Helmet Cams
First thing you need to know is does your camcorder have AV-IN, not just DV-IN,
this is analogue in and usually in the form of either a mini jack style
(headphone socket shape) or a phono plug. If your not sure then have a look on
your camcorder manufacturers website or take a look
Avforums. You do not HAVE
to use a camcorder there are many different digital (and analogue) recorders on
the market that will work well (
Archos)
but
a lot record in Mpeg 4, this is fine but if you want DVD then your going to
recompress a already compressed video from Mpeg 4 to Mpeg 2, but as my
intended target is DVD ill stick with the DV camcorder.
Where to Buy them
I bought both my Bullet cams from
www.rfconcepts.co.uk
but if you do a search in
Google
you will find loads of people selling them. If you are a member of
MCNNinja's you get a discount at
RFconcepts (10% I think) and I have
always had excellent service from them.
What to Buy
Bullet cam (obvious I know)
Velcro mounting kit
Battery holder (unless you want to power it off the bikes battery)
Microphone (2 if you want Stereo)
Bullet cam
The first one I bought was the Sony CW21 which is the cheapest option and what
most people will buy when starting out, its a good little camera and gives good
results costs approx £100 inc vat. The second camera I bought was the Sony
21CWSHR (approx £145) the main difference is the first one has a 380 res and the
second 480 (so slightly better quality)
Velcro Mounting
This is a Sticky velcro mount that you can attach to your helmet and then velcro
the cam to it. Once you stick them on they are a pain to remove, and don't
really work a second time, so get it right first time
Battery Holder
The cam and Mic are 12v DC so you can power them off the bike but if you are
mounting the camera on your lid, do you really want to be attached to your bike
via a cable.....I think not
The battery holders take 8 x 1.5v AA batteries, I would recommend NImH ones as
they will last for a good 8 - 12 hours. The best place to buy these are e-bay
(12 batteries
with a charger is approx £22.50)
Microphone
The Mic is a standard mono mic but you will probably find that your camcorder
has 2 audio inputs, if you are only going to use 1 mic then when you play back
the video you will only get sound out of 1 speaker, unless to can set this on
your camcorder/TV or if you are going to edit the footage on your PC (Adobe
Premier is very good) then you can double up the audio track to make it stereo
(well dual channel mono)
There are many other addons you can buy (lanc controllers, sun hoods, different
lenses, svhs-av converters but ill leave them for now)
Editing
First thing you will have to think about is what is your intended target, I use
DVD, and use Adobe Premier Pro. which takes a little getting used to but is very
good at its job. A typical 1 hour of footage once read in to the PC will use
approx 20gig of hard disk space and once edited and converted you can get 2-3
hours of footage on a dvd (remember if your doing 3 hours of footage thats 60gig
raw footage and also 60 gig edited footage so youll need 120 gig of space at
least). I will not go into how to edit, convert, dvd specs, codecs etc etc as
this is a topic in itself.
Tips
once the batteries are in the battery pack put some tape or a tyrap around them
because they shake out and the camera goes off
Put your camcorder in a "Bum Bag" and wear it on yourself. If you mount the cam
on the bike then the vibration of the bike can shake the recorder heads off the
tape and you get a terrible picture.
Also if its in a bum bag and you fall off then at least the camera will be
running as you fly through the air (sick I know but if you don't seriously hurt
yourself, it'll make a great video)
Don't look at your Speedo (I know its tempting but do you really want PC Copper
to get his hands on it.
