Alamo Autosports via Mike Patterson sent Glenn an interesting little video camera for him to try out over the weekend.

It's about the size of a deck of cards, records AVI files directly to an SD card and comes with all kinds of nifty mouting gadgets that work absolutely great.

http://goprocamera.com/
http://www.alamoautosports.com/

Here is the first installment of several demo clips of the camera

http://www.lawmotorsports.net/vids/TWS/Aug08/GoProDemo1.wmv

Quite impressive for the packaging and price point.

sweet... that's something that would be cool to install under the car and see the suspension work... see if all adjustments need tweaking.
Thinking UETA or seeing how often and how much you hit the bumpstops, not to mention 1 for the front + rear view.

When is the group purchase?

That's 50x better results than a local PCA member got with his..

Video is similar, but, the audio on his is so poor that it makes his videos almost unwatchable.

I agree.....the guy I post a lot of my videos of is using one of these, and it is nowhere near this quality and the sound is poor.....

Secrets to getting the sound right Mitch? Maybe you have a new generation where those issues have been worked out.....

Well, audio is an issue.

I'm a video/multi-media producer and editor. So, the final version you see in that link has been significantly edited.

interesting...here is a GoPro camera that my buddy is using. The vid does not look as good as yours nor the sound....of course his is outside the car obviously....was your raw footage of similar quality?
Sample GoPro Video

[hijack]

I didn't know that Mitch! Do you ever need Graphics/Lower thirds or Animations for Videos? If you do let me know I can use some freelancing (unemployed) here is some of my work.

And now to our regularly scheduled program...
[/hijack]

Randy, if you look below the view window, on the right, just below "Views", there is a link to the higher quality version.

That appears to be shot on an overcast day. The shutter speed is extremely high on these cameras. I have a shot of the GP camera on my quarter panel and you can see the brass colored end on my valve stem go around.

The footage you saw in my vod was shot with the mount on the window, outside the car.
Like I said, the sound has been significantly edited.

But this is a video camera, not an MP3 recorder.

Alexander,

Animations on occasion. I need your contact information, rate and output media.
We might have something for you ...

Ah...I never looked at the high res version. It is better. I agree at the price of these things, the are EXTREMELY good at what they do. For the price I should try one out.....but I don't want to have to become a video engineer to clean them up.....thanks!

mitch, how was the sound on the raw footage? Even in the clip Randy posted things looked and sounded pretty alright.

Anyone know what these things look like at night?

From what you guys have posted I don't think you could beat it for the price.

I love the "Stroke of Genius"
btw, I have some connections that might be able to help you out, when I used to work @ Discreet http://www.discreet.com division of AutoDesk.
If it's something that interests you, let me know... and I'll make a few phone calls, and pass a good word on you, even your CV.
There is also the gaming industry, I know a few ppl... such as Ubisoft and EA... let me know what interests you and we'll get you in touch with ppl... can't harm.
btw, I'll be going to OH next month... so we'll have the chance to meet up.

Thanks for the complement. I am teaching Autodesk Maya 2008 at 2 local colleges unfortunately is not enough to pay the bills so I'm looking for a)A full time job B)To ramp up my freelance business, to make the difference. I'm selling the house and trying to reduce the girth so I can look at other possibilities outside of the Cleveland/Ohio area and that includes looking Canada. I'll probably be offering help to anyone here going to the NASA Nationals so we'll have to chat. Hey Kevin are you starting the Crew list for NASA again this year?

WOW, that's some nice footage .....especially for the price

Might have to look into one of these for autocross.....once I find something to run

Thanks for the info Mitch !

Now on youtube to save bandwidth

I wanna be a rock star

sweet video action. I couldn't find the cameras on Alamos site.

not listed yet. please call them if you want one.

Bah.. you covered up the real music...

I hate it when people do that

I tried one at Sears Point a few months ago. It worked ok, but I returned it the same day becuase of to many problems. Most of the problems I was having with it im sure was operator based!

I bought it at http://www.winecountrymotorsports.com/prod...products_id=577 Nice people!

I'm going with a ChaseCam

Howdy,



Given the earlier part of the thread, I imagine he was covering up poor audio performance....

:-)

Mark

the deal is, we thought we had it set correctly. it says in the instructions to set the mic level to low for motorsports use. we were setting it to low, but we didnt realize that when you replace the batterys, it defaulted back to the original set-up. once we figured that out, it was fine. for the money (well under $200), this thing totally rocks. 2 gig SD cards can be had for under $10 up to $20. the largest file i had from the weekend was under 1gig (20 minute sessions).

My that sure is a fine looking blue 3rd gen!

Does it have a remote start/stop to use when mounted in creative locations?

Mine doesn't, unfortunately. I've had good luck mounting it on the chin bar of my helmet for autox events, but haven't used it for HPDE events yet.

That's not exactly true ... it did stay defaulted to the Lo sensitivity.

The audio was much better when inside the car, but still not 48K good. I couldn't EQ it enough to get resonably clean audio by my standards. It was there, just had the bottom end cut off.




You are such a camera hawg!





No and that is my primary complaint.

Anyone with reasonable editing skilz can make the audio work. But, remote starting and stopping is a definite limitation.

Any recommendations as to some good open source or off the shelf video editing software that can help take the wind noise out of these cameras? Even on the 'Lo' setting, I still have problems with annoying wind noise in my videos.

2 years later... What's the latest in affordable motorsports cameras? I just want something basic and simple so that I can throw vids on U-tube etc. I'm guessing regular cameras can't handle the vibs and fail?

The cheapest go-pro at SoloPerformance is $150 http://www.soloperformance.com/Motorsports...IDE_p_1541.html
Why would I want to upgrade to the other 2 go-pro's listed there?

Here might be another option:
http://www.stableimaging.com/v1/Re-Play_XD/index.html

Still doing research as I type. I'm getting pressured for a xmas list from my wife and family. For some reason she doesn't want to buy me an Afco Radiator...

I have my High Def GoPro (this one) helmet mounted so it isn't the most stable picture, but you get the idea. The volume still isn't that great on the TV, but once on a computer it gets better. I find the user interface somewhat annoying, since you have to scroll through a menu and unless you memorize the order or what the codes mean you have to look it up. However, once you set it you really don't have to change much and I can turn mine on and off without looking at it.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyouHC5hQlA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXapnqJCnNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfEMvpRP_i4


If you want more examples, I can post the links.

Chris, the quality and sound in those vids is as good as I've seen on YouTube.

Contour HD, IMO blows away the rest of them: http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merc..._Code=ContourHD

I can check on GP pricing if there are 6 interested.

I would be interested. I have been shopping for a system for the holidays as well

Yes Alan, please check.

I'd be interested in a Contour Auto Sports (comes with the windshield mount)

OK, GP is a go for the ContourHD and the ContourHD-1080P cameras and accessories.

See Advertisers Sales forum

They look better on my TV and would look better on my computer if I had a decent video card. Youtube's compression takes away some of the clarity.