Anyone use a GoPro HD camera for autox/track recording

JamesShort · **Posted:** Fri Mar 05, 2010 9:54 pm

Steven Carter wrote:

I ordered one for an early birthday present, thinking the new version (especially with the better audio solution) will make it a good choice. If it comes in tomorrow, James, you can play around with it and see if you like it. Otherwise, it'll be here by the 28th for sure.

The cost of the different mounting solutions included with the GoPro camera shouldn't be overlooked, and probably may be reworkable for other cameras.

Sweet!

Were you the one that told me about this thing? I thought my brother in law gave me the link to it. We're such copy cats

.

Anyway, if it comes in tomorrow let me know and I'll bring my laptop so we can preview at the TnT.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Fri Mar 05, 2010 10:20 pm

just checked...shipping delayed to 3/18--bah!

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

I know a guy who put a GoPro on his motorcycle and took it up to 140mph with no problems when he had the suction cup mount on his fairings.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:10 pm

Well here are some videos with the gopro HD. This is shooting in the wide angle 16:9 720p mode. The videos off the camera were big and of such quality that they were jumpy and poor quality on my old laptop. However after uploading to you tube, they play better (I assume you tube compresses them). On that note, does anyone use any free software for compressing video or flipping video or doing very very basic editing?

Note: This was my first rallycross and it was not pretty and I was driving like a grandma since this is my only car

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http://www.youtube.com/user/littlewing1 ... Y8MkaNLP9s

In the future, I might mount it to the windshield different (or mount it elsewhere). It rattled against the windshield (hear that noise) and the reason it had to be that close is to aim the camera down. Which I would have liked it to be aimed even further down so the sun was not in view which distorted the lighting.

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:36 pm

Yeah, you have to have a pretty good processor to play the HD vids smoothly.

I have been using cyber director 8 editing software. It was cheap and really easy to use. The vids play a lot smoother in cyber director vs the quicktime or windows media players. I am not sure what format it converts them to.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:53 pm

Yeah, they played a lot better on my desktop :

3.2 GHz P4...no hyper threading with 1G of rambus dynamic ram and a 128 meg video cars....this tower and components are 8 years old)

compared to my newer laptop:

(2.0 GHz pentium M with 2G SDRAM with 128 meg integrated video card).

Anyway, I'm going to do the recording in the smallest/most compressed format next time to see how it is.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 1:55 pm

MarcusMcRae wrote:

Yeah, you have to have a pretty good processor to play the HD vids smoothly.

I have been using cyber director 8 editing software. It was cheap and really easy to use. The vids play a lot smoother in cyber director vs the quicktime or windows media players. I am not sure what format it converts them to.

How much was that software and what formats will it work with (input)?

MarcusMcRae · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 2:15 pm

Vincent Keene wrote:

MarcusMcRae wrote:

Yeah, you have to have a pretty good processor to play the HD vids smoothly.

I have been using cyber director 8 editing software. It was cheap and really easy to use. The vids play a lot smoother in cyber director vs the quicktime or windows media players. I am not sure what format it converts them to.

How much was that software and what formats will it work with (input)?

Woops. Cyberlink is the company and powerdirector 8 isthe software. I got it for $50. http://www.cyberlink.com/products/power ... en_US.html

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Check out Windows Live Movie Maker. 100% free and easy to use.

720p @ 30fps is about 9Mbps, which is obviously a lot, but 720p @ 60fps is 15Mbps which is a huge amount. Importing and attempting to edit a 720p @ 60fps can easily lock up a new performance computer without any question. 8 year old hardware just isn't up to the task for editing 720p video.

I'm scared to see how long it would take to edit and encode an HD movie on a P4 system.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:00 pm

Andrew Jonell wrote:

Check out Windows Live Movie Maker. 100% free and easy to use.

720p @ 30fps is about 9Mbps, which is obviously a lot, but 720p @ 60fps is 15Mbps which is a huge amount. Importing and attempting to edit a 720p @ 60fps can easily lock up a new performance computer without any question. 8 year old hardware just isn't up to the task for editing 720p video.

I'm scared to see how long it would take to edit and encode an HD movie on a P4 system.

What if I want to take said videos (mp4) and make them lower quality, lower resolution, etc etc....whatever it is to make the files smaller and easier to play on blaher computers.....will Windows live movie maker do so?

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Yeah, it has options to save movies in 1080p, 720p, 480p, 640x480, and I guess QVGA for phones and stuff. However, if you have a 720p source, it's still going to have to crunch for a while to resize and whatnot.

Video is incredibly processor intensive.

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Wed Mar 24, 2010 8:47 am

Windows movie maker does not like MP4 format (at least on my XP and Win7 machines), so you may have to convert the format to something Bill Gates approves of, such as mp2, avi or wmv

I have mine set on "3", IIRC it's 720p 60 fps mode and it runs like buttah on my Win7 core i7 machine. I'm using Roxio 2010 for editing, and with that you can export it in any one of a variety of formats--like many of the other alternatives perviously mentioned.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Wed Mar 24, 2010 9:09 am

Steven Carter wrote:

Windows movie maker does not like MP4 format (at least on my XP and Win7 machines), so you may have to convert the format to something Bill Gates approves of, such as mp2, avi or wmv

I have mine set on "3", IIRC it's 720p 60 fps mode and it runs like buttah on my Win7 core i7 machine. I'm using Roxio 2010 for editing, and with that you can export it in any one of a variety of formats--like many of the other alternatives perviously mentioned.

You're computer is a beast though Steve

. I wish I could bring this blade server home 16 Xeon processors and 16 gigs of RAM

.

For the circuitcross next weekend, I'm going to shoot on the lowest quality instead. I don't need to watch these videos on a 55" tv....just the 3"x5" rectangle on you tube

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Steven Carter · **Posted:** Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:05 am

James, I got a great perspective placing the camera at the top edge of the windshield. Nice over-the-bumper angle but still had a good long horizon to see upcoming turns, straights etc.

JamesShort · **Posted:** Wed Mar 24, 2010 10:27 am

Steven Carter wrote:

James, I got a great perspective placing the camera at the top edge of the windshield. Nice over-the-bumper angle but still had a good long horizon to see upcoming turns, straights etc.

Inside or outside the car?

If you see my videos, I had it inside, but mounted on the windshield. Because of the contorted position all the linkages were in, the case of the camera was touching the windshield with caused it to rattle. I would have liked to aim it down even more than it was so the sun was not so much in the picture.

I think I'm going to try the over head light mount inside the car too. I'll just have to find some software to flip the video (FYI, I emailed gopro and they said 'soon' for the firmware update).

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Anyone use a GoPro HD camera for autox/track recording

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