track video camera

[racerx196]

was wondering what video camera's people were using to record while they race or do track days.....also was wondering what mounting options were better, helmet cams or just on the bike.....  thanks

[Team-G]

Mike Casey with motovid.com knows a lot about the equipment.  I don't know if he's doing it again this year, but he knows the technologies.

[ecumike]

Get a bullet/lipstick/helmet camera. They're great, better than mounting a dvcam on your tank, and you can place it out of the way and in various spots.

Check out www.onbike.tv , they have all kinds of equipment and remote controls and stuff and everything you need. I use their equipment and it's great!

[HAWK]

http://www.bizrate.com/marketplace/product_info/overview/index__cat_id--11140000,prod_id--309843477.html

I haven't had it out on the bike yet (did I mention I hate winter) but this is what I'm going to use. It also comes with a bullit cam that you could attatch to the helmet. The remote bullit doesn't have fantastic picture quality and it is a little big but the regular camera is  just a little bigger than a cell phone.

[ecumike]

512 MB won't get you far at high res recording.... maybe 5 mins of recording time.

[racerx196]

mike how is the 125???? its joe remeber the aprilia we use to have some good battles...

anyway i looked at the site what do you recommend? what do u use?  

i was thinking bout that samsung sport cam but the 512 said at high res it is only like 20 minutes of video and at 500 bucks that isnt ogood at all...

[racerx196]

sorry bout the face accidently hit it

thanks everyone

[racerx196]

mike where do you mount your cam? on your helmet or on the bike itself and where on the bike if on the bike?  where do you putthe recorder yourself and what recorder are u using?

sorry for all the questions...

[HAWK]

I'm using a 1G stick and will not be using the high res. Something to consider is the nature of the eviroment, with all the vibration on the bike (look at the onboard video at blackhawkfarms.com) there isn't really much point to high res. The reason I went with the samsung is the absolute lack of moving parts. most of the camcorders on the market use harddrives, tapes or dvds to store the video. all of these are suseptible to vibration and won't live long on the bike. Years ago I used a hi8 camcorder in a race car, roll bar mount, the camera lasted about 6 races and I lost the head amp. A small circuit that lives in the video head. Cost of new head totaled the camera. Whatever you get make sure that it can take a high vibration enviroment or the manufacturer/seller will stand behind the warrantee.

[StumpysWife]

Stumpy and Motovid used Viosport cams.  www.viosport.com

Heather

[HPT]

the best system we found were high res lipstick cams, 480 - 520 lines of resolution from Viosport.com, attached to a solid state recording device, preferably MPEG2 format, also used for DVD encoding.  

Motovid.com videobike systems have used MPEG2 video @ 3Mbps compression, providing 22 mins. of footage on a 512MB SD chip.... using 1GB SD chips, we capture 44 mins., 2 GB SD chips 88 mins.

All videos posted online are further compressed 10:1 simply to make it an acceptable web video download....similar to MPEG4. Motovid.com provides DVDs @ the track as the medium of choice, these trailers are ancillary, used as promos and *extras for our clients, customers.  

This year, motovid.com will decrease the compression ( which increases the quaility) from 3Mbps to 6Mbps or 100% better than last year leveraging the availability of more memory on a chip. Technology rocks!

unfortunately, MPEG4 doesnt have the available encoding profile (read: level of acceptable compression, just yet) implemented within any consumer digital video, camcorder, recording devices.....no doubt they are coming soon....

so depending how much you want to spend, expect to spend approx. 250.00 - 300.00 for the 480 - 520 lines of resolution lipstick cams....

thereafter,  the recording devices, approx. 700.00 for a sony, panasonic unit, upwards of 5000.00 for the stac encoder unit which supports HOURS of MPEG2 video, with data acquisition, 8 channels included.

hope this helps,

michael casey
motovid.com

[HAWK]

unfortunately, MPEG4 doesnt have the available encoding profile (read: level of acceptable compression, just yet) implemented within any consumer digital video, camcorder, recording devices.....no doubt they are coming soon....

By acceptable do you mean video quality or compression?