video camera suggestions ??

#21

Skeen has good things to say about the Contour HD.

#22

+1 Contour HD

Downloads to Mac easy. Ron I can show you this weekend. Also check out my recent video on Vimeo they are with the HD. Early video are with Tape based.

#23

I like my GoPro HD. For the same money as the contour HD to get waterproof cases and tons of mounts.

it is cool to be able to take your camera out of your car and strap to your helmet while white water rafting and ziplining

#24

jtower wrote:

[quote]if you plug in the AC cord, the camera will charge and operate at the same time. this is because it uses a non-standard pin (#4 iirc) on the mini-usb connector, the camera detects this and operates normally. however a regular mini-usb cable doesn’t use this pin so the camera goes into “data transfer mode”, probably because the usb standard only allows for 150mv (500mv in some cases) which isn’t enough to operate it.

the solution is to snip off the end off the AC charger and splice it on to a 5v source (i use a cigar lighter power cord from an old cd player which is an easy way to get 12v -> 5v). or use an inverter in the car but that seems so inelegant, but i know people who do it. i also had to wire in a cigar lighter adapter but that was easy enough, and i put it on a switch so i could control it manually, along with the traqmate. works like a charm, i never have to remove the camera from the car and never worry about batteries. in fact you can remove the battery entirely and it’ll still work but i keep mine installed so it will operate even without vehicle power.[/quote]
I put this together last night. Nice work on this idea. Right now I’m using a cigarette lighter USB adapter as the 5V source. Quick trumped elegant because Jim, Fred, Al and I are racing Chumpcar at Roebling tomorrow. But when I get a chance I’ll pull the adapter apart for the circuit board and make the wiring permanent.

With a 32G SD card, the Aiptek should happily film the entire 8hrs of racing each day.

#25

I picked up an Aiptek HD for $80 on their site yesterday after reading this thread. Then came a $18 8 gig SDHC card, and I bought Rob in VA’s IO Port mount for $55. Doing it on the cheap in SpecE30 fashion. Hopefully recording all my sessions at Sebring and watching them will help me advance.

#26

King Tut wrote:

Some folks are saying that the screw mount at the base of the Aiptek isn’t strong enough. I’m going to put something beside the camera and strap the camera to it. That should reduce the strain on the screw mount.

#27

Ranger wrote:

[quote]King Tut wrote:

Some folks are saying that the screw mount at the base of the Aiptek isn’t strong enough. I’m going to put something beside the camera and strap the camera to it. That should reduce the strain on the screw mount.[/quote]

http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/camera_bracket/

http://cerient.net/photos/spec_e30/jan27/josh_pics/huge/huge_jasons-spec-e30-014.jpg

#28

I’ve been very happy with the GoPro HD so far. The ability to place it almost anywhere right out of the box is awesome - it’s easy to move from car to car, or between locations in the same car, and I’ve also used it on my helmet while karting. The battery lasts a long time, it uses a standard mini-USB port to charge, and spare lithium batteries are only $20.

The wide field of view is probably my favorite feature, though.

#29

Regarding the Chasecam, they are release the DiVA which does HD as well as multi-cam setup. The DiVA should be released in the next week or so and looks very promsing. We are currently using the AiM Smarty cam here with our MXL dash. It’s HD quality and can sync with your data as well.

Give us a buzz if you’d like a further run down.

Dan Gorman
Gorman Motorsports