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DVD video camera

Marc DeGirolamo

Well Known Member
I am thinking of purchasing a DVD camcorder and have looked at several different models......At this point I see several models which would serve my needs.....Am wanting to spend about $800-1000. Can any of you comment on a particular make and model (one which you use).....or more importantly which ones to stay away from.....? thanks

ps: I plan on mounting it onthe rollbar of my -4 to capture all those wonderful flights, not to mention the exciting landings.... :eek:
 
Marc,
Did you ever get any replies? I'm thinking of doing the same thing in my RV-4. How are you planning on mounting the VC on the rollbar?
 
digital video camera

About three years ago I purchased a Canon ZR40 for about $400. We had an upcoming trip to Europe and I didn't want an expensive camera in case it was lost or stolen. The Canon easily fit in a jacket pocket, and more recently has been mounted to the roll bar to capture on-the-road video from my kit car.

http://216.180.55.64/driving_29.wmv

The ZR family is now up to about "100" or so but you can still buy a member of the ZR family for less than $400. Since the Canon was my first digital video unit, I was amazed at the quality of a production that could be produced on a PC.

It really isn't necessary to spend $800-1000 just to get a high quality video image. The image quality of the lower cost cameras is comparable to the higher priced units. More money buys more bells and whistles but the image quality of any of the DV cameras is far beyond the older analog cameras. If the video file is compressed for internet distribution, the image will be considerably degraded anyway.

Editing on a PC is really cool. I can now easily and inexpensively produce videos that are far beyond what was practical 18 years ago when I offered video services in my business.

Sam Buchanan
http://sambuchanan.com
 
Cool. Now how did you mount it to your roll bar? I've never really checked into the camera stores or anything. Is this a pretty common kind of mount? RAM maybe?
 
I did the same thing. I bought a Canon ZR40 a few years ago. I didn't want all of the bells and whistles and didn't want to worry about the camera getting damaged/stolen. It was the cheapest model in the "ZR" line available at the time, but it absolutely blew away my old Sony Video8 camera in terms of quality. And transferring video to the PC (after I bought a FireWire/1394 card) was incredibly easy.

Dave
(disclaimer: I work for Canon)
 
DVD camera mount

Attached is a photo of the Canon ZR40 mounted on the StalkerV6 rollbar. The mount was fabbed up out of stuff from the scrap box. The actual camera/mount interface is a "tripod quick release" mount that I had in another scrap box.

Well......I can't figure out how to insert an image into this post....keep getting an error message. Here is a link where you can see the mount:

http://www.stalkerv6project.com/camera_mount.jpg

This probably doesn't translate very well to mounting a camera in an RV, but the point is that the mount doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated.

You can also see the auxillary 0.43 wide-angle lense on the ZR40. This is how I am able to include most of the interior of the car along with great depth of field that keeps the landscape in sharp focus. I used a remote mike so the audio wouldn't be blown out by the slipstream around the camera.

There are a bunch of neat digicams on the market, but the little ZR cameras seem to be great units for the money. I have been completely satisfied (amazed?!) with the performance of the little puppy.

Sam Buchanan
http://thervjournal.com
http://www.stalkerv6project.com
http://sambuchanan.com
 
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Sam Buchanan said:
Attached is a photo of the Canon ZR40 mounted on the StalkerV6 rollbar. ...
This probably doesn't translate very well to mounting a camera in an RV, but the point is that the mount doesn't have to be particularly sophisticated.

Actually that's perfect. And really does relate to mounting in an RV -- if you have rollbars. Which I do. :)

Thanks for the photo!
 
Be careful with DVD cameras

I've had difficulty getting video recorded directly onto a small DVD by one of the DVD cameras imported into a computer for editing with a program such as Studio 8. Seems to be much easier with a firewire linked miniDV camera when it comes time to import.

(would love to be wrong on this one, too, so let me know if you have a method for this)

-Clay
 
Canon ZR40 DV camera

The "DVD" in the title of my previous post about the Canon ZR40 was an error on my part. It does not use a DVD to capture images; the camera uses the mini-DV cassette. It has a firewire output that has worked very nicely with the firewire card I added to my PC. Overall, the interface with ULead VideoStudio 8 has been smooth and the only fits and starts have occurred as I have ramped up my familiarity with the many features of the software.

Sam Buchanan
 
DVD Camera

Hi Sam.....I haven't checked this thread for awhile as there were no posts, until now ! I should have looked.......I like the ZR camera which you have in your car (nice car and video btw). Does it have a remote (I thought this might be handy for turning unit on and off ? I have not figured out how it will mount on my rollbar yet either....but I like those two ideas you guys posted.....

signing off for now
Marc :)
 
Canon ZR40 DV camera

Hi Sam.....I haven't checked this thread for awhile as there were no posts, until now ! I should have looked.......I like the ZR camera which you have in your car (nice car and video btw). Does it have a remote (I thought this might be handy for turning unit on and off ?

Thanks Marc.

The camera has an IR remote but it seems to be quite directional and only works if you are in front of the camera and can aim the remote directly at the camera remote port. This may or may not be suitable for your installation. Since a cassette is good for an hour, I just start the camera, do some driving (flying) and edit out what I want later. That also allows me to verify the camera is running and check focus, zoom, etc.

Sam Buchanan
 
DVd rollbar mount..

or Fwhat it's worth I found a fairly cheap clamp on camera mount. Will fit up to 1.5 in tube. I'm going to try this on my rollbar.

Hi Scott,
Let us know how that DVD clamp works on your rollbar.....
Marc
 
I just received it today and am going to try it out in the morning. It seems pretty well made, similar to a RAM mount. I'll post a picture of it and try to capture some video tomorrow as well.
 
It took longer than I thought it would but here are a few pictures of the video camera mount I bought.

I'm just pasting the link to the images on my website because they are huge. I haven't learned to tweek my camera yet. I need to get some good image manipulation software too.

Video Camera Mount #1
Video Camera Mount #2
 
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camera mount

Scott,
It looks sturdy enough.....Let us know how it is in flight. Does your head interfere with the camera or visa versa ?
 
Actually, it doesn't interfere with my head in flight but I am a rather short sh... guy. :D I've taken some video and digitized it and it looks pretty good. The only problem seems to be that for this location even my Sony Digital8 Handycam is a bit on the bulky side. I have to angle the viewfinder up to close and open the canopy. I have to angle it back down to latch the canopy. I wish my camcorder was just a bit smaller, that would make it just about perfect.

The video I took has the side of my head, with headsets in view. The view is pretty much "over the shoulder." I'm going to have to play around with angles and zooms. Overall it's a pretty good angle though. I'll post my video on my website in a day or so.

Any advice out there... at the standard zoom, the image appears to be farther away than normal eyesight. Is there a standard zoom so that what you see on the screen will match what you saw with your eyeballs. I hope that's clear.
 
The movie has been posted

Okay, I got the video posted. Aside from my ameteurish editing (it was my first time! :rolleyes: ) does anybody have any advice as far as camera angles or focus?

It's kind of long at 15 minutes so it's a big file. But it was fun learning to do the editing. It's here: Sunday Flight
 
Windows Media Encoder

svanarts said:
Okay, I got the video posted. Aside from my ameteurish editing (it was my first time! :rolleyes: ) does anybody have any advice as far as camera angles or focus?

It's kind of long at 15 minutes so it's a big file. But it was fun learning to do the editing. It's here: Sunday Flight

I got the "Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" error.

Everybody who is doing online videos should download Windows Media Encoder. Google it. It's free, and it will convert to and from various bitrates and deinterlace and stuff. It's a great way to turn a big unwieldy file into a much smaller one that can easily be downloaded and viewed...and streamed using any web server.

Also grab VirtualDub -- also free -- if you need to convert between wacky formats, like MPEG to AVI or whatever.

For what it's worth, I capture my videos to my computer in AVI format, encode the edited version to a fat AVI. Then I use Windows Media Encoder to encode to WMV. The WMV is what I make publicly available.

Free stuff, works great.

)_( Dan
RV-7 N714D
http://www.rvproject.com
 
Sorry about that guys! I'm trying to find a plan B. I'm going to take Dan's advice first and try to crunch the video down first.
 
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