| Author | Message | ||
     Interex2050 |
Well I have been wanting to set-up some sort of camera system on the bike for some time now and after looking at the prices I was disappointed. Yesterday I stopped by the local electronics store and the security cameras caught my eye, I figured hell this is cheap why not just go for it... So I did here is the camera:  looks spiffy doesn't it  I used one of those wire holder things, with double sided tape as a mount  All ready for being mounted  To power it, since I did not want to buy a power regulator chip and run it off the battery right away... AA it was so I got this stuff too  The ultra sophisticated power supply...  A miracle, it works!  So it promptly got mounted on the bike, as nice as that location is I foresee clearance issues under heavy braking  So even though it was at night I still decided to test the setup, I was not expecting it to work at all being an inexpensive bullet camera and all... But to my delight it worked wonderfully! I will upload it to youtube and post a link shortly (Message edited by interex2050 on April 12, 2007) (Message edited by interex2050 on April 12, 2007) | ||
| Cheesebeast |
Very cool! Price? | ||
| Glitch |
Extra nice! Looking forward to seeing how it does. That must be a Sony camcorder. There aren't that many camcorders with a "video in" The camcorder is the prohibitive factor for me. | ||
| Holling |
How about mounting the camera to the side of your helmet and put the camcorder in a backpack? Thats how the more expensive systems advertise doing it. | ||
| Interex2050 |
The price ended up being about $70ish for the bullet cam, and all the other hardware. They have cheaper cameras, the lowest that I saw was for $35. I got this one because it is water resistant and has a metal case. Well that camcorder is a tad old... Its the Sony DCR-PC100 you can pick one up for about $60, not bad I think, and aside from the input its a great camera overall as well. Well the great thing is that I have a whole bunch of those "mounts" so I can put the camera anywhere I please. For this run I did run the wire along the bike and into a backpack. I will try the helmet alternative to see if it will reduce some vibration. I have also wanted to mount it to the fork leg, down by the axle... Plenty of things to try. I should have a good canyon run video by the end of tomorrow... I am still waiting for youtube to "process" my video, so stay tuned for when that is done. | ||
| Midknyte |
gahh, too many wires and to much camera to loose in an accident check this out http://www.sharperimage.com/us/en/catalog/product/ sku__OQ080 | ||
| Interex2050 |
Glitch, Here is the lowest price that I found http://www.megacameras.com/advanced_search_result. php?search_in_description=1&keywords=DCR+pc100&pfr om=&pto=&x=38&y=7 | ||
| Interex2050 |
Midknyte, I was looking at that before I got this one, but I decided against it. Probably because I felt that I needed to have a little fun working on a project, and because it was right in front of me. While the Oregon Scientific I did not find even at their official store... But who knows, maybe it was a mistake. All I know as I will have fun with this thing. | ||
| Midknyte |
I felt that I needed to have a little fun working on a project I know the feeling... | ||
| Interex2050 |
oops forgot this one too...  | ||
| Naustin |
That oregon scientific thing is cool, I wonder if you get a bigger SD card if it will record more time. I know a lot of riders that spend the money for cameras run them all the time when they are riding for the purpose of proving fault in an accident situation. For those purposes, I guess you could just reset it every time you stop for fuel, but even then 90min is a little short. | ||
| Interex2050 |
I think it will record as much as it can... But I recall reading that the cards above 1GB may not fit properly and can get stuck in the camera... Success! Here is the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQPmkkcX-8E The next step is to figure out how to reduce vibration and relocate the microphone to one hears something more then wind noise, thus the music in the background... (Message edited by interex2050 on April 12, 2007) | ||
| Glitch |
Interex, thanks for the link to the cheap camera. I guess my problem was looking for the new cameras. Thanks again! Now I can do a project as well. Great post for those of us that love to tinker. The quality of the video is pretty darn good, even better I bet once you mount it to your helmet. | ||
| Coturi |
I loved the music. I've gotta do something like this as well. Great job. | ||
| Isham |
Whats the deal with no video? | ||
| Interex2050 |
Much thanks! That is a good question... When I log into youtube, it comes up but it wont let me watch it... Strange, well I imagine it should be up again soon...? | ||
| Interex2050 |
it seems like the video is back up... enjoy | ||
| Bueller007 |
You can get a really nice rig for under $400. in the Archos unit. The 404 can be got at walmart for $249. or maybe cheeper online. I've seen the camcorder for $112. I like that it's only 1 wire & no battry packs and has a builtin remote and microfone. http://www.archos.com/products/video/archos_404/in dex.html?country=global&lang=en And, http://www.archos.com/products/video_recording/cam corder.html?country=global&lang=en | ||
| Interex2050 |
That is really nice... I wonder how I missed that one My only concern would be the hard drive... I have been turned off from portable hard-drive based devices, well whose intension has any kind of shock/vibration. In particular ipods their hard-disks tend to lock up pretty often. So I am not sure how well they would hold up to the rumble of the buell... Luckily the camera thing that I got for this one only has one wire coming out of it, and it saves the "nest" for inside the backpack. | ||
| Nevrenuf |
that turned out pretty good. does the clearness come from the bullet or the camcorder when your doing that. and was that video from your helmet or under the faring on the biked the way you have it pictured. | ||
| Livnlo |
i tested out my cam at mb4 and was super stoked about the way it worked and the video quality was amazing i will try to post a vid from it the whole unit cost around 450 is a single wire cam with remote button and comes with everything you need and will support up to 2gig external and has one gig internal the model is scx210l samsung highly reccomend it if your looking | ||
| Interex2050 |
Nevrenuf, The cam was mounted to the fairing as in the picture for the first video. Today I will try it with the camera mounted to the helmet. The clarity ,I believe, comes from the bullet cam, but the "smoothness" comes from the camcorder. This should also be discovered today, as I am going to help my friend set up the same setup but with the CCD version of that bullet cam... Livnlo, That is a really nice setup, cannot wait to see the video... | ||
| Tommy_2stroke |
I bought one of those Oregon Scientific ATC-2K cameras recently, only to have to return it for a refund a week later. On the motorcycle, the video was about the same quality as Interex is getting, and the audio was massively distorted due to clipping (overloading the input). I thought the camera might be more useful on the bicycle, but there the audio was faint and muffled and the video was still disappointing. So I sent it back and got a refund... not without some verbal unpleasantness with an idiot Oregon Scientific customer service rep... although they did ultimately refund my purchase price. A good quality bullet cam running into the remote A/V input on a camcorder in your backpack is probably the best solution... | ||
| Tx05xb12s |
SpyderEye™ HC1 http://www.sportvue.com/store/product.php?pid=24 This is the one I've had my eye on. A little pricey, but built specifically for our application and able to store up to ten hours of ride time. I've already got the Sportvue MC2 HUD. I'm impressed with the fit, finish, and function of the unit, so I am feeling better and better about grabbing one of these too. I like the idea of leaving a camera running all the time when I'm riding in case I get ran down by some idiot in a cage. This unit is a one-stop shop and based on my MC2 experience, has got to be high quality for what they're asking for it. I just read the installation instructions and noted it's got a rechargeable 12V power supply, removable/upgradable memory, plays MP3's, videos, etc, and also has an FM radio. Sweet. | ||
| Corporatemonkey |
Since you are using a Sony pc100. be very mindful of the video/audio jack. The way Sony mounted the jack, it can (does) come loose with minimal effort. On my pc100 if the input cord get jiggled in anyway I get noise on the video feed. Question though. Why didn't you just get a handlebar type camera mount? By doing that you could have made use of the Image stabilization*, and Carl Zeiss lens. *for those of you that do not know the PC100 has one of the most inventive image stabilization systems ever put in a consumer camera. It suspends the internal lens within a magnetic field. It works very well. | ||
| Interex2050 |
Tommy_2stroke, Well it seems as though that the Oregon Scientific is not much different from my setup. The mic on the bullet cam is useless... One nice thing about this one is I can dissect it and change things around. Tx05xb12s, That is one impressive system, if I had the money I would be all over that one... I remember seeing that one when I was looking for the Veypor logger. Corporatemonkey, Thanks for the heads up, but now that I think about it; Luckily I have the camcorder in my backpack inside its own sling bag, so the cable is being held down by the camera bag. Good question... Firstly, I am concerned about high frequency vibration damaging the tape drive, if the camcorder was hard mounted on the bike. Secondly, I wanted to play around with various mounting positions. Some of which would not work too well with the big camcorder, as well as introduce it to damage from road debris. Well yesterdays canyon run yielded some both very exciting and disappointing results. The first part of the run I mounted the cam to my helmet... minimal vibration But, the mounting position made the video look really strange; as though I was "drifting" through the corners... (I will upload a video to demonstrate this) The second part of the trip I mounted the camera to the front axle (one heck of an axle slider). That worked much better then I could have expected, minimal vibration and no adverse effects from rough pavement. (will also upload a video) The part that I really wanted to record, we did not get to until much later in the day. At this point the sun was setting and this is where the camera got really confused. Because the sun was no longer on the road most of the time it would get really dark because the sky would be so much brighter in comparison, as well as the angle of the camera caused it to get glimpses of the the setting sun causing all sorts of havoc with its "auto levels" system. (this calls for another video upload) Now to discuss the built in mic, it is total rubbish! Although a little piece of tape reduced wind-noise drastically it did not eliminate it. So I will either put some foam inside the microphone housing or just make an external mic. Stay tuned for the videos! | ||
| Interex2050 |
Helmet cam video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlmeTTedKL0 It just looks so goofy. Axle cam video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVp_0Krw4ss turned out pretty well, it suffered from compression though. One more to go it is at the moment being "processed" by youtube... | ||
| Glitch |
I'm inspired! Nice work. The axle cam worked way better than I would have thought. Guess I'll have to give it a go. Rear axle cam while friends a riding behind would be a great one. | ||
| Isham |
Dude! Thats awesome. Perfect for most motorcyclist that just want to put a neat video up on Youtube. I want one now... | ||
| Krassh |
I actually like the axle cam out of the 3 with the fairing mount second. I don't really care for the helmet cam due to any head movement being a distraction. Love the video I may have to try this as well. Great work. |
