Anyone have a suggestion for a cost effective in car camera system?

 

There are a few competitors to GoPro. Watch techbargains.com, sometimes other cameras come up. I got this guy when it was on sale @ $99:
BuyDig.com - Oregon Scientific ATC 9K Full 1080P HD Water Resistant Action Camera w/ G Force Sensor

I thought it was pretty cool because it includes a G-Meter that overlays on the video and a remote. There is also an optional GPS module that adds position (google map overlay), speed, etc. I got that and an extra battery. Total price was $156 shipped, including the GPS kit, extra battery, and extra battery charger.

Video quality is ok, not as good as the new HeroHD models, but it was cheap and has cool features.

 

Here's my first "production" using my Contour GPS camera, Android Torque OBDII data (phone mounted on passenger side) and DashWare - this was my first time at Queensland's Lakeside Raceway in my MX5 MSM (aka SE in Australia) - it was a Queensland MX5 Car Club track day event.

The Video and GPS were captured via the Contour GPS camera.

RPMs, Throttle, Engine Load and Water Temperature were captured via Android's Torque application and Bluetooth interface to the car's OBDII port. These are the only useful settings available on my OBDII port, there is no boost information or oil pressure/temperature data

The bottom left instrument cluster and right hand side G-force meter were created by me to match the night-time colours and chrome trim of my car's instrument cluster (DashWare is a great tool for creating customised instrument clusters).

Synchronisation of the Torque data to the video works well at times and awful at others - I used the DashWare RPM gauge and car's tacho to try and get them a close as possible.

Unsurprisingly, the water temperature gauge doesn't move much.



The video looks great at 720p but on youtube, the dark blue gauges are too hard to read to I'll use cyan instead for future youtube videos.

 

I've got a few issues with my GoPro including that the angle is just too friggin wide sometimes. And the audio is lacking. And if it is in its case you cannot plug into it with an external mike or anything.

 

I have a GoPro. I got it when there was basically nothing else. I see a few more cameras now-a-days that are cheaper or price equivalent with more features. I doubt there is a significant advantage in the GoPro. Cameras are much cheaper today than a few years back (Thanks to the smartphone market!).

 

I also have a gopro, While the wide angle lens has its advantages. It makes in car videos look incredibly slow and dull to watch. imho.

 

Good to know, I thought I had read Emilio post somewhere that you can change the Field of View in the camera's settings.

The wife was getting ready to buy me the new HERO3 Black Edition for this HPDE season.

Guess I should tell her to hold off?

 

If you want super cheap then there is a thread in the group buy section from a few years back about using $20 spy cams off ebay. I don't know if anyone ever really went down that route, so you would be on your own.

 

I was dead set on getting a GoPro for track days, until the Race Data Acquisition thread, which brought up the Aim SmartyCam. It seemed to be the consensus for 'easiest plug-n-play' since it does all the data overlay rendering in real time, you just download the video when you are done. However you pay for that privilege, as it's $1,000. Do you have any other acquisition stuff?

Does anyone have one, and have it hooked up to their Megasquirt? Supposedly it supports Megasquirt for the data overlay. It would get a lot cheaper if you could run this + connect to megasquirt for your full DA system rather than spending another $2k on theirs.

 

Not to jack OPs thread, but I'm not interested in cheap, poor video quality cameras.

 

The Hero2 with the Wifi or the Hero3 are super slick. You can hook your phone up to it and control the camera from your smartphone. I'm getting an external mic when I buy my next GoPro, and it should be a fairly decent setup.

SPOT METERING.

 

The settings on my gopro are super-*******-wide and more-super-*******-wide. I can be close enough to another car to get reprimanded in HPDE and it still looks like you could fit 12 cars between us in the video. Colin is right, it makes for boring video. I wish I had bought something different sometimes.

There was a video posted online somewhere by a corvette guy using some little spy cameras that was great quality at about $80 apiece. It's been a year or so and I can't recall anything more. I'd check out color spy cameras.

 

We've got a solution in early beta that allows DA off the MegaSquirt + video sync + overlay with GPS and Accel. It's currently working with MS2.

We've considered developing it further, but one of the holdups is we're unsure if the market is willing to pay what we would need to allow us to scrape by on it. I'm thinking retail price would be in the $500-600 range.

Is this a viable product?

 

I have the GoPro but have never used anything else. I use it for more than just the car, though. It's been on a boat, taken snorkelling, kayaking, etc.

 

I saw this one in person yesterday. Very slick operations and great HD video quality. Using the 3M adhesive mounting bracket we stuck it to the bottom of a friends plane and did a flyby over the race track. Very cool footage!

http://www.ioncamera.com/e-shop/

 

I like my iPhone with Harry's lap timer, similar to contour GPS data, good quality video on an iPhone 4S or 5 or Android phone
http://www.gps-laptimer.de/Home.html

 

Me too!

 

I've read some reports of the phones getting super hot and going into thermal shutdown.

Have you had this experience? I've got an iPhone 5 and this is intriguing.

Are you using an external GPS plug-in? ALso what mount are you guys using.

 

I've heard that happens when you run off the battery. I keep mine plugged in

 

It is the opposite. The wide angle lens makes the video look faster.
Same trick is used in video games - when you want to make it look you're moving faster you set the camera with a wider view.
With a narrow lens that footage you watched would've looked even slower and I guess more dull to watch.