Z3MCJez Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 So many posts today 😳 Anyway, next thing I'm thinking about is adding a camera setup to record (for posterity ) my Academy season. Now, at present, I have no equipment whatsoever, and am looking for a relatively basic setup which is easy to use in the car, and will allow me to edit out the inevitable boring bits later. I could be pursuaded to set up more than one camera feed, if the cost wasn't prohibitive. So, any recommendations (in basic language please!) as to what I should buy. Note, I'm not technically minded when it comes to electronics, so telling me *EXACTLY* what I'd need to buy would be helpful 😬 Thanks! Jez Build Photos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Dave Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Take a look at Fast Films, they have everything you need. They used to do a 10% discount for the club (when I owned the company ), so worth calling and speaking to Mark. He owns a Westfield, but don't hold that against him. You are looking for a small solid state recorder with seperate microphone and bullet camera plus a roll cage mount. If the budget can stretch then a feature like LANC/wired remote control makes things a little easier to switch on and off. Some good previous threads on here, worth a search. David Smitheram, Wiltshire (South) AR, 07718 368173. 1400 supersport ex racer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Ford Posted April 1, 2009 Share Posted April 1, 2009 Any idea how much you're looking to spend? Setups vary between £200 and £1500. I'd still recommend a bullet camera and a mini-DV camcorder - probably one secondhand off ebay for around 60 quid, but I know many people now are going the solid-state route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h_____ Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 I'm with roger, my bullet cam and miniDV player has worked for 5 years now. Its not new, its not flash, it can be a pain to download the tapes, but it works every time, and its cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Support Team Shaun_E Posted April 2, 2009 Support Team Share Posted April 2, 2009 Whilst I agree with the posts about using a MiniDV camera (that is what I have), it is increasingly difficult to get one with "AV in" and even more difficult to get one with a LANC input for remote control. I therefore suggest that, if you only need this for the car, you look at a solid state recorder. I would take a look at this kit here or slightly cheaper here. Both those sites appear to be part of the same company and they both do multi camera setups as well. The neatest camera mount i have seen is the Goldstar - they also do packages and multi camera set-ups. Yellow SL #32 - member of Drowned Rat Racing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy Dave Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Yes, you are right, I sold Fast Films to Dogcam David Smitheram, Wiltshire (South) AR, 07718 368173. 1400 supersport ex racer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graeme Smith Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 Setups vary between £200 and £1500 Actually, they vary between less than £100 and thousands - I'm using an ATC-2000 at the moment (if I can find it before the weekend; if not, its my very obsolete ATC-1000...) which I picked up for about £60. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeseboard Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 I've got an ATC5K in a box for my birthday from the wife (can't think how she knew the exact model). Just 4 weeks until I can get my mitts on it (the camera, not the wife) £150 and seems to have good feedback on here for the price, although the sound quality might be a little lacking. I can't wait to use it, I'm in the Academy too (Group 1) and have got it for the same reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grubbster Posted April 2, 2009 Share Posted April 2, 2009 I'm getting a variation of this set up Mega Clamp kit half way down page tomorrow for my birthday - will test over the weekend at Wightblat and report back I called and spoke to Mark to substitute in the version with a separate microphone which he was happy to do for the same price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Deslandes Posted April 5, 2009 Share Posted April 5, 2009 Roger. As you seem to have researched the bullet can market more than most and have a pretty good handle on it, can you recommend one to use with a mini DV camcorder? I would guess that Sony offer the best performance at reasonable cost but wondered whether you have any experience of some of the cheaper ones on ebay, or at least those to avoid. I picked up a, hopefully half decent, JVC camcorder on ebay today for use in-car with a bullet cam and separate mic and it would be shame to throw away too much of the image quality with a crap camera. All input gratefully received Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slider7 Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 I'm getting a variation of this set up Mega Clamp kit half way down page tomorrow for my birthday - will test over the weekend at Wightblat and report back I called and spoke to Mark to substitute in the version with a separate microphone which he was happy to do for the same price. Very interested in your report, since I'm thinking of buying the same set “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away” Antoine de Saint Exupery Flanders AO - l7C.flanders.ao@telenet.be Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Ford Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 The standard for bullet cameras was always RF Concepts. The range has changed a bit over the years but this looks like the best bet at the moment - 560 lines Sony for £99 (+VAT) with a free mic. 4.3mm lens is the best for racing. A wider angle will get more in, but make anything more than a few yards away look tiny. A longer lens will make cars in front (or behind) look closer, but you'll miss action that's not straight ahead of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skydragon Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 You may want to consider an Archos 405 2Gb (with a bigger SD card fitted) as a reasonable in-car recording device for 640x480 MPEG4 video, available off ebay for around £50. I've some Youtube videos on my website link here which give a rough idea of the quality when fed by a 520 line bullet cam (the original videos are of course far better quality). Edited by - skydragon on 6 Apr 2009 11:31:07 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Deslandes Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 That's great info chaps. As I've gone for a camcorder with video-in, its just the camera to look for now. I've been using my Sony TRV8E fixed to the car but it doesn't like the wet and has not been the same since my wife dropped it in the bottom of a dinghy in 6 inches of sea water 😳 It doesn't have a composite video-in so no use with an external camera. The RF Concepts looks like one to go for. I like your idea of remoting the handheld remote led in the boot Roger. I'm going to give that a go. Have you worked out a way of checking that the recorder is in the correct state? I wondered if you could get to the pins of the camcorders 'record' led and run that to the front! Maybe a photo transistor taped over the led switching an led in the cockpit? An excuse to play with some electronics at least. Thanks again Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Ford Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Have you worked out a way of checking that the recorder is in the correct state? I wondered if you could get to the pins of the camcorders 'record' led and run that to the front! No, and unfortunately my Canons don't have a "record" LED. The only way I can think of to do it would be to have the SVideo out leading to a screen on the dash - rather expensive and I'm not even certain it would work. Consequently I don't really trust my wired wirelss remote, and always use the hand-held remote where possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catastrada Posted April 6, 2009 Share Posted April 6, 2009 Last year I bought an Archos 604 30Go + the Archos Cam. The quality is OK for me. The issue is that the hard drive does not like vibrations at all. Sometimes it stops working, sometimes the recorded file is "unreadable"... At the end I gave up (it's now a great mulltimedia hard drive in our house) I bought a pov 1.5 last week. I had the chance to test it last friday during a track day and it's perfect for me. There a several accessories to attach it, a nice bag to carry it. Nice piece of kit. Finally: Obviously the quality is lower than a Sony kit, But enough for me, Cheaper than the sony, Includes a remote controll (very useful) The recorder has a screen to know where the camera is pointing Waterproof Lots of usefull accessories I've bought it here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Mill Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 There are Archos devices with hard disc storage and others with solid state storage. The 604 can have 30Gb HDD or, I think 10Gb of solid state. My guess is that the HDD versions would need a lot of anti-vibration mounting to work in a Caterham but the solid state ones should be OK. I use a 30Gb 604 for wildlife filming at remote sites and I really like the quality but I have not used it in the Caterham. BTW Archos are quite good at extracting cash from you for the extras you need - the DVR travel adaptor is needed to provide an AV input to the 604, 605 units etc. however the units themselves are pretty good value for money IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skydragon Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 I can confirm that the 405 2Gb has no HDD and uses SD storage cards. It works very well in car. £50 off ebay for a refurbished 'as new' unit and £45 for a Archos DVR travel adaptor to accept composite video in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gridgway Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 I'd quite like to get the logging from my LD1 on a video feed. Has anyone done this? If it can be done, is it live or post processed? Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Ford Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Is your LD1 actually a DL1? If so, Race Technology will sell you an unlock code for £100 which will allow you to overlay DL1 data onto a video track. At least, I think that's what it does. Charles should have the details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesElliott Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Yes, you can enable Video processing in the DL1 software for an additional licence fee. Or go with something like TrackVision, which is much better IMHO, but requires a post process. Charles --- Triple E Racing - build diary and race reports Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gridgway Posted April 7, 2009 Share Posted April 7, 2009 Thanks, that (trackvision) looks a good solution for the video/data integration. Mind you, looks like I can spend quite a bit of money on video kit! Graham Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CharlesElliott Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 I would have posted a Trackvision example, but it seems to be squashing my new HD video slightly. Trackvision support are looking at it.... Charles --- Triple E Racing - build diary and race reports Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grubbster Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Slider - sorry for the delay in my report on the DogCam package - got back from Wightblat and pretty much headed straight off to London for the week so haven't had much time to review it all yet. To summarise though I am pretty impressed with what you get for the money, very easy to use (but took a little while to suss out how to connect it all), battery life seems to be good (as long as you don't leave the DVR screen on the whole time while recording), picture is fine on PC or the mini DVR screen - a little less defined on TV. I never managed to get the microphone level set very well though so I need to experiment a bit more with this. As the mini DVR itself doesn't have sound during playback you need to wait until you are connected to something else (PC or TV) to hear how well the sound has recorded - but I would assume that once you have set the microphone level correctly and put it in the right place then you'd never need to touch it again. The Mega clamp is nice, very adjustable but won't fit on a standard rollbar (fine on my FIA one) didn't notice any movement or vibration, you get 2 batteries for the Mini DVR, need to get 8 AA's for the camera and mic (or a suitable 12v feed). Next for me is to work out what [how!] to do with the video I have taken (editing, posting etc). I'll try to make a short clip available from my website at the weekend so you can download and see for yourself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Campbell Posted April 8, 2009 Share Posted April 8, 2009 Anyone triedf the Go Pro Helmet Hero camera's. Only supposed to be good for internet type watching but just wondering ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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