Bulletcams/recorders again

[northwind]

So, I did another video with the ATC2K and after the last results being decent, this one's randomly hopeless- as soon as the bike starts it goes wobbly. Same mounting position, same mount in fact! Fed up with it...

So... Time for a new one. Ebay's full of JXDs again, Dog Cam has some sale items, I figure on spending up to £250 on it. Feeling flush, I sold some PC rubbish

Nooooow then. Dogcam strongly recommend a camcorder over a digital device. That has the advantage too of camcorders being useful for other stuff... But they're bulky. The wee JXDs etc are dead cheap, and all-enclosed, and small, so that's miles easier to deal with but then, they say they don't give the same quality. There's also the question of battery life, with camcorders I can easily get a second battery, not an option with the JXDs.

So, for the JXD people... What sort of battery life do you get? Can you run the unit off the bike, or recharge it off the bike? If so, did you have to buy any extra stuff, and was it spendy?

And for the cams themselves... Half tempted to just splurge on a Dog Cam 520 but there's loads of options, down as low as £25 for a far eastern import. Using that and a cheap JXD I can do a whole setup for less than the nice Dog Cam! Maybe it's not quite as good, but is it £150 less good?

But I'm a bit in the dark on cam quality. It seems like there's loads with Sony CCDs on the market... And various older cams too with 420 lines instead of 520. How much of a difference does that make?

I don't mind spending money to get a fairly long-lasting setup, but at the same time I don't want to splash cash for no reason where for a small hit on quality I get a huge price saving.

Looking to buy this week so, tell me what to think!

Cheers

I started over here with 4Kam: http://www.4kam.com/bike_camera_moto...m_packages.htm

I found their DVR a pain in the backside to use, but they did say after I got a full refund that they have sorted the issue now.

I moved next to: http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/single-bike-camera-kit.htm

That's a super bit of kit. 3 switches to flick and bam, your recording. I was getting just over 3 hours to a 4GB SD card but that was with the 5 hour battery pack.
The only problem is I found it had reliability issues when used day in day out. If you want to use it every now and then, this would be the perfect solution.

I'm now moving to the PDR100 with a HQ1 550 TVL camera. http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/chasecam-pdr100.htm

The difference in tvl is not all that much. When you get to 520 and 550 it's then the DVR that becomes the bottle neck because most only record 640x480 @ 25 fps.

I would go with solid state recording because anything with moving parts on a bike will jump and skip unless well padded.

The main thing is, the more money you spend, the better quality you will get back.

[SoulKiss]

Northy

I think I *may* have the best possible set-up

Spent £99 on a 4Kam camera.

Spent £200 on a Cowon A3 60GB media player.

Put a fixed mount on the bike using a modified (ie I bent it) scottoiler bracket, a fairing bolt and the free mount that came with the 4Kam.

I record @ 720x480 @ 3Mbps which is the highest this recorder does.

I am sure that those of the Soho Massive that have seen this will vouch for how good it is.

Camera and recorder will be coming to the AR.

[Paul the 6th]

I've got a dogcam pro 520 with an oldish MiniDV (tape) camera - when I say old, it's about 6 years old and works a treat...

I should really get my finger out and buy another battery or two since that's the only real issue. The quality is as good as if you were filming with the DV camera itself, and the number of tapes dictates how long you can film for (about 90 mins per tape).

I'd say if:

you already have some of the kit such as a DV or HDD camera

or

you're planning on doing regular videos/serious projects

this is the best way - I've not had chance to get out there and do any more videos since the pennine massive rideout in january... But I've been having a few brainstorms whilst wandering around york city centre. Thinking of getting up really early and doing some shooting

One or two other tips:

Although it takes much more effort and setting up, mounting the cam on your helmet gives more interesting videos by a country mile. IMO Badly mounted cameras on front mud guards or petrol tanks pointing straight at the speedo are horrendously boring and I generally switch off within 10 seconds or so. Helmet cam gives a clear view of the road and gives head movement = much more animated picture/not static...

Also, again it takes more time but if you can find some simple editing software and learn how to use it, your videos will become much more interesting. Edits mean you can drop the boring straights & traffic and get onto the interesting aspects of your rideout. Overtakes, cornering, various random bits and pieces all pulled together with a bit of decent music generally make videos more interesting to watch.

just my penneth

p.s. the quality of my helmet cam videos on youtube isn't representative of the full quality of the dogcam - the final video edit is compressed to fit on youtube

I use my JXD for track footage. I simply pop it on charge between sessions, so battery only needs to last 20 odd mins between charges (which is obviously no problem at all, they prolly last over an hour). But I also wired up a 5v fixed voltage regulator (~75p maplin) so it can be charged from the bikes battery. I did suffer some interference when filming connected to the bike/charging, I never looked into this any further but it might be something really simple.

Like I noticed the max input voltage was less than I was trying to put in with the bike running (i.e. the bike running is say 14v, max in for the voltage regulator was 12.5 or summin) .. I intended to actually just feed it from two regulators ... i.e. step it down to a fixed 9v, then to a fixed 5v ... the 9v can take upto 15 odd volts input you see

If you are going the JXD route, there is no point buying one of the higher spec cams (unless you intend to upgrade the recorder at some point).

Hi again Andy......


....following on from previous posts, have you seen THIS PACKAGE yet? Looks pretty good. Certainly user friendly if its looks are anything to go by.

Garry

[northwind]

No Indi, I have not looked at your package. Ho ho. Looks like a good Dogcam alternative.

Hmm. Hmm again. You can get a decent spec used mini-DV camera off Ebay for well under £100, but then some of the JXDs are so cheap now that I could literally buy two, have one charging and use the other! I've got 2 fast 2gb SD cards so it'd be nice to be able to use those (then again, I might rig the ATC for a tail view, it needs an SD...)

Blue's footage is of a quality I'd be happy with- most views will be through Youtube anyway so they end up all compressed to hell regardless. In fact, when the ATC actually works I've been fairly happy with the quality, I was going to post a link here of it at its best til I noticed I triple-apexed the very first corner, how embarassing...)

I generally dislike helmet cam footage, mine especially is rotten- I move my head so much, and I'm never looking exactly where I'm going, that it's just a jerky confused mess. I've got a rock solid mount made out of an old mountain bike stem that I can bolt straight into a crash bung, works really well- the position gives a great impression of speed and lean, and it's very adjustable. But the ATC's hopeless with it due to interference from the engine.

Video camera people! How do you transfer the vids to PC? Play back the tape? Does it offload at 1-1 speed (ie, does it take 90 minutes to offload a 90 minute tape?) What format do they record in? I've never had a proper video camera...

Soulkiss, lots of people say that HDD cameras or devices are a bad idea with bike vibration, but it doesn't sound like you've had any problems? Just finished downloading your vid, and a player to play it (sigh) and it's really good...

All good food for thought, thanks folks... I'll go off and do the maths on some of these.

Originally Posted by northwind

Soulkiss, lots of people say that HDD cameras or devices are a bad idea with bike vibration, but it doesn't sound like you've had any problems?

Before the JXD I bought a 60gb (HD) PMP ... sure enough it suffered from vibration problems, REGARDLESS of how much I tried rapping it up/isolating it from the world. It's a great little device, but it was a mistake getting it for on-board use!!

[punyXpress]

I generally dislike helmet cam footage,

Those ' lifesavers ' are the killers

Originally Posted by northwind

Video camera people! How do you transfer the vids to PC? Play back the tape? Does it offload at 1-1 speed (ie, does it take 90 minutes to offload a 90 minute tape?) What format do they record in? I've never had a proper video camera...

Soulkiss, lots of people say that HDD cameras or devices are a bad idea with bike vibration, but it doesn't sound like you've had any problems? Just finished downloading your vid, and a player to play it (sigh) and it's really good...

All good food for thought, thanks folks... I'll go off and do the maths on some of these.

With the camcorder I use a fire wire to get it off on to my PC, at a 1:1 speed, and being old itt struggles a little but the quality is good. The editing software I've got then uses .avi files, and can then write to mpegs, to dvd etc....

I find with a helmet cam I nod about a lot especially when changing gear!! For track footage I definitely prefer a bike mount. I sucker mine on justunder the lights.