Bullet cameras

[Windymiller]

Fancy getting a bullet camera setup for trackdays... any suggestions?

I'm looking at maybe an Archos 604 (30 gig) with a 420-line bullet camera, for about £100.

Is that enough? Do I need more than 30 gig, and same for the camera, is 420-lines enough?

[Mr Trophy]

Hi,

Have a look at these. Amazing and for a very good price.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&am...

[Shaun_E]

I wouldn't use a hard disk drive recorder for trackdays - too much vibration. 420 line is only suitable for YouTube really - looks a bit rubbish on a TV.
For an entry level system take a look at this: http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/mini-dvr-2-helmet-cam... The uprates one at £250 is very good value - I know a few people using these.
DogCamSport has a pretty comprehensive range of kit and can offer good advice.
The GoPro range is pretty good as well and if you don't need/want HD is not too expensive.

[shaun fulcrum]

I use a go pro hero and really like the ease of use. Sound quality is good but not great on my very vibrating BEC but is a lot clearer inside a car.

Never used any other cameras so cannot say if it is better or worse than another.

Here is a video from mine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQeXXA4hwfo

[edb49]

I spent ages looking at this, and to be honest there is no perfect solution. I ended up going for a GoPro HD with roll bar mount, it's ~£300. Also can do underwater up to 40m, so I used it to do some videos of my 11 month old daughter 'swimming' - the baby swim place normally charges crazy money for photos (e.g. £150 for a big print) so it helped justify the cost to the wife.

[Ultra Violent]

I have a 2 camera set-up from dogcam which im about to put up for sale. PM me if interested, comes with mounts, batteries etc...

[edb49]

shaun fulcrum said:

I use a go pro hero and really like the ease of use. Sound quality is good but not great on my very vibrating BEC but is a lot clearer inside a car.

Never used any other cameras so cannot say if it is better or worse than another.

Here is a video from mine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQeXXA4hwfo

Have you tried putting a thin piece of that foam between the mount and roll bar? Wonder if that would help with the crackling noise.

[shaun fulcrum]

Not tried that yet but will deffinately give it a go, cheers edb49

[thetapeworm]

I've been using an MD80 recently but would like something with more capacity, slightly better quality and 2 cameras that don't rely on battery power - however I'd also like some kind of GPS overlay too. Basically the full-on Racelogic system but without having to sell the car to fund it. Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives?

[juansolo]

Vibration is a huge problem with stuff not designed to run in a harsh environment. I've tried some cheap HD recorders and always had bother. I use an old chasecam setup with Sony Varifocal bulletcam. It works better than just about anything else I've tried. Though there's newer stuff available these days, it's worth checking out places like DogCam for a look at what's out there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh0V76gLub4

One of the downsides with the chasecam is that because it's old it records MP2. So to edit it I first have to convert it to MP4 (also de-interlace it at that point), chop it up in Quicktime, then export it once again. Annoyingly when I upload it to YouTube, the first few seconds always has corruption, no idea what's going on there as it's not on the file I'm uploading.

[Nicodema]

Juan's right vibration is a killer for the HD offerings at the moment. If you go for stuff like the Hero HD or Contour HD, you really want to get them locked down solid to the chassis. This means that the weight of the car is used to stabilise the video. Without that you get terrible "wobblevision" effects where reality goes all wobbly jelly on you, due to the sensors being "rolling shutter", hence recording each line at a different time.

Annoyingly, using a "global shutter" CCD HD camcorder doesn't work so well either if it also has a pukka lens with optical image stabilisation. The vibration coming through the mount is so strong the OIS elements vibrate with the system on or off - as I found out at Bedford the other week. Grrr!

I've actually gone for a twin bullet cam system from Race Technology now, which I'll be able to lock down solid, and has no moving parts in the lens to vibrate. Not in any way cheap though. Not even a little bit!

[edb49]

thetapeworm said:

I've been using an MD80 recently but would like something with more capacity, slightly better quality and 2 cameras that don't rely on battery power - however I'd also like some kind of GPS overlay too. Basically the full-on Racelogic system but without having to sell the car to fund it. Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives?

You know Racelogic do a cheaper version now, about half the price of the original Vbox?

The other alternative is Smartycam: http://www.aim-sportline.com/smartycam/on-board-ca...

[Porkie]

I have a AIM smartycam.

Really pleased with it so far.

[Mr Trophy]

Porkie said:

I have a AIM smartycam.

Really pleased with it so far.

Got any from the Ring at the weekend?

[thetapeworm]

edb49 said:

thetapeworm said:

I've been using an MD80 recently but would like something with more capacity, slightly better quality and 2 cameras that don't rely on battery power - however I'd also like some kind of GPS overlay too. Basically the full-on Racelogic system but without having to sell the car to fund it. Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives?

You know Racelogic do a cheaper version now, about half the price of the original Vbox?

The other alternative is Smartycam: http://www.aim-sportline.com/smartycam/on-board-ca...

I saw the cheaper one, still a bit expensive for a toy, I'm not going to use it for anything other than my own amusement and for recording trips out and things, I don't need to shave a second off the lap into the office but it might be handy to have a video of a loon in a bus crashing into me one day.

Smartycam looks good, not fixed in place and ready to go as soon as I jump in the car but seems to have all the features I want to mess with in one handy gadget - £695 is still a bit much though.

Perhaps GPS and overlays can wait for now, I'm supposed to be on an economy drive at the end of the day, the Dogcam hDVR 720 might do what I want in the meantime.

[edb49]

thetapeworm said:

edb49 said:

thetapeworm said:

I've been using an MD80 recently but would like something with more capacity, slightly better quality and 2 cameras that don't rely on battery power - however I'd also like some kind of GPS overlay too. Basically the full-on Racelogic system but without having to sell the car to fund it. Does anyone know of any cheaper alternatives?

You know Racelogic do a cheaper version now, about half the price of the original Vbox?

The other alternative is Smartycam: http://www.aim-sportline.com/smartycam/on-board-ca...

I saw the cheaper one, still a bit expensive for a toy, I'm not going to use it for anything other than my own amusement and for recording trips out and things, I don't need to shave a second off the lap into the office but it might be handy to have a video of a loon in a bus crashing into me one day.

Smartycam looks good, not fixed in place and ready to go as soon as I jump in the car but seems to have all the features I want to mess with in one handy gadget - £695 is still a bit much though.

Perhaps GPS and overlays can wait for now, I'm supposed to be on an economy drive at the end of the day, the Dogcam hDVR 720 might do what I want in the meantime.

Yeah, that's pretty much the conclusion I reached. I think if the Smartycam was HD I would have stretched to £700, but like you, I am just using the camera for fun. So although GPS data overlay would be "nice" it's not going to affect my enjoyment much of watching the video.

These integrated ones are definitely the way to go though, don't want to have a separate data logger and camera then have to use your PC to do an overlay.

[thetapeworm]

A bit of a coincidence but Auto Express arrived today and they have a small review of the "Exeros Cube" - not enough of a review to tell you much about it but a link to the website helps with the basics:

http://www.exeros-technologies.com/exeros/index.ph...

£219 with GPS and G-Sensors, 640x480 at 30fps and compact in size.

Any thoughts?

[iceboy8387]

Don't know if you're sorted or not but the Exeros Cube you mentioned you can get from Base Systems in Preston.
A mate of mine has had one in a taxi for monitoring passengers and he loves it.