bk12

Ron,

This sounds like a great setup....do you have the sport seats with the hard plastic back? If not, what seat material are you sticking it to?

Mark in Baltimore

Tony,

How resistant to vibrations is this unit? I hear it's better than the camcorders that record right to the hard drive.

(I'm in Best Buy right now, looking at camcorders.)

APKhaos

Mark,
Sony's image stabilization is terrific. Something like an IOPort camera mount is all you need.
The HDR-CX7 is $943 at Circuit City, with a free bag & tripod.
Great camera for the car, and perfect for the family stuff as well!
T

rmag

Mark -
I've got the Sony HDR-CX7 and used it for half a season last year. The image quality is unreal from the track! I would definitly recommend it. I did have one issue. My rollbar didn't have a horizontal surface for me to mount my ioport to. So I had mount it at an angle. My car was so stiff, that anything over about 100mph, the camera/mount would oscillate, causing blurring of the video. I just switched to a DAS sport rollbar, so this issue should disappear. To make sure it was the mounting position causing the issue, I lent the camera/mount to another guy with a GT3 who used a 996 tequipbar (it has a horizontal bar to mount the ioport to). Image quality was perfect

APKhaos

Hey Ryan,
The IO Port mount needs to be kept compact to avoid vibrations. If you can adjust it to get your angle without having the arms extended, its fine. I run 1000# springs and no rubber bushings without a single shake, adn that's with a fairly heavy Sony DCR-TRV38 camera.

karlooz

here's my conservative (read... slow) lap of LAGUNA SECA

i used an i/o port cam mount that was less than optimally mounted.... it was cantilevered. i have yet to buy an external mic so there is wind noise. i did turn on wind noise reduction and turned down the mic level to minimum. i used the lowest quality and reduced the video to 480x240 but capture quality is still really good.

i have been very satisfied with the camera. takes great snapshots too. if you decide to get a panasonic HD cam think about getting the sd1. the sd3 and 5 have replaced it but are missing the external mic feature. got it for ~750, great bang for the buck. i hear the supplied software kinda sux but i use iMovie on my mac to download and process the video from the sd card.

rmag

Yea, unfortunately I had the new 997 tequipbar which did not have a horizontal crossbar. It came to a V in the center, so the only way the IOPort worked, was all twisted and extended

rmag

Mark -
If you go with the Sony HDR-CX7, buy the Sony VCL-HG0737C Wide angle lens. Gives great vision of the cockpit and road without distorting the image at all.

Mark in Baltimore

Tony and Ryan,

Thanks for the input! I just pulled the trigger on the Sony HDR-CX7 camcorder at Best Buy. I bought three batteries, two 8 GB cards and the four year, drop-it warranty for $1,700.00. I may change my mind and return it all, unopened, of course, but at least I have the expense as a 2007 write-off for the business.

I was going to get two cameras, one for home/business in the $600 range and the other for the track ($900?), but I'd really prefer to have just one camera, one type of battery, one charger and one piece of software to deal with.

I'll check my local Circuit City to see the pricing difference. Ryan, thanks for the lens tip.

Mark in Baltimore

Ryan and Tony,

I've done some research on the Sony HDR-CX7 camcorder and have a few questions.

-There is a proprietary format which creates DVD's that only Sony equipment can read. Is this a real issue? The user in the review below had to export the video files to the hard drive. Thoughts on this aspect?

-How is the noise during medium light situations?

-How hard is to to use the pushbutton manual focus?

I purchased this because of its small size and HD video quality. I was happy until it came time to burn a DVD. This camcorder makes video files in a proprietary video format of M2TS, which requires you to use their supplied software only – the new formatdoes not work with anything else. Even when you use the “easy” DVD creation process, it creates a proprietary DVD that can only be played on “Sony” equipment. I had to export the video files to the hard drive, then convert them to a common format, then finally burn a DVD. The entire process took 4 hours, and I have a fast new PC. I don’t understand why a company like Sony could not use DIVX, AVI or MPEG format for video files. I am going to return this for a hard drive model that creates MPEG files.


I buy a lot of digital still camera equipment, and I wanted to add to the list a good compact HD video camera. The HDR-CX7 fell short of the mark. I was really disapointed by the poor video quality. At the highest quality level possible on the camera,there is a good amount of noise even in medium light situations. The colors also appear to be off the mark. Taking pictures while recording video is pointless. Its embarrassing to show anyone the 'GRAINY' pictures shot with this camera. Maybe I've gotten use to higher quality pictures from other brands, but at $800-$1000 SONY should meet me half way. I expect better from SONY. In addition the media format is annoying. If SONY could work on what seems to be a noise problem on the CMOS sensor, maybethis camera wouldnt be half as bad. Dont take anyones word for it. Go to the nearest store and try it, and you will see.

Click here to read Circuit City reviews.

Thanks for any help!

APKhaos

Mark,
The AVCHD format that this camera uses is ahead of the general curve, but its a very good standard H.264AVC format that newer apps are starting to support. WE'll have TrackVision support in the coming V2.0 update, and that's using the Main Concept codec suite which is also used by Adobe and others.
I'd discount this review comment. H.264AVC [aka AVCHD] is a killer format, and it only a matter of tiem before its broadly supported. Next thing to buy is Sony Vegas for video editing. I suspect the Vegas consumer version for $100 or so will support AVCHD shortly, if not already [need to check the latest release, but not tonight:-)]

mglobe

I recorded this yesterday. I had the Aiptek camera mounted to the rear window of my car using my Woods Power Grip camera mount. Both driver and passenger windows were wide open. Unfortunately, because of traffic, I couldn't get above around 70 mph. I had to jump through a couple of conversion hoops to get it on the web, so the video quality is compromised a bit. I've done a small mod to the camera, placing some felt on top of the microphone, and then some masking tape over the mic opening, both to diminish the wind noise.

http://www.vimeo.com/463288

Tom N

The SD card cameras are the ticket. I have used a JVC Everio GZ-MG255U with a 4GB Sandisk card which is good for 100 minutes at normal mode.

I did have to get the BN-VF823U battery which is good for 100 minutes as well.

Another feature of this camera, and one I would suggest is a manual focus setting. Many cameras will focus on the windshield in auto focus mode.

The lens on this camera in 16:9 mode captures a wide field of view without an adapter.

I have had no problems using an IO Port mount on the Tequipment harness/roll bar.

Good luck with your choice.

Z-man

mglobe: thanks for posting the video -- I am glad to see that the camera records pretty smoothly -- not bad for a low end camera without image stabilization. The only downside I see is that without a wide-angle lens, it is a bit difficult to get the driver's actions (steering wheel, feet, shifting) in the video.
Actually, I think you can hook up an external audio. The documentation on the Aiptek says that it has the ability to record TV shows, DVD's..etc by hooking up the unit to a TV/DVD/VCR with the RCA and HD cables provided. For sound, it's a simple RCA Red/White (Right/Left) connection. So all that you need to do is attach a lipstick lense to the Yellow RCA connection, and get the right adapters from Radio shack to convert the RCA jacks into something that can plug into an external mic.

-Z-man.

APKhaos

Would be good if someone who has the camera could confirm this. The manual has a big bold caveat that reads "For select model only. Please refer to the package printing for detailed specification. There may also be some limitations in recording format with that mode [both aspect ratio and video format], which is why its just hard to say without a test. I agree that the video quality looks very good for a very low cost camera, and suspect that the original saved format is impressive. The Vimeo sample has been through at least two compression cycles! Its interesting that Vimeo throws as 'Unknown format' descriptor for the original uploaded video, but their Flash engine seems to have handled it well enough.

Mike,
What format did you upload to Vimeo?? Vimeo reports .unk [unknown format]. I downloaded your original. Quicktime can't open it, but WMP thinks its a WMV format and plays it without a problem.