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Aren't the DVD based recorders suspect to vibration and close down?

APKhaos

OK Mark, now take a couple of Prozac before you read this. This whole video format business is a product of the arcane world of standards, so its almost intentionally tricky to navigate. If you really want to read up on this, Wiki is a good place to start.

- No, DV is nothing like MJPEG. They are very different standards. To over-simplify, DV video is uncompressed. MJPEG is a very simple format where each video frame is compressed using the JPEG algorithm.

- No, AVI is widely misunderstood. Its not a video format at all. Its a container format, much like mov. An avi container can carry video [and audio] streams in a number of different formats, from DV [uncompressed] to MPEG4 [highly compressed]

- This is a jumble of confusion. There are two root MPEG standards - MPEG2 and MPEG4 - and they are quite different.
MPEG2 is fairly well bounded given its purpose as the standard for DVD recording. FWIW, most MPEG2 video you will see is interlaced because that's what the DVD standard requires.
MPEG4 is an entirely different animal. Its a family of standards, which has been expanded to include the AVC and H.264 [MPEG4 Part 2] standards for HD video, BlueRay, AVCHD, and more.

Both MPEG2 and MPEG4 are Variable Bit Rate based. There are no 'major bit rate standards'. The bit rate is selected in the encoder, up to the maximum that a given encoder can support. All encoders are not created equal in this regard.

You are right. I think Mark might have meant DV, not DVD. Trouble is, flash memory-based cameras don't use DV because it is an uncompressed format. The mainstream flash-based cameras will use H.264 [Aiptec is an example] or AVCHD which is an HD-only H.264-based format.

Plavan

The drawback of the Flip is you cant change out the memory for bigger cards like stated before. Also the 30fps may not be fast enough with CMOS.

I have tried alot of different HD camcorders over the last year (High priced units and low priced units) I just tested my first Aiptek with a wideangle lens. It beats everything I have tried. I threw in a 16gb card and record over 4 hours of HD video.
I hardwired the Aiptek to my battery- and have a small remote within reach to start it.

It figures the $140ish camcorder was the best for my racecar- I'm very happy with it.

Here is the test video while I was breaking in my new race motor. 60fps setting.

http://www.vimeo.com/4444183

Lemming

Where did you find the wide-angle lens?

Plavan

Another Rennlister posted he got one at overstock.com . Thats where I got mine.
http://www.overstock.com/Electronics...9/product.html

Use some electrical tape to attach it and your all good.

sjfehr

Not sure where you gathered this impression, but DV is compressed, and is a lot like MPEG, as it uses DCT compression just like MPEG and JPEG. The compression quality/effectiveness is comparable to MPEG2, although it's a high bitrate to preserve quality, and uses a special algorithm that's designed specifically for use with tape to allow high-speed decompression fastforward or rewinding.

APKhaos

I was actually trying to keep it simple, but......

DV uses intraframe compression. Each frame is compressed independent of any other frame. And you're right to point out that its DV's high fixed bit rate of 36Mbits/sec is a key factor in preserving quality.

Most other formats use interframe compression, which literally drops information for areas of each frame which have not changed from the previous frame [an oversimplification, but that's the general idea].

DM993tt

Took this with my HD flip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTHQmOf2qik

& this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4srWRreEi0

Any old mount will do. suction/io port - has the same threading as any cam. So easy. Records 1hr - just need a usb port and ur done. Not good for data overlay but simple and easy. Vids on your own computer have awesome quality and you can freeze frame anywhere and use it for photos.

mark kibort

I was being very general as well. Like I said, I had no idea what the GoPro standard was, but what I did know was that the file sizes are big after 30min of driving. Yes, I get it about .AVI.

When i said MJPEG was like DV, i ment from an individual frame compression stand point.

What I was talking about with MPEG and bit rates, is that there are some standards for MPEG1 as far as the VCD standard and MPEG 2 as far as DVD.
Sure, encoding in both of these can be done with the author's choise of bitrates.

My point with the DVD for recording, was that the DVD recording is done on a recordable disc and could be subject to vibration and crashing or other recording issues during recording.

a Flash based MPEG recorder would be ideal. Again, to get rid of the huge file size out of the camera which usually gets parced down to a very acceptable Mpeg 1 quality 2Mb/second before it shows up on YOUTUBE. . I think its MPEG 1 with the Media maker movie maker on Windows. anyway, i do author my video to the max bit rates and its 2Mb/second. this can be seen with my laguna seca video on my signature line.

mk

APKhaos

Nice video. Not dead sharp, but the optics are one thing that really show weakness in all the low prices cameras. It seems to do well for in-car apps, with no sign of the dread rolling shutter waviness.

Why not? Its perfectly OK for data overlay far as I can see. Do you have a logger? If yes, then send me the logger file from this run - tony[at]trackvision.net

brendo

this video is from my windshield mount http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFdt8-fvBI

note, my goal here was not to nail the line - just playing around with a few different ones...