Topic: Help with in car video

Looking to step up our in car action for the fall CMP race.  Right now I'm trying to decide between a half dozen DV camcorders mounted around the car or going with a half dozen web cams into an onboard PC.  These cameras will be mounted outside the car, so they will be seeing quite a bit of motion and light changes.  I know the DV's will do a decent job of filming the action, but I'm not sure the web cams will work very well.  Any advice?

Mike
Lab Rats Motorsports
1988 Mitsubishi/Dodge/Fiat Colt Carpocalypse Edition

2 (edited by bongle 2009-07-06 06:29 PM)

Re: Help with in car video

Camcorders for sure.

The webcams will all be designed for interior levels of lighting and designed to focus at something 2 meters in front of them, so will probably get very washed out very easily and possibly not focus very well or deal with lots of action very well.  They'll probably use the cheapest possible image sensors, since image quality is not a big priority for webcams.  All your colors will be washed out.

The other concern is that your computer will likely not be designed for the extreme vibrations present in a race car.  Hard drives have moving parts that literally glide microns away from each other, and a hard bump could cause the head to hit the platter and wipe out your file system (or at least the file it is writing).  You could probably set up some sort of bump-damping system or use flash drives, but the added weight, complexity, and the possibility of another thing to kill you in a rollover probably isn't worth it.

Car to Pit telemetry (OBD2, GPS, and analog inputs) with little more than a phone, router, and laptop.  It's not MacGuyver, it's WifiLapper (forum | facebook)

Re: Help with in car video

Get a camcorder. Webcams have very little dynamic range and just can't handle the difference in brightness levels you'll see at the track.

I use Viosport analog cameras and solid state recorders for exterior cams and I use a Sony HC3 camera for in car with a wide angle lens on it. This camera is small and does a great job handling the brightness range between inside and outside the car.

If you want to see what the video from the HC3 looks like you can check out this video we recently did at VIR (Its not exciting, just some recon laps ahead of putting students out on track) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOFbExqa … annel_page

To get the best picture you will want a shock mount to help dampen out vibration. Most cameras you buy now will have a CMOS imager and vibration will seriously screw up your image due to "rolling shutter" that is part of the CMOS design. I would recommend against the small Canon camcorders for this very reason. Based on my personal experience using the Canon HF100 these cameras are unusable in a race car. The Sony cameras I've used seem to display LESS of this effect. If you can afford a camcorder with an OIS (optical imager stabilization) you will get better images than a camera without. Not all stabilizer systems are created equal. Some handle the high frequency vibration (race cars) better than others. My Sony V1U does a GREAT job with vibration but its pretty expensive to be putting in harms way. Its not small either. 

You will want to make sure your setup has a safety strap that will prevent it from hitting the driver in case the mount fails during an unusual event. I will assume this will be required to pass tech.

Re: Help with in car video

Good info, thanks.  I was kind of concerned about the focus and clarity of the web cams, and you've confirmed that for me.  As for the camcorders, names like Sony and Canon will not be on the car.  These camcorders will be mounted on the OUTSIDE of the car and therefore will be exposed to extreme damage.  I will be acquiring some cheap junk off ebay, use it once for a few minutes of good video and then trash the units.  Specifically, the ones I was looking at were $40.  We'll see how it goes!

Mike
Lab Rats Motorsports
1988 Mitsubishi/Dodge/Fiat Colt Carpocalypse Edition