Video camera

[motorbyclist]

For those wanting good handy cams to plug ya helmet cameras in to....

I bought a Cannon MV960 for $800 fron Noel Leeming in May2006 with AV in/out and firewire play through.
Only feature missing was the LANC port for running the start/record/stop remote that I wear on my arm.

A couple of months ago I bought a new Sony DCR-HC96 over the web for $1000 from Camera & Camera up north somewhere. Good service from them too. I bought that one because it had the LANC port. It also has AV in/out and Firewire play through. Both are MiniDV Tape cameras.

uh, small problem there

[Transalper]

Didn't say they were going to be cheep, only that they have the needed AV input, there's another problem, the Sony DRC-HC96 looks to be becoming rear and costs another $300 at the few places that still stock it.

[NordieBoy]

The only problem was that the straps supplied were to small to fit a motorcycle helmet, so made our own from an old cycle inner tube, and works fine.

Got any pics of the setup?

[NordieBoy]

We cured this by making sure the cam is mounted on the helmet rigidly, by mounting the cam to the helmet with a rubber strap, and using the velcro and rubber strips provided to pack the rear of the mount, and from the footage we have taken sofar no wavy vids.

Do you have any links to any of your vids?

[Number 5]

Will take some pics and post them tonight after our ride, haven't posted any vids as yet, maybe my wife will post some through the week.

Will be at the Rimutakas around 12:30ish if any one wants to have a look.

Playback on the PC with the ATC2K seems better on the Quicktime rather than Windows Media Player, on WMP it plays to slow so have change play speed to 1.2, where on QT you can choose the play speed of 30fps.

[Number 5]

[QUOTE=Transalper;1311282]For those wanting good handy cams to plug ya helmet cameras in to....

I bought a Cannon MV960 for $800 fron Noel Leeming in May2006 with AV in/out and firewire play through.
Only feature missing was the LANC port for running the start/record/stop remote that I wear on my arm.

A couple of months ago I bought a new Sony DCR-HC96 over the web for $1000 from Camera & Camera up north somewhere. Good service from them too. I bought that one because it had the LANC port. It also has AV in/out and Firewire play through. Both are MiniDV Tape cameras.

Thanks for the info Transalp, as I said we need to change our ancient camcorder and the Sony sounds good, but on checking the specs it shows Composite Video In and DV in (Firewire), does this work with a CMOS or CCD 480 lines bullet cam.

[Transalper]

Just to confirm the new Sony I have is the DCR-HC96E (forgot to put the E in there before)
All my handycams have a firewire jack and a composite analogue jack. Both those jacks are a two way thing on both the cameras I spoke of. That is the AV jack is in and out in one plug, Firewire is the same, two way communication in one plug.
You can play the analogue signal in to the AV jack and it digitizes and sends the signal to the PC and vice versa all real time. That's how I edit with Adobe Premiere, the PC sends signal through firewire to the camera which sends it on the the TV via the 3 RCA plugs. I see the project as I do it on the TV as if I'm watching it off a DVD or tape but it's actually straight off the PC.

The sony makes a kick ass webcam too, you can disable the auto standby and use it as a webcam which doesn't need good lighting. Other webcams I've tryed were crap after the sun went down.

[Number 5]

Got any pics of the setup?

Pics of the set-up you asked for.
The cam is attached by the velcro strip, and the rear of the cam clip is packed up with the rubber strip (all included with the cam) to stop the wobbling.
The rubber strap then holds it all securely (and security should the velcro fail at speed), the whole set-up ways less than 500grams, and because the cam is mounted fairly low on the helmet the fairing deflects the wind over it, so you don't notice it's there.

[Number 5]

Cheers Transapler, very useful info

[Transalper]

You could also check out www.livevideo.com , there's a big motorcycle video log community there and it allows you to upload much higher quality video than youtube, making for pleasant watching !

Ok, starting to agree with you oin the picture quality there.
I've dione a bit of a test mix and uploaded it a few times at LV with different settings. Here is the public version.
I'll stick it on Youtube tonight as well to compare.

Still some things about LV I don't like, but then the same can be said about Youtube.

Oh yeah, those ATC2K things do look like they produce good colour definition, I'll say that for them.
Cheers
TA.

[Alpha Solo]

Great compilation video there Transalper, nice to see me climbing the hill on the mighty pampera from the viewers perspective!

[zeocen]

Ok, starting to agree with you oin the picture quality there.
I've dione a bit of a test mix and uploaded it a few times at LV with different settings. Here is the public version.
I'll stick it on Youtube tonight as well to compare.

Still some things about LV I don't like, but then the same can be said about Youtube.

Awesome! Was a good vid, as I said in the comment.. the snow bail looked so fluffy, like you just laid down to have a little rest for a bit hehe.
I mentioned to a few LV mates that there was another NZ video logger and they were happy, they seem to love our scenery.. they loved your first vid you put on there.

There aren't many comments posted on videos in LV due to a smaller concentration of the community, but it's tighter and you get to know the people well. Looking forward to your next videos, and interested to see the quality, obviously it's just a tad more complex than the route I take (take from camera, put in vegas, edit, rende! hehe).

[Transalper]

yeah, cheers, I noticed a sudden influx of notification emails, actually I went and turned some of the notifications off while that was happening. Next one is up now. The Youtube version of that quality comparsion test vid is on my secondary youtube channel here...