Trackday cameras
Discussion
Smitters said:
My main aim is using the camera to improve my driving so the overlay is important enough to warrant paying for.
Have you tried a different sd card? Sometimes with actioncams they simply won't like a particular card and cut out at random, record corrupted files etc...I had issues with my Virb Elite for a while as I got it at launch but after a couple of months Garmin ironed out the bugs with the firmware updates, I got a decent microsd card and have used it for hundreds of hours since on my without any issues even with lots of vibration, short clip here with overlay from when my bars failed, the image stabilisation did pretty well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e--ZJYEZJJ0
If you want to use it for improving your driving then it's worth using a dedicated 10/20hz gps bluetooth unit then pairing it with your phone and recording separately with an app like chrono then merging the overlay and video in post as it will be a lot more accurate than what you get on an actioncam.
app here http://racechrono.com/
Edited by untakenname on Monday 19th June 18:32
I have a VBox Lite on my Caterham and an AiM Solo DL and SmartyCam HD in my M3 (example below)
https://youtu.be/oUM90m56wbE
The VBox is showing its age now but the HD version is £2,500, I couldn't quite bring myself to cough up for it. The AiM solution is half the cost and more than half as good, though only one cam footage is possible. When I have the DL cable wired into the CAN it'll log and display on the overlay all the variables the ECU records, such as brake pressure and temps of each brake etc.
https://youtu.be/oUM90m56wbE
The VBox is showing its age now but the HD version is £2,500, I couldn't quite bring myself to cough up for it. The AiM solution is half the cost and more than half as good, though only one cam footage is possible. When I have the DL cable wired into the CAN it'll log and display on the overlay all the variables the ECU records, such as brake pressure and temps of each brake etc.
Smitters said:
Well, I now have the Virb Elite, but it's hardly been plain sailing so far. Not managed to take a video that has successfully recorded the GPS and speed info correctly, nor managed to get the Virb Edit software to export a video successfully. I concede it may be the user, but I'm reasonably savvy and I don't think I'm doing much wrong.
SmittersI had a few times the sync for the gps to the camera was off so how I fixed it was to turn the camera on without recording for 3 - 4 minutes to allow the camera time to get a good fix from the satellite, then I would start the recording and no issues after that.
Another time was due to turning it on inside a pit garage where it couldn't get a good fix either.
Check the firmware on the camera is current also.
Thanks for all the replies. I'm really operating at the budget end, so buying multiple devices and software packs just isn't an option. That said, the Virb Elite should offer a one box solution. The beauty of it is that it records the all video, audio and GPS data itself, so there shouldn't be sync issues.
It turns out that the recent 5.1 version roll out of the Garmin editing software has, to put it mildly, f
ked everyone over. I'm in the process of installing a 4.x version, which is reportedly stable and also has lower machine specs, meaning my computer is no longer on base spec. Not everyone can afford a £1000 desktop to edit their shoddy trackday footage Garmin! The camera won't hold the latest firmware update either - I am constantly prompted to install the same version. Not a great start!
In terms of potential data issues, I am able to display and analyse the gpx and fit files recorded by the camera in other software (Garmin Connect and Strava), so I ruled out data/sd card issues quite quickly. The fact the Garmin editing software is able to render my route onto a map, but not display data in screen was another hint. I also had a quick go with racerender and created a working vid plus overlay for speed and position in about 30 seconds.
For my level of ability, I'm more than happy to review footage for lines, turn in, braking points etc and just use the audio and image to understand where I'm at - I am simply not good enough to benefit from super accurate data and would get more for my money by spending it on tyres, track time and tuition (three t's of performance improvement?). The techie in me loves the idea of being able to monitor lots of attributes, but I don't have the capacity to do anything with it.
Depending on what the Garmin software team do, I may simply pay for racerender anyway and use is for trackday videos, and something else for video editing. However, this does rather ruin the point of buying (or indeed having my kind fatehr buy me) the Garmin. It was a budget camera with lower specs than the new GoPro, but sold itself to me for the software (ironically, free to d/l anyway). If the new GoPro really does record the same GPS and accelerometer inputs accurately and I end up using third party software for the overlays (GoPro's is highly illogical apparently) I may as well have got the latest and greatest GoPro instead. Grrrr. Still. First world problems and all that.
If I manage to get anything working, I shall post a video.
It turns out that the recent 5.1 version roll out of the Garmin editing software has, to put it mildly, f
ked everyone over. I'm in the process of installing a 4.x version, which is reportedly stable and also has lower machine specs, meaning my computer is no longer on base spec. Not everyone can afford a £1000 desktop to edit their shoddy trackday footage Garmin! The camera won't hold the latest firmware update either - I am constantly prompted to install the same version. Not a great start!In terms of potential data issues, I am able to display and analyse the gpx and fit files recorded by the camera in other software (Garmin Connect and Strava), so I ruled out data/sd card issues quite quickly. The fact the Garmin editing software is able to render my route onto a map, but not display data in screen was another hint. I also had a quick go with racerender and created a working vid plus overlay for speed and position in about 30 seconds.
For my level of ability, I'm more than happy to review footage for lines, turn in, braking points etc and just use the audio and image to understand where I'm at - I am simply not good enough to benefit from super accurate data and would get more for my money by spending it on tyres, track time and tuition (three t's of performance improvement?). The techie in me loves the idea of being able to monitor lots of attributes, but I don't have the capacity to do anything with it.
Depending on what the Garmin software team do, I may simply pay for racerender anyway and use is for trackday videos, and something else for video editing. However, this does rather ruin the point of buying (or indeed having my kind fatehr buy me) the Garmin. It was a budget camera with lower specs than the new GoPro, but sold itself to me for the software (ironically, free to d/l anyway). If the new GoPro really does record the same GPS and accelerometer inputs accurately and I end up using third party software for the overlays (GoPro's is highly illogical apparently) I may as well have got the latest and greatest GoPro instead. Grrrr. Still. First world problems and all that.
If I manage to get anything working, I shall post a video.
Have you bought it yet? It's around the same price as the Gopro Hero 2018 which hardware wise is nearly identical to the Hero 5 Black and the additional features features (4k, GPS etc...) can be unlocked by flashing the firmware.
https://oscarliang.com/turning-gopro-hero-2018-int...
Best bang for buck decent quality 4k actioncam currently is the Gitup F1 but has a formfactor that's slightly different to typical dashcams.
https://www.gitup.com/cameras/78-gitup-f1-160-4k-w...
https://oscarliang.com/turning-gopro-hero-2018-int...
Best bang for buck decent quality 4k actioncam currently is the Gitup F1 but has a formfactor that's slightly different to typical dashcams.
https://www.gitup.com/cameras/78-gitup-f1-160-4k-w...
Kind of some overlap with what others have said but...
I'd suggest (if you're on a budget) a used GoPro Hero 3 with Racechrono on an Android phone and the 10 Hz bluetooth gps receiver.
Why?
For a cheap bit of software, Racechrono is superb. It records g-data, speed and position accurately in combination with the 10 Hz dongle. No connection issues. Lovely speed/position graphs and pretty much any track you can think of is already present, nicely split up into sectors. However if you prefer, you can set up your own sectors. It does the 'optimal' lap time thing as well when it takes your best sectors from a session and puts them together for a theoretical best. If you want, you can also synch Racechrono with bluetooth OBD for throttle data, though I've never tried this personally.
A GoPro Hero 3 has wifi connectivity and Racechrono has a standard option to synch with the Hero 3. No manual synching of videos. I actually use a Hero 2 and need to synch my videos manually, but the Hero 3 gets around that. The remote start/stop is handy too. And they can be picked up pretty cheaply second hand on Ebay or similar.
I use a deprecated Samsung Galaxy S3 that was sat doing nothing in my wife's bedside table along with a QStarz dongle, all in all, minimal investment.
It's not the best set up, I'll admit. But it owes me very little (about £6 for Racechrono iirc. Bluetooth dongle as a birthday pressie, but about £60 to buy. Free old Android phone. I already had the GoPro Hero 2 for other purposes). For that investment it's brilliant. Only thing I might do is upgrade to a Hero 3...
And here's what the video looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_8qGRzUIQ
I'd suggest (if you're on a budget) a used GoPro Hero 3 with Racechrono on an Android phone and the 10 Hz bluetooth gps receiver.
Why?
For a cheap bit of software, Racechrono is superb. It records g-data, speed and position accurately in combination with the 10 Hz dongle. No connection issues. Lovely speed/position graphs and pretty much any track you can think of is already present, nicely split up into sectors. However if you prefer, you can set up your own sectors. It does the 'optimal' lap time thing as well when it takes your best sectors from a session and puts them together for a theoretical best. If you want, you can also synch Racechrono with bluetooth OBD for throttle data, though I've never tried this personally.
A GoPro Hero 3 has wifi connectivity and Racechrono has a standard option to synch with the Hero 3. No manual synching of videos. I actually use a Hero 2 and need to synch my videos manually, but the Hero 3 gets around that. The remote start/stop is handy too. And they can be picked up pretty cheaply second hand on Ebay or similar.
I use a deprecated Samsung Galaxy S3 that was sat doing nothing in my wife's bedside table along with a QStarz dongle, all in all, minimal investment.
It's not the best set up, I'll admit. But it owes me very little (about £6 for Racechrono iirc. Bluetooth dongle as a birthday pressie, but about £60 to buy. Free old Android phone. I already had the GoPro Hero 2 for other purposes). For that investment it's brilliant. Only thing I might do is upgrade to a Hero 3...
And here's what the video looks like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_8qGRzUIQ
I've been using the Hero 4 Silver for the last few years. And for the most part it's treated me pretty well. I have the Hero 7 on order now; so looking forward to running two at the same time.
Some footage from the Hero 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-_0KT8nne0&t=...
Some footage from the Hero 4 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-_0KT8nne0&t=...
Gassing Station | Track Days | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff