made one utilizing an old tripod top with a 2 way swivel head that I found in a skip. It took hardly any time to make and is fitted on the roll bar with a couple of exhaust clamps.

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by Clive Brown

Al - I take it you wear a deep-tinted visor to avoid being momentarily dazzled when the magnesium flash goes off ?

???? confused i am???

[Al Weyman]

I use my camera and mount in two different cars so an easy removable one suited me better than a home made job.

[Moosehead]

I use a Sony MiniDV which works great. Only when hitting very high rumble strips do I get any vibration problems. Home made mount onto roll cage, no problems with scrutes. Positioned just right to get the mirror in so you can see anyone behind. Only problem is downloading to PC takes ages so now I just plug the camera into a DVD recorder and just copy straight to disc.

[Al Weyman]

Hi Wayne, have you got a firewire card in your PC and a port on the camcorder because it will download quicker than via usb.

[Moosehead]

Funnily enough I picked up a firewire lead at the weekend but haven't got round to trying it yet.

[GORDON STREETER]

DOUBLE POST

[GORDON STREETER]

Originally Posted by Moosehead

Funnily enough I picked up a firewire lead at the weekend but haven't got round to trying it yet.

As Al said you also want a firewire "card" in the computer. Maybe your lead came with one ? Also you will want a fair bit of space on whatever drive you send it to depending on length . I stick mine on a 500 gig external.

[PTRACER]

If it's a miniDV camera, then surely it'll be recorded onto tape and will need to be recorded into PC in the same way as it records onto a DVD recorder...

So in that case, I'd recommend getting hold of Adobe Premiere Elements because you can record directly into it with your camera, it's not too difficult to use and it's only about £50 and will allow you to burn it straight to a DVD which will play in any DVD player.

[Al Weyman]

You still need the mans to get it into the puter and firewire is fastest or at least thats what I have found, same when I am printing to large format machines firewire will work much faster than USB.

[Moosehead]

Only reason I want to get it onto PC is so I can do a bit of editing. Quite content to just record straight to DVD at the moment

[Al Weyman]

If you buy the LG Hard drive machine I spoke about earlier Wayne (or similar) you can edit from that at least basic stuff, you can also put titles in there from the machine as well. What you do is save it to the hard drive and dub to the dvd from there but only the bits and chapters that you want.

[RF_Racer]

any good?

http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/pr...ion_camera.htm

[Chris Y]

Al, it doesn't matter which is faster, USB or Firewire, because if it's a tape-mechanism like MiniDV, then the transfer to PC will only go as fast as the tape will play, which is usually 1x speed - i.e. 30 minutes of footage will take 30 minutes to transfer to PC.

[tristancliffe]

Originally Posted by RF_Racer

any good?

http://www.oregonscientific.co.uk/pr...ion_camera.htm

A 'budget' camera, so 'budget' results. It won't be awful by any means, but the cameras ability to cope with vibration, brightness changes might not be so good. I used a Oregon 2k camera once or twice, and the results were grainy and not very good really. But I'd imagine the newer ones are quite a lot better. You can at least aim the 5k easily with the built in screen.

On an open wheeler it'll cause a lot of drag, and the microphone will only pick up wind noise above 10mph. But in a closed cockpit car (with the camera inside) it'll probably be fine.

[PTRACER]

Do these digital cameras actually capture at 25fps interlaced, or 25fps progressive? On a TV screen, 25fps progressive will look like a high-speed slideshow, but will look fine on a computer screen.

[Al Weyman]

Originally Posted by Chris Y

Al, it doesn't matter which is faster, USB or Firewire, because if it's a tape-mechanism like MiniDV, then the transfer to PC will only go as fast as the tape will play, which is usually 1x speed - i.e. 30 minutes of footage will take 30 minutes to transfer to PC.

True, never thought of that its just the lead that came with the kit and based on my large format printing experience, I do also have a Sony DVD machine but that only come with a usb lead and seems OK anyhow.

[Moosehead]

USB, Firewire, 25fps interlaced.....oh hell.....techie overload......I'm going out to the garage to play with an AF spanner

[Al Weyman]

Yeah we dont want any of that metric stuff do we Moose!

[GORDON STREETER]

Moosehead. Just get an editing program (the windows movie one will do) and download the digi camcorder straight on via firewire. You can play about with it when its on the PC. It will download in "real time" and as I said it takes up a lot of space.