Video camera on a car

[tigretr]

Hi guys,
I want to purchase a video camera that I can among other things, put on my roll bar and get good video and sound of me going around the race track. I am very curious if any of you have any experience with this as far as the type of recording media goes. I am wondering if moving parts (i.e. Hard drive, DVD, tape) versus vibrations are a bad thing? Has anyone used a hard drive video camera on the car and had any problems?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Brian

 

[husky drvr]

Brian,

Just a thought........


Have you tried contacting one of the production companies that routinely do that type of work? I would think they could give you good info about your questions.

Seems that might be a good place to start.

 

[Andrew]

Hi guys,
I am wondering if moving parts (i.e. Hard drive, DVD, tape) versus vibrations are a bad thing? Has anyone used a hard drive video camera on the car and had any problems?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Brian

Hi Brian,
Check out this link:
http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=CM

I had a friend that put a camera on this roll bar, He mounted it directly on his roll bar via a metal plate. The camera lasted 1 week and would no longer work due to the vibrations. Watch what camera and mount you use.
There are also some very good capture cards and software packages that one can purchase to mix and edit video on a personal computer.
If you would like more information feel free to contact me.

Regards,
Andrew

 

[tigretr]

Andrew,
Thanks for the information. That is exactly what I was looking for. 1 horror story like that changes everything. I am really looking for a hard drive camera and you confirmed my initial thoughts. Putting the camera on my car was just a wish not a need, so I guess I will purchase it for my real needs and find other means of recording my track days if I feel the need.

Thanks again for the info,
Brian

 

[Tullamore]

Last spring I bought a new HDD camera and mounted it in my tiger. The camera has vibration detection and would turn off for a few seconds all of the time. I was amazed at how much shock the camera actually takes.

Never had a problem with a tape camera but if I bought a new one I would buy one with a flash drive so there is no moving parts.

 

[Ken Ellis]

There are several HD (as in high def) and standard def cameras out now that are all solid state. I'd stay away from tape and hard drives. Your mounting on the roll cage will need to be in a rubber suspension, that is isolating at high vibration frequencies, as well as low freq vibrations, (movements) with good end-of-travel damping. This calls for: lots of experimentation, or luck, or buying something made specifically for the task. It's likely #3 is the most expensive choice there.

There are a couple of ways to improve a setup. First is, grab an older, tape-based cam corder that has mechanical image stabilization (Sony TR-101 is one model, if I recall) and feed its output into a separate solid state recorder that's nestled in the passenger seat (if you have one) rather than on the roll bar. This way, you get a good degree of image stabilization without asking the tape system to work, plus you can then bring the files into a decent editing program that has an additional image stabilization plug-in. You can tweak more there.

I'd check out what others are using, and check out their footage.

For sound, forget about the mic on the camera. Place a microphone out of the wind, like up on the dash behind the windshield. It'll be plenty loud, I'm sure!

Ken -- just back from the NAB convention, where I'm sure there were 50 of 'em,
if I'd only known to look...

 

[Andrew]

Camera

If you had a laptop computer with a capture card, you could use a remote camera and record to the hard drive. This may be a good way to go as you could also use diagnostice equipment on the car and record some cool data (temperature etc) or even lap times from the car, mind you it would be best to please keep your eyes on the road.
You could set up a switch to runs a couple of camera locations from the front or pointing to the rear of the car. I still think you would need to look at the vibration thing with a remote camera.

 

[Ken Ellis]

And also look at the Asus EEEPC, 4gig and up solid state hard drive, 3 usb ports,
starting at about $300. Or check out the Addonics CF-IDE HDD adaptor, that can let you replace your laptop hard disk drive with a compact flash card.

Ken

 

[SIVAllan]

A "normal" digital camera with a 6 gig SD or compatible card is good for over 2 hours of movie with sound using QT format, perhaps more in other formats, if I did the math correctly.

Simple to move such a movie to a pc or laptop via USB cable or by putting the memory card into a 2$ card reader.

Many current digital cameras have decent or better "anti shake" technology.

Just my 0.02$ worth .