Ducati Sporting Club UK > General > Idle Chat > bike cam

[moozaad]

Hi

I'm on a mini mission to fit a small wireless camera to the front of my ST2. The camera will fit in the front grill or in the wheel arch and the reciever and recorder will happily fit under the seat for a full on-bike camera system.
The camera itself is very discreet and unless you are looking for it you won't find it.

I'm doing this mainly for fun, but I'm interested in my suspension setup front and rear and the wireless camera is versatile enough to be placed anywhere so I can record the suspension in action. I also want to discreetly record my track day and road sessions so I can analyse my riding, without having a camcorder on the tank or a wireless camera and a laptop in a backpack!

All the kit I'm using is solid state and is not susceptable to vibration. It will record 4-16 hours of video (subject to the cameras battery and quality[SP/LP]) and will plug into any USB enabled computer to download, as well as supporting instance playback on a 2.5" TFT screen on the recorder.
The receiver and recorder will hook into the bikes power.
All on a budget of less than £150.


I can write up what I bought and how I will set it up, if you think it would make a good article.

Regards,
Jon

ps. I write computer games for a living and I'm not affiliated with any of the companies whose kit I've used.

yep, get on with it, i'd love a budget cam set up for the bike ....

[Jon]

£150.00 got to be worth reading about

[moozaad]

well job done - just got to test the multiple output psu once corner speed return my bike.

Wireless cam like one of these (£10-£30)
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...ayphotohosting

The digital recorder(£80) + 512meg expansion (£20)
http://www.dabs.com/uk/productview?q...&referrerid=WS

I left the camera using the 9v battery so I can tuck it anywhere. The underseat psu (home made) gives out 12v and 5v for the receiver and recorder respectively.

The recorder saves the video in 320x200@25fps ASF, which during playback on a PC will expand to 640x480 without pixelisation due to the nature of ASFs. Which makes it perfect for TVs and a little sloppy for PC screens.
512mb will probabily store 160minutes of continuous video and then you can just swap memory cards (mmc/SD) which are about 1/4 creditcard size. Life on the camera battery is currently unknown but will vary greatly depending on make/model of battery.

I'll post an example video when I get the bike back and when the sun makes an appearance...

[JasonBoswell]

I'm thinking of the Mustek (or similar) to take on-board rather than using my camcorder. The quality of the footage recorded onto DV tapes is pretty good (as seen on last the DSC DVD) so I'm wondering what I could expect from a solid-state setup?

Moozaad - any examples you could post?

Desmondo i believe has a solid state set up .... but having recenyly fallen in love I'm not sure his footage is suitable for the boards ... although it involves the odd ride out, I doubt very much doubt there is any 2 wheeled action ....

So Desmondo .... whats the quality like ????



[Edited on 17-2-2005 by DIBBLE]

[dickieducati]

Originally posted by DIBBLE
Desmondo i believe has a solid state set up .... but having recenyly fallen in love I'm not sure his footage is suitable for the boards ... although it involves the odd ride out, I doubt very much doubt there is any 2 wheeled action ....

So Desmondo .... whats the quality like ????



[Edited on 17-2-2005 by DIBBLE]

yeah, .......and of the webcam.

[TP]

I've seen pictures, the man is over-achieving.

[Felix]

Desmondo posted a video sample of his kit a little while back. I think it was of him riding a mountain bike. Quality seemed very accetable although not quite DV quality.

[Edited on 17-2-2005 by Felix]

[moozaad]

The system is no where near production quality - the weakest link will be the camera. It's a very small CCD - I think it's 300-350k pixels, there are better but I'll build up to that when I have more spare funds

as a high res (ish) wired alternative I found http://www.microvideo.ca/6470cam.htm but I'm sure there are tons of others
unreasonably expensive=http://www.iviewcameras.co.uk/WirelessCCTV.htm


The mustek will record and playback TV quality with little difference, even on a big wide screen. But then again, sky digital isn't exactly high quality.

PS. apparently 1x9v battery will power the camera I have for 12 hours