In car recording...

[Leonard]

One of my winter projects for the FFR is going to be getting a setup for in car recording. What kind of setups do you guys use or have you seen used.

I realize this can be as simple as mounting a camcorder to my rollbar, but I know there are some interesting remote camera's available that can be mounted elsewhere on the car that could be beneficial.

[w0rd]

I like normal camera setups with a wide angle lens and a big mirror to see what's going on behind. That might not be an option in your car though.

[jaball77]

A friend of mine has used a DV Super Grip for a few film projects and it looks pretty cool. I guess the downside is that the camera is hanging off the outside of the car, so if you hit something, it might suck, haha. But it's a super duper suction cup so you can stick it anywhere.

http://www.alangordon.com/s_tripods_supergrip.html#supergripdv

There's a bunch of stuff at http://www.chasecam.com/ , but I don't personally know anyone that's used it. Their split screen/PIP box would be friggin' cool. One cam for your feet and one for the cockpit.

[Alizarin]

I just use a standard MiniDV camera mounted to a camera mount on my harness bar (http://mystic-lights.net/kmgardner/images/car/harnessbar.jpg). Some people have spoken good words about Conecam (by Chasecam (http://www.chasecam.com/)). I've also seen some nice small cameras here (http://www.supercircuits.com/).

If I had the green I'd do a custom setup with about 5 different cameras and a computer-based recorder (right to disk instead of to tape) shock-mounted inside the car. The most expensive part of all that would be the cameras, unfortunately. The computer parts are cheap, especially if I use software encoding as I can get cheap capture cards.

[rv7]

I've got something up my sleeve for the Battle-X event. I've been wanting to do some in-car recordings and by coincidence, Santa Clause brought me a cheap solution. It will involve a laptop and a "cheap" camera designed for skateboarding. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I will post the results after the event.

[Muddy]

I bought a digital camera and I am currently looking at mounts. It worked well for Jesse, I expect similar results. :D

[Alizarin]

I have this one (http://www.rallysportdirect.com/shop/product_info.php/cPath/21_25_32_129/products_id/674) on my bar. Quite adjustable.

And rv7, make sure you strap the laptop in... would hate to have it end up all busted-ass. :D

[TNathe]

My DV cam mounted on the ChaseCams 6 suction cup dealy.
http://www.tamparacing.com/photopost/data/500/dd4-19.jpeg

[Alizarin]

That's gotta provide some nice footage, although I wouldn't want it to divert any air around the hood scoop. In autox situations it needs all it can get to keep the IC cool.

I've thought it would be funny to stick my camera up through the roof vent to get some "scoop" footage (bad pun intended!).

[Bseckel]

I just made a camera mount for the brooksville event its a regular small camcorder mounted on metal bars clamped to the pass headrest. with a wide angle lens work pretty good in my tests. my first race test will be on the 8th.

[fastforward]

I've made several mounts for all the cars I've autocrossed. usually they consist of a peice of wood with two holes drilled thru it. The headrests of the seats are removed, the posts slide through the holes and the wood gets sandwhiched between the head rest and the seat. A tripod head is mounted in the middle of the wood between the headrests, works for front or backseat and provieds jitter free video. Slap a wide angle lens on the camera and set exposure to manual.
Also, bogen-manfrotto makes a wide assortment of camera mounts that can be attached to a role bar, etc. Costs around $100 bucks. I have one with an atmospheric mount to stick to body work.
Lastly, for around $450 you can get an Extreme Cam by Samsung. Comes with a lipstick cam and a digital still/video cam that acts as the lip stick cams hardrive recorder. I had one for awhile but took it back. The image quality wasn't exactly broadcast quality. And since I need it to be for my work, it wasn't much good to me.
But, its fun and you could mount it to anything and anywhere with tape!
Check it out here:
http://laptopmag.com/CES/Day2/Samsung-Sports-Cam-SC-X105.htm?view=Print

Good luck!
-Ben

[Leonard]

Ben,

Do you happen to have any video from that Samsung cam? I'm down to that or the chasecam with one of their DVR's. I like the flexibility it gives me.

[fastforward]

Leonard,

I'll check one of my firewre drives. Not sure if I kept anything, I'll post it if I find it. I made a little video of my daughter riding her scooter with it, the vieo quality is pretty good from the camera/recorder (only get 12 min. in High res unless you use a memory stick) and the lipstick cam kinda sucks for image quality. Okay for watching for fun, but not broadcast quality.
also...the problem with it was that the lipstick cam shuts off after 8 minutes! Even if it was attached to the camera/recorder. I guess to save the AAA battery in the lipstick cam, but that would suck for long runs, like a track day or something.
One cool thing is that you can connect the lipstick cam to any camcorder with 1/8 mini-jack video inputs (Most sony cams) and use the camcorder as a recorder, incase you want to input right from mini-dv tape onto your computer.
Because the Samsung camera needs its own proprietary software to download the video and its clunky and slow since it uses USB2 and not firewire.
Also, the files worked with my editing software but took awhile to render.

I'd check Circuit City or Best Buy for one, I've seen alot of them as "open box items" often. I think people take them back because they aren't too satisfied.
At anyrate, you can get a good deal on them, as they are often on sale too.
Since they are open box you don't have to pay the re-stock fee when/if you bring it back. That's what I did.

I think you best bet is to go with an inexpensive mini-dv camcorder with a wide angle lens. I'd be careful with any hardrive type recorder, they are prone to skipping compared to a memory type recorder. Tape transport camcorders are pretty durable, rarely glithc or skip, and give broadcast quality video, not to mention they use inexpensive tape and are affordable, even if you have to replace it.

Sorry to ramble on, this is what I geek-out about.

[98DOHC]

Also if anyone is intrested in additional ways of mounting a camera on the outside of a car, check out sticky pods.

[fastforward]

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=5574&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

I own this mount, It works pretty good. It can adhere to any slick surface on your car. The articulating arm allows you to position your camera so that it doesn't have to have a tilted angle. I don't believe that the stickypod offers that option. The only drawback with the Bogen unit is that you need a pretty lightweight camera, to keep the shaking to a minimum.
Also the Bogen unit is very durable and it uses an atmospheric cup, not a suction cup, so it holds up better. You could hang from it if you wanted to.

[jblaine]

I have the ConeCam "Clamp Mount + 3-cup mount" package as I don't have removable headrests for the traditional (and good! and cheap!) mount between the seat tops.

http://www.chasecam.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=16155&cat=248&page=1

It worked fine the 1 time I bothered to use it. I had my Canon Powershot G3 digital camera in video mode mounted on the roof of my car at the top of my front windshield and angled down to show the front of my car and the road ahead.

[jblaine]

Just remembered I have a partial video of that setup (5MB). Crappy video mode on a digital camera = missed frames and "leisurely pace" effect. That was the only downside, but that has nothing to do with the mount.

http://www.kickflop.net/albums/neshoc-autocross-20030907/neshoc-autox-20030907-320.wmv

[Alizarin]

If anybody cares, I've got some video from my setup on the int4rw3b. Directory of such here (http://mystic-lights.net/kmgardner/video). Each file is over 60mb, with the Cherohola items larger most likely. Just grab one, they're pretty much all the same unless you want to see the roads.

I've got 4 autox's and 1 rallyx worth of video still on the cam. I guess I could get that off eventually.

[Leonard]

I was leaning HEAVILY towards a chase cam and one of their DVR units, but after nearly 3 weeks they've yet to reply to an email I sent asking a few questions about their DVR specs.... Why can't the companies with the best products treat their customers good even though they don't 'have' to.....