Gussie Cup

At the last Donno track day, I noticed that quite a few cars had cameras mounted inside the car. I have a couple of questions:

1) Are there any written rules stating how the camera should be secured?

2) What do you guys who have this set-up, recommend camera-wise?

3) Are digi-vid cameras a lot more expensive than conventional ones?

Thanks
Ben

Stef

Guzzie.
1) As long as the camera is secure, there's normally no probs. Some circuits are stricter than others though.
2) Digital camcorders are definitely the best to use, as picture quality is far better than any tape format. Mini DV seems to be the most popular format, and some of the cameras are quite tiny.
3) They will of course cost slightly more, but definitely worth paying the extra for IMHO.

Stef.

harj

Ive just bought one of those suction clamps that you can stick with a camcorder anywhere on the car, time for some on roof filming I think best investment I think for under £80.

Stef

The gizmo Harj is referring to can be seen here....

Gussie Cup

Cheers Stef, Harj and Andy

Thats the bracket sorted - Now I just need a pointer re digi-vid camera.

Any suggestions?

TKH

Got bollocked at oulton for using camcorder hand held by wife then got bollocked by wife for getting bollocked so thanks for the advice on aquiring suitable camera mounts.

Regards

Tim.

p.s. footage from saturday is tremendooos !

TKH

Got bollocked at oulton for using camcorder hand held by wife then got bollocked by wife for getting bollocked so thanks for the advice on aquiring suitable camera mounts.

Regards

Tim.

p.s. footage from saturday is tremendooos !

fast bloke

Gussie-Cup,
You have two main formats to choose from. Mini DV and DV-8. One of these will win and the other will probably disappear, like VHS and Beta in the early 80's. Quality from both is similar. You can spend from 400 quid to 3k on one. The lower end of the market ones are still reasonably good quality. DV-8 uses the old Hi-8 tapes in a digital format, so you get 45 mins from a 60 min tape. These tapes are cheaper than Mini-DV ones. Neither format will deteriorate with age/re-use. Mini DV uses smaller (but more expensive) tapes (I think they are the same as DAT tapes), so the entire camera is much smaller. Picture/sound and zoom quality is much superior to the old VHS or VHS-C types, so don't even consider one of the older ones. So now you just need to decide how much you want to spend....



[This message has been edited by fast bloke (edited 31 January 2001).]

NITO

Gussie,

Check out the new mini DV released by Sony very recently. It's tiny and among its awesome range of features is night vision for recording in pitch black conditions (which works as I tried it in the pitch black cabinet below the stall to which it was attached, and a touch screen tv viewfinder. Cost was £1080!

Nito

harj

The cam Nito is referring to is the one im buying this week, sounds sad but I wanted to get the mounting clamp before a new camera so the clamp came first. Ive got one of these tiny little JVC Digi ones but they are so feable and keep going wrong, so its time for Sony again .

Gary Foster

Gussie cup - for Gods sake get one with a remote / remote start, I don't and it's a pain in the butt. Also I don't have jitter correction, but it's still fine.

I have to start an argument here (sorry)

I have a non digital 8mm (Not Hi-8) and when I looked into the whole quality thing I realised that there was a lot of misinformation being distributed by the manufacturers.

The majority of the cheap camcorders (as long as it says digital zoom on it) do in fact share the same CCD as their 2 x expensive digital equivalents. So you have the same resolution at this point as a digital camcorder.

It is only at the point that it goes on tape where picture quality could be reduced. IMHO 8mm analogue cameras are fine, they record a lot more lines and in better quality than a VCR does anyway, so if you are going to archive stuff onto VCR you really are wasting your money.

(Of course you do still have the problem of degradation etc with analogue, but honestly how long are you going to keep these things ?)

You want it small ! what for, it's going in the back of the car ! (the analogue ones aren't big for gods sake)

Go for the cheapest 8mm Analogue with no screen (just a viewfinder) but with digital zoom (for the CCD) and a remote. Should be £300, spend the other £700 on stuff for the car.

Gary

[This message has been edited by Gary Foster (edited 31 January 2001).]

Stef

I have loads of footage taken from in-car on mini-dv, and just one tape on VHS-c. There is simply no comparison in the sound or picture quality. The vhs stuff is cack. Get digital, seriously. Nothing over-the-top if is's mainly for car use, a basic one should suffice. I'd say £500 would get a decent enough one.
Oh, and Jessops are selling five-packs of mini-dv tapes for £29.99, which is a bargain!

Stef.

Gary Foster

VHS-C *is* cack (same format as VHS in a smaller package)

8mm is not the same thing, the image quality is far better.

I could well believe the sound would be an awful lot better however.

£200 for me is still a lot of money just to take some in car videos on a track day. But at the end of the day, if quality is really *that* important you are going to go for a digital one.

I'm sure you guys have got more money than sense sometimes

Stef

Gary.
Perhaps saying vhs-c is cack is a bit harsh. It's just cack in comparison to mini-dv!
I haven't used 8mm, but if you're going to invest in a camcorder surely it makes sense to get an up-to-date format, especially as there's not that much difference in price now.
Besides, there are lots of other places where camcorders come in handy.....on your hols, in the bedroom, etc, etc.

Stef.

TKH

I bought a Cannon DV 300 mini DV on the friday pre Oulton absolutely brilliant paid £ 600.00 for it and if you look in What Tv & video they list all camcorders all formats and rate them in an EVO style manner and the DV 300 has just won best amatuer camcorder of the year it was great for Oulton because you can use the flip out screen and change the shutter speed for fast moving objects i.e. any scooby.

Regards.

Tim

SecretAgentMan

I've just done the camcorder hi-8/digi-8/mini-DV pro con thingy.

Ended up with a Sony DCR-PC4E, lovely little DV camera, EXCELLENT picture quality.
A firewire port on the pooter, and a copy of Ulead Videostudio 5.0 (can be found at

Gary Foster

I don't want to know about your extra-marital affairs thank you Stephan !

Your probably right, I am a tight **** though and really didn't plan to use it for anything out (bedroom sounds like a good idea though

I'm just trying to work out how to use my crappy video capture card and I'll post something so you can all make your own minds up.

Gary

IWatkins

Another option if you are serious about doing loads of track day stuff is a portable video recorder (Hi-8 or DV) and a bullet camera. The bullet camera's vary from 80 - 400 pounds. One around the 150 - 250 mark will get you excellent quality footage and because they are the size of a tube of Polos (well a little fatter), they can be put anywhere. I.e. front splitter, under rear spoiler, top of your aerial, down your sock etc. And because they are very light, they have little inertia and don't get affected by shake as much. My current favorite position is on the door mirrors either pointing forwards or backwards, you get some of the car in for reference and get a good idea of the speed. And mounting is a doddle, bit of insulation tape is all it needs

The video recorder sits in the car, safe, whereas the camera part is fairly cheap and should it be damaged, not as much of a problem.

Just somthing to think about

My setup, with batteries etc. cost around 700 pounds.

There again, if you also want a video camera to film weddings, kids, holidays etc. not much use

Cheers

Ian

IWatkins

Gary, NITO, all,

(Gary, thought I would post here, rather than mail).

I got my bullet camera from here:

NITO

Whoa, cheers for that Ian...some pretty cool stuff!
Check out this mini dv recorder/editing studio!

Gary Foster

Wow ! thats some cool stuff !

Shame about the price of the hi8 recorder thouhg. Do the digital camcorders let you plug an input into them for recording purposes ?

Gary Foster

Strangely enough I was thinking about doing the same thing ! I'll email you for more details.

NITO

Where can you buy these bullet cameras Ian?

In theory, you could have a tv headunit, a video recorder in the boot and one of these cameras up front, or rear, or both with a switching panel so you could see if the footage you're getting is any good while recording it or use the monitor as a rear view mirror!! Obviously a setup like this would be a permanent installation but think of the fun you could have recording out of order cops..there have been many times I wish I could have had a camera on board!

Just a cool idea,
Nito

Gary Foster

TV Headunit hmm, thats an idea.

So how much do they cost, and doesn't that mean you lose your stereo ?

Gary

NITO

Nope Gary. You get to keep your stereo as it's integrated within the unit. There are a few makes available at the moment. The Pioneer one is quite nice and will control a CD multichanger in the boot, has a single disc cd slot in the front and a built in radio. You can also get one without the single cd slot. I believe cost varies from where you go starting at £600ish for the non cd single one to around £900 for the one with the single cd player..both of these prices vary on where you go, I've seen some good offers around.

Personally I'm waiting until someone brings out a unit with a dvd single slot in the headunit! Problem with the pioneer one is that you need a million boxes to control this and that and they all cost extra, ie TV tuner/sat nav etc!

Alpine do one as do kenwood and vdo too and I'm pretty sure panasonic have done one too!

HTH
Nito

Gary Foster

Thats quite neat, but I'd need a CD up front - and that is a serious amount of money (for a tight wad like myself

As you say, for that sort of cash I would require a DVD player in there, and it would have to be integrated.

I suspect I would probably just buy a screen from maplin (they are about £150 and take RF input / Composite I believe) and mount it temporarily to the dash in some cobbly fashion (double sided tape or something).

It would be great to be able to check out the footage whilst your waiting to go back on track ! (good learning aid)

Gary

Gussie Cup

Thanks guys - this is looking good.

Just when I thought I'd done everything I wanted to my WRX, heres an opportunity to blow some MORE cash (that I don't have) on stuff I didn't know I wanted!!

Until now that is.... 'Who wants to be a millionaire', here I come!

Dave P

I just got the Sony that HARJ and NITO (is it the PC J5E) refer to last week....it also has the Sony memory stick so you can take stills and download them onto your pc as well. Not only that you can take stills from the videos you have taken.

I have to say I'm mightily impressed... I think I might write and produce my own film!!!

Dave

IWatkins

Gary,

Some of the high end analogue and digital camcorders do allow an external signal input.

So you could buy, say an DV camera, mount securly in the car (glovebox) and run a cable from a bullet camera to the camcorder.

This would save you forking out for a mini-video recorder.

Only problem I found was finding out whether a particular camera had analogue-in capability or not. Of course, most have analogue or digital out (or both), so you can record off the camcorder to say VHS.

I have yet to see many digital bullet cameras so most you would buy would be analogue, so if you go for a camcorder for your recording, you would need to make sure it could record from an external analogue source.

And that sort of setup would be the most cost effective if you want to buy a camcorder anyway.

Cheers

Ian

Huxley

Gussie Cup i have a Sony dcr-pc5e us spec 40x optical zoom and 120x digital zoom mini dv and its the dogs dangles used it in the states
It's so small you can put it in your pocket and sneek it on the roller coasters and film it as you go round (holding on to it very tightly !)and the picture quality is the best i have seen on any camcorder so far and great in the dark ??

Will use it in our rally car this year

Huxley