In-Car Video System

[Jack Olsen]

Video still from my old system:



I've been trying to get the right pieces together for a flexible and (relatively) affordable in-car video camera set up, and I think the camera I got today finishes it off.

The cheapest way to do in-car video, of course, is to make a home-made camera mount and slap on a $25 VHS camcorder that you picked up at a garage sale. When the car shakes the old camcorder apart, you take a Sunday morning and go find another garage sale. Simple and cheap.

But in my case, I want to be able to put one camera on the front bumper, or the rear wing (or pointed at the suspension, even), and one camera in the cockpit, showing the steering wheel and my feet as I drive. So, I ideally need two bullet cameras, a way to combine the two for a picture-in-picture effect, and a way to record the combined image that makes it easy to get it to the primary place I view it, my computer.

RECORDER

The Mustek PVR-A1 is a no-moving-parts solution that records MPEG-4 encoded video files to a SD memory card and is about the size of an iPod. It also has a screen, so you can see that your cameras are working correctly, and also review your laps right there at the track. It also has a rechargeable battery for when it's out of the car, so you can show other people your laps and exciting off-track excursions. (As a bonus, you can listen to MP3's on it and look at pictures of your wife and kids.)

A $50 SD card holds 3.5 hours of video, and goes right into a $5 reader for the laptop, which means no cables, encoding, or other nonsense when you want to get the videos into the computer.

It's the bargain of the package, too, at about $95 through Amazon.com.

PICTURE-IN-PICTURE

The View-2.com box by RCD Video allows you to combine two incoming video streams into one image. You can have an inset box, like you see above. You can change the size and location of the box in the frame, and you can also do half-split frames (horizontal or vertical) if you want to do a front-rear setup. It's $289, because it's not really a consumer item. It's available here. It's not cheap, but I think there's a real value to being able to see what you're doing (in addition to what the car is doing) in a lap video.

CAMERAS

I found a cheap source for Sony 1/3-inch CCD HAD bullet cameras, and there's an annoying problem with them that finally pushed me to buy a more expensive model. Many bullet cameras seem to be engineered for low-light photography, which makes them 'bleach out' too readily in bright light use -- like when you're driving at the track. I've finally concluded that the cheap cameras are fine for the cockpit-based camera (since there's less light in the car), so this one is a good choice for that.

But I just found a better solution for the main camera. It's a 530-line high-resolution camera with a 1/3-inch latest-generation SuperHAD (whatever that means) Sony sensor. Out of the box, it is less prone to the 'bleaching' effect, and it's capable of high enough resolution so that you could record to DV tapes and have a DVD-like image. But what it also has that's unusual is a wired remote control that you can attach to it which allows you to digitally zoom in or out, and pan or tilt on the digitally zoomed image. That's cool, but it's not important to lap videos. But it also allows you to manually adjust the camera's iris up or down in steps to compensate for a too-bright sky (or a too-dark day, or anything else, I guess). I believe the iris still responds automatically to incoming light level changes, at this point, but the steps allow you to change the range that it's opening or closing the iris within. When you power the camera off, it reverts to its normal settings.

It's $209 for this camera, and another $25 for the remote control. But the manual control the remote gives you is unique among the bullet cameras I've seen, and it holds the settings even after you unplug the remote. This retailer also includes all the stuff the other guys typically nickel and dime you for. You get an AC adapter, a 25-foot video and power cable, a 12V battery adapter, the RCA cables to connect it to a digital recorder or VCR, and a BNC-RCA adapter. I also got an extra lens for $20. It came with a wide-angle 3.6mm lens. I also got a 2.9-mm one that's even wider. I can switch them pretty easily without compromising the camera's weatherproof-ness.

The company that sells it is in St. Louis, and they sell it for $209 even though it lists on their site for $229. They're kind of new to e-commerce, and promise a simpler on-line ordering system in the next couple of weeks. But I ordered it on Sunday, and it shipped Monday by FedEx for only $8, with no sales tax. I was very impressed with their follow-up and service. They emailed me to let me know about the $20 price cut, for example.

Here's a 4-meg video clip that shows the camera opening and closing its iris. I tried to find the most difficult thing to photograph. It was getting dark outside, and it was dark in the house. I pointed the camera at the setting sun to get the most 'bleached' effect I could manage. (As a side note, my video editing software is still butchering the image that's recorded, but I'm working on fixing that.)

So, my new recorder and new camera look like this:



I include the quarter to show relative size. The screen on the recorder would look prettier, but I put a clear plastic protector piece on it to keep it from getting scratched in the car.

MICROPHONE

You also need an $8 microphone. It's probably something you can get at Radio Shack, as well.

It's worthwhile to make the trip to Radio Shack to put together some 12V power lines from the cigarette lighter or other source with plugs for the cameras and the recorder.

RESULTS

I've been socked in with work stuff, and I'm out of town this weekend, but I'm hoping to do some test videos next week that I'll try to post. After that, I want to finish educating myself in overlaying DL-1 data logger data onto the videos, which will show speed, rpms, lateral g's, and other data on the clip.

[Matt Holcomb]

Jack,

I will be very interested to see the results .... We've been thinking about purchasing some professional in-car gear so we can add a new service to our list.

One quote we received came in at £10,000 ....

[POKDUB]

To save yourself a few $ you could use video editing software like Editstudio from PureMotion.com. An older version might be available on PC Mag CD, or get a 30 day evaluation copy.

This will do the Picture in Picture for you as well as giving you a simple to use video production setup. You could even create a quad screen with four different video tracks. Great fun.

[304065]

Jack, do you have the Trackvision software?

[RonDent]

Jack,
I that you in the video on the web site for the picture in picture? Hey Buddy! How am I to trust you if your working both sides here? No really, Thanks great info!!!

Ron

[ewave]

Jack,

Do you know if the Mustek records in Stereo or Mono? (Does if have a stereo input- Is this defined in the MPEG4 spec- stereo or mono?)

[}{arlequin]

good find on the camera Jack. thanks for compiling this.

[Fritz]

A lot of cameras have a title in feature. Titling is similar to the way dat/time stamps are layed on top of the image in each frame.
If you have that title in feature and your datalogging output is text (6,300rpm as opposed to a graphic like a tachometer) then it is an easy job to get it in. Some cameras have this title-in feature right on the camera so you can record it all at once. Even if you do it later is is straightforward to lay the title on with Adobe Premier.

If you are creating graphical images with data logging you will probably edit it on afterwards with something like Adobe Premier. It gets pretty complicated but it is doable.

You run your data logging graphical software and capture the images of the output into a picture type of file and name them in a number squence. Then in Adobe Premier you can look in the directory where those images are stored and it will bring them into the project in order. Laying those images in is similar to the green screen concept the tv weatherman use.

Toughest part is getting your data logging output into the same time sequence as your video (video is usually 27 fps but I'm not sure about digital). Second toughest part is synching the video and the data, some type of switch that outputs to data as well as can be viewed by the camera such as a little light can be used as the synching key (ie when the data comes on for this switch and the light comes on in sight of the video, you are in synch).

[Jandrews]

Excellent!!! This is the EXACT thread I have been looking for. I saw the discussion on the new recorder, but this will give some true results for discussion.

Thanks Jack.

JA

[efhughes3]

Awesome writeup Jack, thanks.

[jaydubya]

Great post!

Are there mounts available for those small cameras to attach them to a roll bar / cage?

Can you provide some additional information on power for the camera and recorder? I assume the recorder will run off batteries? What cables are you using to hook them up simultaneously to the cig lighter?

Thx,

Jeff

[jwerion]

This is great, I have just started looking into a camera system for my race car and this information is perfect. Thanks for the post Jack.

[jwerion]

Jack,
Do you have any in car video samples yet? and can you explain how you wired all the different components together and how are you getting power to them. (cars electrical system, batteries paks, etc) thanks again for the info

[avendlerdp]

Hey Jack-

That "bleaching" is due to exeeding the camera's exposiure latitude (over exposure). It can be cured by using nutral density filters you can buy at the camera store for a few bucks. These filters are basicaly "sunglasses" for you camera lens and cut light by either 1 2 or 3 stops and come in lots of sizes. Just afix the right one depending on the conditions and camera location and you're off to the races....

Even better video cameras can benefit from using these. The closer you are to the middle of the exposure range, the richer the image. Another tip is to try and make lens hoods for the cameras to prevent sun flares.

-Alex

[curmudgeon]

This looks like the same recorder with a helmet cam set up. Anybody familiar with this?
http://fireballsystems.com/consumer/

[lowyder993s]

Good work Jack!

This is one of the next mods for the track car. I've basicall annihilliated my $1,200 sony dvd camera. I have to tape the heck out of the battery and even so the vibrations will still cause frames to be dropped. I'm really waiting to see if Trackvision and G2X can work together...that way I thinik you can have the PIP and variable outputs shown. The neat thing I would think is if you and a competitor can compare laps...entry/exit speed or top end speed to turn 1,etc. Keep us posted.

[Jack Olsen]

A quick update:

The Mustek recorder's 'high quality' setting is only 320x240 pixels, which is definitely inferior to what you'd get from most camcorder formats.

For computer use, the 320x240 is fine. The following videos are all blown up to 640x480, which increases the image area four-fold, and naturally hurts the image quality. If you have the Windows Viewer show them at half size, you'll see the recording in its native size. It's not bad.

Each of the clips are WMV and about 10 megs.

This video compares the recording quality of the Mustek PVR and my Canon Mini-DV camcorder:

PVR versus DV

The next two videos compare the newer Sony SuperHAD bullet camera and the older HAD one. It also shows the picture-in-picture setup.

The first clip, recorded to the Mustek PVR:

Camera comparison to DV

The second clip, recorded to Mini-DV:

Camera comparison to PVR

Originally posted by POKDUB
To save yourself a few $ you could use video editing software like Editstudio from PureMotion.com.

Yes, but recording two complete sets of video and synchronizing it later is a pain in the neck.

Admittedly, the View-2.com box looks expensive, as other component prices drop. But it makes the picture-in-picture part effortless.

Originally posted by john_cramer
Jack, do you have the Trackvision software?

Yes. I'm learning to use it -- but it means working on my Windows laptop, which makes me nuts.

Originally posted by RonDent
I that you in the video on the web site for the picture in picture? Hey Buddy! How am I to trust you if your working both sides here? No really, Thanks great info!!!

Good point. I gave them permission to use my clips. But I don't have any financial involvement in any of the stuff I'm using or discussing.

Originally posted by ewave
Do you know if the Mustek records in Stereo or Mono?

It's stereo. But if you're working out stereo sound for lap videos, you'll probably not think the video resolution on the Mustek video is good enough.

Originally posted by Fritz
A lot of cameras have a title in feature. Titling is similar to the way dat/time stamps are layed on top of the image in each frame.
If you have that title in feature and your datalogging output is text (6,300rpm as opposed to a graphic like a tachometer) then it is an easy job to get it in. Some cameras have this title-in feature right on the camera so you can record it all at once. Even if you do it later is is straightforward to lay the title on with Adobe Premier.

If you mean for data, then TrackVision makes it really easy. They've got it working with all of the data loggers now, I'm pretty sure.

Originally posted by avendlerdp
That "bleaching" is due to exeeding the camera's exposiure latitude (over exposure). It can be cured by using nutral density filters you can buy at the camera store for a few bucks.

Thanks. I've actually got some neutral density filters on the way. I'll try them with the cheap Sony camera to see if it improves things. If nothing else, they'll protect the lens of whatever bullet camera I use from debris.

[shamrockcustoms]

Hello Jack..I got a link back to this thread and was wondering what your thoughts on this camera are now that you have had it for a few months...


thanks for the input
Jay

[RonDent]

Good question! Is it still what you thought it was?

[Eric P]

Hey Jack (and others),

Call me crazy but has anyone considered transmitting their video back to the pits so a) the action can be watched from the pits, and b) the recording equip can be in the pits (less weight, power use, etc. in the car)?

See: http://www.supercircuits.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=314