Thanks again everyone.

Getting conflicting input from all over the place

Your Video looks fine Lovegroova, and that's Standard Def, hmmm. Also Hypers looks pretty damn good and that's a relatively cheap camera (Nice car control btw).

I'm being told on the one hand that cameras and camcorders will shake like a bas**** and ultimately fall to bits; perhaps they do and will if used over and over, but they're relatively cheap I suppose.. hmmm

I know what you mean Fistral; Uber PC requirement and then sit for bloody hours watching a bar creep along a pixel every five minutes.. Maybe Standard Def is the way to go. I only want this for analysis really after all but I want a good solid system thats simple to set up, gives reasonable looking results and is discreet.

food for thought..

So nobody had a problem then at a track day at all?

Thanks again everyone; plenty to ponder on..

 

I use the Sony HDD HD camcorder, HDR SR7E.
The picture quality is excellent, is lightweight and has a PROPER image stabiliser - mechanical gyro.

I use it with a large manfroto suction mount that I got used from eBay and new they are about

 

Thanks Steve, that's thrown it wide open again

Can I ask a few questions as your camcorder is very similar to the one I've been looking at albiet not a hard disc based one but SD card as I'd have thought a HDD would take a hammering in a car.

Have you used this camera a lot in the car?

Where do you generally mount it?

Do you have any footage I could see? (I appreciate it will be compressed I'd just like to see how steady it is).

Thanks.

 

Hi, I dont have anything compressed to post.
Not used a great deal, it mounts on the winscreen, inside near tax disc.
If your buying new and the vibes kill it, take it back.
Mine would also be covered under one of my credit cards or home insurance too so I dont worry about it too much, thats what you pay for.
HDD every time in hi def, I dont think solid state will have enough storage.
60Gb in the Sony.
Cheers,

 

FWIW, I'd go for a mid-range HD camcorder of some sort, and whilst my tape-based one has worked extremely well, something that can use solid state storage as well as tape would be my preferred option if I were to do it again. I'd stay clear of HDD based cameras for car use, not based on any evidence but it's more of a hunch than anything else.

It depends a bit on what your ultimate goal is. Trackday vids really aren't that exciting after the first lap or two IMO.

 

FWIW this Sony also takes any size memory stick too.
So you can copy stills or video to either internall HDD or Card.
6mpix stills are not too bad either but not good in low lux. Has a flash though...

been for a drive in the passat, trying to upload the raw 700MB file (video) to Youtube now to see what the server makes of an M2TS file

 

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyx5gc5Xx6o [/media]

Manfrotto mount, Sony HDD camcorder.
Upload no issues which is good.

Shows the need to set a fixed focus though, which is why I did the roundabout thing to see it happen.
Set manual and infinity and it works pretty well.

HTH mate.
Steve

 

That's superb Steve, thanks pal.

I did wonder with the roundabout; So that is the camera struggling to focus with the autofocus setting? but with a manual setting at infinity it would be sharp. Tbh I initially thought that may just be YouTubes upload compression, or is it that as well?

The image quality looks good and the stability looked OK although clearly you were driving at sensible road speeds and it'd be interesting to see how the stability held up under threshold braking and on hitting rumble strips and bumps hard.

I suspect you gave the silver Civic a bit of a scare with a camera prominent in your windscreen, fella drove like a saint

 

LOL, yes try driving a black pariah like the passat about (when clean!) and it has an obviuos effect.
I should have popped the black polo shirt on we have a 'uniform' in our company eh?

It is indeed an autofocus fault, its lost track of a car and then winds in to focus on the glass.
You can see this if you look carefully - see the bugs on the windscreen.

The Manfrotto mount is very good, you can actaully swing off it and it has a little pump button to secure it.

Last track day I had issues with the camera not staying on which i think was a HDD error.
So didnt get much track action as I was having too much fun to mess with it.
A simple reformat and all is fine again. MBK had gremlins with his cams too so could just be the laylines man...

I would leave it on manual focus and infinity, this one is good down to 4m in good light anyhow at infinity.
Lots of depth of field.
Up against glass is best, less relfection and the iris is not upset by being in a dark cab.

BTW that small hill up to and including the cyclist bit is REALLY rough.
I mean like a dirt track and the Passat is pretty firm on the dampers as are all Germans.
I went up there to show the image is still stable, you wont get any worse on track.

Play it fullscreen and in HD mode its quite decent even compressed by youtube.
See it on a large plasma though in its native format and its really impressive for a camcorder.

Steve

 

It's all in the mount