Mini Cams

A new member at our club had a small video camera, almost like a bullet
cam, but just slightly bigger. Al it takes is an SD card, he had a 1
gig card for this camera. He just clips it to his hat.
I did not get the name of this camera. But I think this member stated
that a famous skateboarder indorses them. Anyone have an idea which
camera this is? Sure beats the hell out of my JVC video camera.

Carl

wrote in message
oups.com...
A new member at our club had a small video camera, almost like a bullet
cam, but just slightly bigger. Al it takes is an SD card, he had a 1
gig card for this camera. He just clips it to his hat.
I did not get the name of this camera. But I think this member stated
that a famous skateboarder indorses them. Anyone have an idea which
camera this is? Sure beats the hell out of my JVC video camera.

Carl


Is this what you are talking about?
http://www.viosport.com/store/custom...=hawk_overview

Wayne
HP-14 "6F"
http://www.soaridaho.com/

Wayne Paul wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
A new member at our club had a small video camera, almost like a bullet
cam, but just slightly bigger. Al it takes is an SD card, he had a 1
gig card for this camera. He just clips it to his hat.
I did not get the name of this camera. But I think this member stated
that a famous skateboarder indorses them. Anyone have an idea which
camera this is? Sure beats the hell out of my JVC video camera.

Carl


Is this what you are talking about?
http://www.viosport.com/store/custom...=hawk_overview

Wayne
HP-14 "6F"
http://www.soaridaho.com/

Hi Wayne,

Yea, that's it. I did some checking though, and see they mention it's
not recommended for
TV/DVD quality.

Carl
Standard Cirrus N8915

On 5 Mar 2006 09:13:54 -0800, wrote:

A new member at our club had a small video camera, almost like a bullet
cam, but just slightly bigger. Al it takes is an SD card, he had a 1
gig card for this camera. He just clips it to his hat.
I did not get the name of this camera. But I think this member stated
that a famous skateboarder indorses them. Anyone have an idea which
camera this is? Sure beats the hell out of my JVC video camera.

Carl
The Tony Hawk bullet cam is a toy. Forget that. I have made myself a
nice unit that I use for skiing, and I will be experimenting with
various shots from my glider this season. Here's the shopping list.
An ARCHOS AV-500 video recorder, which produces on a 30 gig HD almost
8 continuous hours of 640 x 480 line resolution video in MP4 format.
This unit is about 1/2" x 3.5" x 5". Tiny. Similar to the IPOD Video
idea with the exception that this unit can record analog video
DIRECTLY INTO the unit, much to the chagrin of the Motion Picture
Industry Although the AV-500 is self contained, you'll need a
6v. external power supply for the recorder for long periods of time.
I made the power supply from a 4 cell AA battery holder from Radio
Shack and used the biggest and baddest 2500 mah rechargable NIMH
batteries I could buy. Next, you'll need a bulletcam, suction mount,
and an exension cable, all available on EBay, or a website called
VIOSPORT.COM. Viosport had the best accessory selection, but the
bulletcams can be had less expensively from other places. I found a
great 520 line color bullet cam package for $180 on EBay, brand new.
Make sure your bullet cam has the SONY chip, and that it is not a CMOS
unit. You'll have to educate yourself there. The cam and microphone
(included with the bulletcam package) need their OWN 12v power supply,
which I made with an 8 AA cell holder, again using 2500mah NIMH
batteries. Instead of creating losses with a power converter to step
12v to 6v, I just used 2 separate power supplies. I was able to
squeeze the entire assembly, including a hand-cut foam protector for
the video recorder, and a DPDT rocker switch to activate both power
supplies together, into a hinged Plano fishing lure box measuring 8 x
5.5 x 1.25". SMALL
Another way to get hi quality bullet cam video is to use a 480 or
520 line bullet cam with a VHS, HI-8, Mini DV, or Mini DVD camcorder.
The camcorder MUST BE ABLE TO ACCOMODATE ANALOG
VIDEO/AUDIO INPUTS. Very important. Almost all older VHS, and Hi-8
camcorders had analog RCA jack video/audio inputs. Be careful, as
relatively few of the newer Mini DV or mini DVD camcorders accomodate
analog inputs.
You'll get great video results with a camcorder/bullet combination,
but you'll get a maximum of 30 minutes out of a Mini DVD disc, or an
hour of Mini DV tape, if you use the high resolution settings. You
also have narrow time limits for powering the camcorder. However the
biggest problem is that of playing P.I.C./ cameraman / director
..... starting, stopping the recording, horsing around with
play/pause, etc etc. With the ARCHOS video recorder idea, you can set
it up while on the ground, forget it, and fly all day without
exhausting either power or HD space. You'll need video editing
software to extract the few nuggets of great footage buried in 8 hours
of recording. I use Pinnacle Studio 10 for editing. Works well for
me.
I'd really enjoy hearing from pilots who have produced inflight
video, or fabricated various mounts. I'm new to the inflight aspect,
and would like any ideas I could get. RON W

Hi Ron,

I have played with some bullet cams around the house for security using
a video capture card and multible video cams
hooked up to my Hunt video switcher. All of my soaring video's though
have been shot from two place gliders so one pilot can fly while I shot
video from my
JVC Mini DV DVL300u.

I'll research some of your equipment listed above.
Thanks for your post.

Carl
Standard Cirrus N8915

RON wrote:
On 5 Mar 2006 09:13:54 -0800, wrote:

A new member at our club had a small video camera, almost like a bullet
cam, but just slightly bigger. Al it takes is an SD card, he had a 1
gig card for this camera. He just clips it to his hat.
I did not get the name of this camera. But I think this member stated
that a famous skateboarder indorses them. Anyone have an idea which
camera this is? Sure beats the hell out of my JVC video camera.

Carl
The Tony Hawk bullet cam is a toy. Forget that. I have made myself a
nice unit that I use for skiing, and I will be experimenting with
various shots from my glider this season. Here's the shopping list.
An ARCHOS AV-500 video recorder, which produces on a 30 gig HD almost
8 continuous hours of 640 x 480 line resolution video in MP4 format.
This unit is about 1/2" x 3.5" x 5". Tiny. Similar to the IPOD Video
idea with the exception that this unit can record analog video
DIRECTLY INTO the unit, much to the chagrin of the Motion Picture
Industry Although the AV-500 is self contained, you'll need a
6v. external power supply for the recorder for long periods of time.
I made the power supply from a 4 cell AA battery holder from Radio
Shack and used the biggest and baddest 2500 mah rechargable NIMH
batteries I could buy. Next, you'll need a bulletcam, suction mount,
and an exension cable, all available on EBay, or a website called
VIOSPORT.COM. Viosport had the best accessory selection, but the
bulletcams can be had less expensively from other places. I found a
great 520 line color bullet cam package for $180 on EBay, brand new.
Make sure your bullet cam has the SONY chip, and that it is not a CMOS
unit. You'll have to educate yourself there. The cam and microphone
(included with the bulletcam package) need their OWN 12v power supply,
which I made with an 8 AA cell holder, again using 2500mah NIMH
batteries. Instead of creating losses with a power converter to step
12v to 6v, I just used 2 separate power supplies. I was able to
squeeze the entire assembly, including a hand-cut foam protector for
the video recorder, and a DPDT rocker switch to activate both power
supplies together, into a hinged Plano fishing lure box measuring 8 x
5.5 x 1.25". SMALL
Another way to get hi quality bullet cam video is to use a 480 or
520 line bullet cam with a VHS, HI-8, Mini DV, or Mini DVD camcorder.
The camcorder MUST BE ABLE TO ACCOMODATE ANALOG
VIDEO/AUDIO INPUTS. Very important. Almost all older VHS, and Hi-8
camcorders had analog RCA jack video/audio inputs. Be careful, as
relatively few of the newer Mini DV or mini DVD camcorders accomodate
analog inputs.

[Snip]

You can buy the whole setup for $869 from http://www.skullcamz.com/

Tom

The type of HDD used in this system has an altitude operating limit of
nominally 9840ft(3000m). A few operate just over 10K feet, but not by
much. A pressurized case will be needed to for any video system using
HDD's in the US west and many mountainous regions. At 3000m,
atmospheric pressure is about .67 of sea level. At 5000m, it's about
..50 of sea level. The air pressure is needed to float the heads above
the media. Going above the rated altitude leads to a potential head
crash into the media. Not good.

Now the question is the amount of heat dissipation needed to operate
this equipment safely. That will drive the size of the case and case
material or need for heat sinks along with the pressure differential.
Interesting problem.

Frank Whiteley

I'm under the impression that all hard drives made in the last 30 years are
Winchester-type units with hermetrically sealed cases. I dismantled a
crashed drive and it was very well sealed in a case that could easily
withstand a hard vacuum. I know there's a 3000 meter operations limit in
the spec's - why? Cooling? Maybe it's just an artifact from the
pre-winchester era. I know there are plenty of HDD based MP3 players used
by hang glider pilots that work fine up to 18K feet.

However, my camcorder can use SD cards instead of tape and a 2GB card will
store 6 hours of DV so maybe concerns abour HDD's are moot anyway.

Bill Daniels


"Frank Whiteley" wrote in message
oups.com...
The type of HDD used in this system has an altitude operating limit of
nominally 9840ft(3000m). A few operate just over 10K feet, but not by
much. A pressurized case will be needed to for any video system using
HDD's in the US west and many mountainous regions. At 3000m,
atmospheric pressure is about .67 of sea level. At 5000m, it's about
.50 of sea level. The air pressure is needed to float the heads above
the media. Going above the rated altitude leads to a potential head
crash into the media. Not good.

Now the question is the amount of heat dissipation needed to operate
this equipment safely. That will drive the size of the case and case
material or need for heat sinks along with the pressure differential.
Interesting problem.

Frank Whiteley

hdd's are not sealed, the have air filters to exclude debris.
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/packAir-c.html

iPods and other media players with hdd's have operating limits.
Doesn't mean they won't work above their rating, but it's risky and may
depend somewhat on the latitude.

My DV recorder also will take SD cards and tapes and has AVI inputs,
but I like the fly and forget method described above. The AV-500 now
comes with 100GB drive.

Frank

My DV recorder also will take SD cards and tapes and has AVI inputs,
but I like the fly and forget method described above. The AV-500 now
comes with 100GB drive.

I was also impressed by the description, so the result was the order is made and
the stuff is paid. Now you come with the possible drawbacks...

3000m in a nice wave... do i continue and possibly break the thing or do i
consider 3000 already good enough and call it a day? As if there were not enough
decisions to be made already...



Ricardo

PS: Of course, it's not really an option. If it brakes, it will brake!!