Looking for Analog to Digital Tapeless High Shock System

[Dan Shaffner]

Here is my setup,

And the D-Snap recorder is mounted inside the front fairing so that just before the race, I can reachinside and hit the recorde button.

As soon as a have a place to host some footage, I will post a link.

http://www.fototime.com/3C8C9CDF88F6307/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/4FAE947B1FE29DB/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/30FFA21650F0174/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/396482EF6A908C3/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/511C85C65891D4E/standard.jpg

PS, they would never let me race in a sanctioned race with two camcorders hanging off the bike.

[Dan Shaffner]

Here is a link to a Single lap of willow a t recent event,

There are lot of artifacts in the video, this was created by the vibration in the video switch. Hopefully I have this fixed, and nex ones will be much better

Dan

http://www.fototime.com/1E3A2F2B006C8F4/conv.wmv


If anybody has a good video hosting source, and can recomend the proper Size, and Quality that I should render in please let me know

[Dan Euritt]

love those bike shots dan! it's much better than car racing.

i sure hope that picture interference can be cleared up on the switch end... i wonder if you are also picking up some rf interference from the ignition or something.

it looks like you have external power available, so you probably won't need the battery.

the clip you posted was encoded at 3106kbps, you should be able to get acceptable quality at ~1200kbps, if you use windows media 9 with vbr and two-pass encoding... encode it to match the frame size that it was shot in, which for the av-100 is a dvd-spec of 704x480(??).

thanks to richard for the feedback on the ffv, sure wish that i could afford one.

[Dan Shaffner]

I tried this one in the size yuo recomended. This clips 3 laps at a button willow WERA race in July. I onlt had one working camera, so I bypassed the switch, and you will see the quality is awsome. That is how I figured out that the switch was the problem. I worked sitting still intesting, but not on the track running.

http://www.fototime.com/02572FB1ECF3FF0/conv.wmv

77MB a little over 6 minutes of video

Since you are only in Carlsbad, Would love to get together, adn buy you a beer, and pick your brain on Video stuff

E-mail me at dan@carlburger.com

Dan

[Dan Euritt]

that's pretty sweet dan! love those kneedraggers!!

don't even put that on the web until you brand the entire length of it with your url, maybe in letters across the top(jtmotorsports.com?)... people will steal it and post it as theirs... i'd also lose the music if i was you, because of copyright issues, plus the gearheads will want to hear the motor.

i'm working hard on a web video site for drag racing, i'd love to host a bit of that bike stuff as well if you need a place to put it... my new site is still a few weeks off at this point, but it'll hopefully be ad-supported at some point, to pay the bandwidth costs, probably have to rent a dedicated server to handle it all tho.

[Dan Euritt]

just an addendum to this thread... panasonic has released a successor to the av-100, but it's a 3-ccd camera! it records to mpeg2, but it now also has vbr capability: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Review.htm

[Dan Shaffner]

I got the switch working pretty good now.

Check it out

http://www.wsmc530.com/vids/conv.wmv

And the new panasonic digital recorder has no analog inputs, so it is useless for me ... :-(

Dan

[Roger Moore]

Great job, Dan. Really beautiful - and to me almost sensual in the way the camera tilts into those turns, and how the riders seem to hang onto the horizon.

[Darin Aho]

That's great footage, Dan. Using this kind of setup is a whole new way of shooting video. It really pulls the viewer in so he feels like part of the action. Way closer to playing a video game than watching a sporting event. And smooth too, for what it is, a bike at 100mph +. Gotta' love the corners. I'd love to watch the Patriots from this point of view (a couple on linemen, two for the QB's, and two on receivers). So just to be sure, the medium used to capture this clip is a 2gb SD card?

[Dan Shaffner]

Yep, I am using a 2GB card in my D-snap, with the firmware upgrade mentioned above.

I get 43 minutes of recorde time at 704x480 6MPS Mpeg2

I than used Cyberlink's Power Director Editing software to title, shorten footag, and add sound, then used Power Directors built in encoder to put out that clip. The full MPEG2 file is awsome, you should see it on my 32 LCD screen. BAD ASS!!!!

All my race buddies are going googoo over the footage

Dan

[Pat Harrison]

Dan,

You need to contact me. I build kits using the nnovia A2D for all sports. I have a sports bike setup in beta now that records both cameras without switching at full SD resolution.

Bonus, I'm in San Marcos just north of you =]

~PH

[Charles Papert]

I have been looking for ages for a flash drive mini DVR that will take analog (composite) video in and can output same to a monitor, as well as being able to play back within the unit (rather than requiring files to be played externally). I'd be using it on my Steadicam to play back takes for reference purposes, so it needs to be light and have easily accessible front panel buttons or LANC control available.

There are a lot of "spy" mini DVR's around, many are meant to be used as portable media players and you have to cycle between video, MP3, photos and whatever else modes when moving between record and playback. I need mine to act just like a digital version of a tape deck; you hit record, stop, and then play to access the last clip (or cycle backwards through the clips). Many of my colleagues are using the Archos for this purpose but I find it still annoying to have to cycle through menus, too many steps.

The FFV Mini DVR Pro is a great unit but I think it is still priced for the timeframe when it came out, which was 2004--we've moved on and this should be a lot cheaper now, considering it is SD. Speaking of which, I do need 720x480 resolution and at least 30 fps.

I recently looked at the Vio POV1 which is a good looking bulletcam/DVR combo, but it won't take a composite input.

If anyone has any more thoughts on this, please let me know--new stuff coming out all of the time.

[Giroud Francois]

there are now tons of DVR on the market, but they are all derived from the same base, so it is hard to find the right model.
The first concept is DVR only, like the Bullet DVR :: Bullet DVR Portable Video Recorder ::, and i am pretty sure that all models you can find are derived from the Zowietek http://www.zowietek.com/html/products.htm (i got three of them).
the zowietek offers even several cam recording, so you can get a front and rear view.
The others are more complex, often including monitor and ability to replay, but often these are relatively expensive and use proprietary devices. for example the POV-1 V.I.O. -- The Leader in Wearable Video Technology, Digital Helmet Cameras and Cam Accessories has no video input, the camera use a special cam and cable, so there is no option there if the cable is too short or if the camera does not fit your needs.

[Charles Papert]

Zowietek would be perfect, if only it had playback!

I'd be OK with paying up to $1000 for the right unit, but the $3K+ of the FFV unit is prohibitive.

Maybe one day one of these units will "slip up" and offer the features I need!

[Pat Harrison]

For 5 years I have been researching and building sportscams. The ballance in these systems is quality/price/ergonamics. How good does it look, how much does it cost and how easy is it to use.

Mini DV based systems work great, the drawback is 90 minute recording max and the reliability in harsh conditions. The plus is they are cheap.

Mpeg4 based DVR's are compact and can sport long recording times. The drawback is quality, 1.5 - 2.5 mbps recording in my opinion is poor. I've purchased on the order of 10 of these units, none of them performed for quality, pixilated and lost frames. The other drawback for me is ergonomics, proprietary in nature creating control systems for these recorders are difficult.

DTE systems such as nNovia QC decks sport the highest quality and with some modifcation high impact capability and long record times. Using common control rs232 or LANC formats make for easy control. The nnovia A2D is specailly good for this sporting onboard analog conversion. The drawback is cost and this is the only drawback.

My current kit for vehicles contains 4 recorders, 4 580 line bullet cams and a cockpit controller which displays all cameras via LCD. This is why I perfer the DTE systems. I do still have DV camcorder systems to cover the low cost spectrum of customers.

~PH