Video: How to Drive in a Straight Line

[Joe Perez]

As a response to the discussion in This Thread I shot a little video today using my new Aiptek ISDV2.4 camera.

The video quality is surprisingly good for an $80 camera with shitty optics, actually. The image stabilizer is worse than useless (makes video shot in a car look like crap) but in regular mode it's quite livable. In the video, the first scene was shot on a set of batteries that were damn near dead (after only 5 minutes runtime) and consequently the colors are funky and there's noise in the picture. Everything thereafter was shot on a set of fresh Energized lithiums, and looks much better.



Unfortunately, the basic YouTube version kinda looks like poo. When the video starts to play, click on the button in the lower-right corner (or click the little up arrow if you don't see the HQ button) and that'll improve it considerably.


If anybody wants the 90MB original, you can get it at any one of these mirror sites. You really need to view this version if you're seriously interested in the quality of the camera:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/rn1zizhhmyz/Final rev B 640x480.avi
Download Final rev B 640x480.avi, upload your files and earn money. rev B 640x480.avi

[18psi]

nice...needs way less music and way more engine sound though

[kotomile]

The music kills me Joe

[Fireindc]

Wow, I am impressed by the quality of that camera. For only $80, it would be perfect for trackdays and the like. The hd version looks great.

Changing out those batteries made a huge difference, how long did they last?

Nice editing btw, only complaint is not enough wot, and too much music I really like the way your car sounds but could hardly hear it.

[240_to_miata]

I have one thing to say to you..... FUCK you for being able to have your top down and not be in full snowboard gear in January. I wish i lived in Florida.

[99mx5]

Good quality video on that cam. What is it mounted to?

Miata wave FTW!

[patsmx5]

All the music kinda sucked. Good picture though.

[samnavy]

I'm so damned close to picking up one of those little cameras. It's gotta have an AV-in so I can hook up a bullet-cam. I'm going to use it on the flight-deck and need to have my hands free... plus for car-use and what not. I've looked at the little Sony bullet-cams and the one I want is twice as much as the camera I'm looking at.

PS... how long did it take you to grow that sweet stache?

[18psi]

Originally Posted by 240_to_miata_OWNER

I have one thing to say to you..... FUCK you for being able to have your top down and not be in full snowboard gear in January. I wish i lived in Florida.

cali is same way

[cardriverx]

dude cool stache joe.

[96rdstr]

Is that a calculator watch at 1.06?

[levnubhin]

Originally Posted by 96rdstr

Is that a calculator watch at 1.06?

Haha, I noticed that also.



Joe, more info on whats holding your laptop in place, please.

[Joe Perez]

Originally Posted by 18psi

nice...needs way less music and way more engine sound though

I put in as much engine sound as I was able to. Unfortunately, the location of the camera (and the cheap-ass mic) means that above 20MPH or so, the audio is nothing but complete distortion. I'm going to experiment with some strategically placed foam to see if that improves things.

I gather folks didn't dig the music. C'mon, it's Sonic the freakin' Hedgehog! Where's y'alls nostalgia?

Originally Posted by Fireindc

Wow, I am impressed by the quality of that camera. For only $80, it would be perfect for trackdays and the like. The hd version looks great.

It's obviously not going to put Ikegami or Red out of business any time soon, but at 1/400'th the price, not a bad deal.

Changing out those batteries made a huge difference, how long did they last?

The original Duracells I put in (fresh out of the box, with a March 2015 expiration date) gave me about 10 minutes total runtime, all of which had the color artifacts and funky lines. (I thought I had a defective camera at first.) On the Energizer Lithiums, I've shout about 45 minutes of footage thus far and it's still indicating a full charge (of course, the indicator only has three positions- full, half, and off.)

I tested the Duracells, and they're actually still mostly charged. My suspicion (not knowing a lot about drycell chemistry) is that they simply can't deliver enough voltage under whatever the current draw of the camera is, whereas the lithiums can maintain their voltage output much better under load. It'll hopefully be a moot point soon as I'm planning to build a power adapter for the car that lets me run the camera off of 5v delivered via the USB port.

Nice editing btw, only complaint is not enough wot, and too much music

Thanks. I'm still learning Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, so a few spots weren't as polished as I'd like. The gray boxes obscuring the license plates at Jon's house for instance. I'm sure there must be a way to animate a 2d object over a path, but I can't figure out how. So I just created two stillframes in PaintShop of a gray box over a blue background, chroma-keyed them over the video, and used a series of push wipes to move them.

Ben, if you're reading this, I kept an eye on memory utilization during the edit, and I don't think I ever saw it go above 700 megs. I had a dozen tabs of Chrome, plus IE and PaintShop Pro open in the background the whole time, and never had any issues. Doing the renders stomped the dickens out of my poor little CPU, but no major problems. I think your machine will be fine.

Originally Posted by 240_to_miata_OWNER

I have one thing to say to you..... FUCK you for being able to have your top down and not be in full snowboard gear in January. I wish i lived in Florida.

Yeah. Say that again in six months when it's eleventy bajillion degrees and four thousand percent humidity here, and small dogs are being carried away by the flying cockroaches. Nah... SoCal is where it's at.

Originally Posted by 99mx5

Good quality video on that cam. What is it mounted to?

I have a magnetic CB antenna base stuck to the car between the trunklid and the top well, fabbed a little bracket out of 3/4" aluminum square tube, and stuck the camera on that. Used rubber washers between the antenna base and the box tube, and between the tube and the camera body, to prevent everything from rotating without having to torque the bolts down too hard. (the threaded portion of the camera body is just plastic, and the antenna mount is made of Chinesium)

Miata wave FTW!

I'm surprised you noticed. The dude waved back (out the window.)

Originally Posted by samnavy

I'm so damned close to picking up one of those little cameras. It's gotta have an AV-in so I can hook up a bullet-cam. I'm going to use it on the flight-deck and need to have my hands free...

Have you looked at Oregon Scientific? They have two models (ATC2K and ATC3K) that combine a camera and recorder into a single helmet-mountable bullet. They even include a rubber helmet strap (so you don't have to modify your stylish Naval-issue headgear) as well as a tube clamp, some velcro straps, etc.

Originally Posted by cardriverx

dude cool stache joe.

Ah, the Perez family curse. All of the men are able to grow full mustaches of nearly Jamie Hyneman proportions, but we can't do a proper goatee to save our lives. My sister says that between that any my penchant for silk Hawaiian shirts, I look like an 80's porn star. I haven't asked her to what degree she is familiar with 80's porn stars, largely because I don't want to know.

Originally Posted by 96rdstr

Is that a calculator watch at 1.06?

Casio DBC-150 FTW. I know, it's the ultimate geek accessory. I've been using these watches for about the past 15 years. Phone database, appointment calendar, calculator, and I can know what time it is in Sri Lanka, Murmansk and Ulaanbaatar. They're why I don't carry a PDA. No email capability yet, but I have hope.

[Joe Perez]

Originally Posted by levnubhin

Haha, I noticed that also.

Levhubhin's diggin' on my watch too, but in a PM he writes:

Originally Posted by levnubhin

Hey, what is your laptop mounted to? I need that in my life.

Who's the geek now, eh?

Ok, seriously. It's not a laptop per se, but a tablet PC, meaning no keyboard, just a flat object with a touchscreen. This particular one is a Fujitsu Stylistic 3400, which can be had on eBay for $150-$200 via BIN. If I were doing it all again, it'd be a tossup between the newer Stylistic LT-500 / 600 (which have a dedicated numeric and cursor key section to the right of the screen) or an Eee 901, but it'd still be mounted in the same place.

Here are some details on the mount:







(man, I need to touch up the paint on that thing.)

The bracket on the lower-left is for the CB radio, when I'm doing group runs. The base of the pedestal is a piece of flat steel stock, bent slightly, which goes under the front left pax set bolt. There's also a piece of thinner steel which tucks up under one of the center console screws to stabilize it. The upper section is easily detachable via two 1/4-20 bolts, so if I'm parked somewhere seedy, I just pop the top of the pedestal off (with the computer in it) and stick it in the trunk.

Not my best welding job ever (it was my first project with the fluxcore machine) but it's held up nicely over the years.

[levnubhin]

Thanks Joe, incase anyone else is intrested in a regular laptop mount I found this.

Car Laptop Mount GIANT GPS SCREEN / DVD / MUSIC VIDEO - eBay (item 150322579331 end time Feb-01-09 07:27:29 PST)

[96rdstr]

This is hardcore. I like the tablet PC idea so I can just stuff it behind the seat. I couldn't bring myself to mount it like that.

[NA6C-Guy]

Originally Posted by Joe Perez

Yeah. Say that again in six months when it's eleventy bajillion degrees and four thousand percent humidity here, and small dogs are being carried away by the flying cockroaches. Nah... SoCal is where it's at.

That visualization cracked me up. Seems Alabama has the worst of both worlds. Florida heat and humidity, and bugs, mixed with pretty cold winters and lots of rain. We are in tornado alley, but get hurricanes... truely the shit state.

Really dig that tablet PC mount. I might look into a tablet PC for tuning. Wonder if MegaTune runs on tablet OS's? At that price it surely beats the hell out of a new laptop. Id also keep mine behind the seat or something though, I couldnt stand having a police car setup like that.

[cueball1]

When I saw the thread title I figured this was a slam on Dorifting and the response to the discussion thread was to the lame JDM vid!

Are those tint changing prescription glasses?!? We who are about to die solute you. Hail Geekster!

[Joe Perez]

Originally Posted by NA6C-Guy

Really dig that tablet PC mount. I might look into a tablet PC for tuning. Wonder if MegaTune runs on tablet OS's?

These machines use Intel Pentium CPUs and run regular ole' Windows. Mine has Windows 2000 on it, the newer ones come with XP or XP Tablet (the only difference being some touchscreen-specific functions.) So yeah, all of your regular Windows apps will run on it. It's hard to see, but MegaTune was running (and logging) during that whole video.

Data entry is via the on-screen keyboard which all Windows builds have as standard. Wanna see it? Go to Start -> Run, type OSK and hit OK

Originally Posted by cueball1

Are those tint changing prescription glasses?!?

No, just regular prescription glasses with clipons.

[cueball1]

Clipons are even better!

The tablet at least let you lose the pocket protector since you don't really need pens and pencils anymore.

Of course I hope I'm not ignoring one of my rules in life. Rule # 73 - Don't piss off Joe Perez!