Bullet camera differences

[Ian974]

I've been looking at getting a bullet camera sorted out for doing various filming in the car and some mountain biking as well.
The way I'm looking at using it is to use a bullet camera with an archos video player/recorder that I already have, which from what i gather should be ok as long as it isn't getting bashed about much.
I've noticed a couple of people suggesting cameras from http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/ as well as www.dogcamsport.co.uk
From the first site I'm probably looking at this: http://www.rfconcepts.co.uk/pack_5.htm
and probably this from the second site: http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/dogcampro520.htm
Looking at the 2 different packages, I'm really not too sure what would be the most suitable. Has anyone used either of these, I'm just looking for a second opinion between them really, or any other alternatives.
Thanks

[fastfreddy]

There can be big differences between bullet cameras which look externally similar. I had an Archos unit which came with it's own bullet camera and it (the camera) was crap. It was out of focus out of the box and even once fixed, the image was soft and colours all wrong.

When I did some research, I found quite a difference in various makes of bullet camera and although it doesn't always follow that you can tell the quality from the price, I reckon anything <£100 isn't worth buying.

There's some useful information here: http://www.drivedata.com/cameraguide.html which compares the RFconcepts camera to the one Drivedata currently produce. I've seen some footage from this new camera and the fixed white balance really makes a difference to the overall quality.

It's also worth adding that my Archos unit's disk crashed one day while it was recording in a car. It was a nightmare trying to get it repaired by Archos so I gave up with it and bought one of the DR2 compact flash recorders from Drivedata to replace it. It's the same size as the Archos but doesn't have a hard disk to crash! HTH

[AMD87]

i have the dogcampro 520 with thier PMC500R recorder and love it although the only issue i have is the sound recording

IIRC the archos doesnt have anti shock(?) which could prove a problem with the moving parts in the HD causing it to skip which is why most places would recommend getting a recorder which records to an SD or Compact flash card.

The PMC500R is really good (although can be expensive)and would recommend getting the cig lighter power pack (the battery fully charged on the recorder lasts around 45-60 mins,same if you use 12 AA's to power the camera if you are doing the bike stuff)
but it has hard some fairly flat our laps of knockhill in the Bruce taxi evo's which a few people can back up that they dont exactly hang around!

on the subject of sound this was recorded using the mic that comes with the wired remote(which has to be plugged in cause it rapes battery power)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ty_UKUMaShM 

remote mic that came with the camera put on the strut brace
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kdyPT7KGgH4 

and a 10 quid mic from maplins put on the strut brace.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7HIKZK3AQ3Q 

Edited by AMD87 on Sunday 24th February 20:24

[Ian974]

Thanks for that.
I've heard that there can be problems with HDD recorders, I'm just looking at using the archos for now as I already have one, although I will probably look into getting something else. Would there be any ways to make the archos a little safer to use for the time being though?
AMD, I recognise your username from the seat cupra web page, I think you actually got some pictures of my ibiza last year at a couple of the star performance nights (and I found out first hand how quick those evos are!)
The quality from your camera looks good, and the sound with the maplin mic was great, so in one respect I think my mind has been made up! I'd actually been thinking of putting a mic under the bonnet, and from your videos I presume that would be ok. I was just thinking that heat could be a problem?

[AMD87]

Ian974 said:

Thanks for that.
I've heard that there can be problems with HDD recorders, I'm just looking at using the archos for now as I already have one, although I will probably look into getting something else. Would there be any ways to make the archos a little safer to use for the time being though?
AMD, I recognise your username from the seat cupra web page, I think you actually got some pictures of my ibiza last year at a couple of the star performance nights (and I found out first hand how quick those evos are!)
The quality from your camera looks good, and the sound with the maplin mic was great, so in one respect I think my mind has been made up! I'd actually been thinking of putting a mic under the bonnet, and from your videos I presume that would be ok. I was just thinking that heat could be a problem?

yeah that would be me,used to be on SE/SF before everything went tits up there and i think a few members went over to scn.
best way to protect it is putting it in something like a small padded camera bag,i used that for those dry videos and put my gloves in with it just for some extra padding and for the wet videos i just put it in the glovebox with no padding and it was ok but again the 500r has anti shock so it can cope with it also with the dogcampro 520 in very low light it changes to black and white.

with the mic your recorder would need an audio line in to work it because the recorder i have only has the AV audio connetors so i just recorder the sound seperatly with my Iriver x20 and then dub it over in windows movie maker.didnt have a problem with heat the evos were running rather hot that day but the mic wasnt placed over the engine.dodgey picture to show roughly were it was placed


IIRC avril (stang) uses an archos recorder for her bullet cam so might be worth asking her too.

if your booked for any trackdays this year (dreadnought have announced theres for this year but havent said if they are running them with star,theres also SIDC on the 15th of march if your interested) let me know and ill happily let you borrow it for a couple of sessions to try it out and see what you think.

youtube takes down the quality quite alot,heres a rough idea the kind of quality you can get although this has been reduced by about half (bloody windows movie maker)
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0JC8VVR9 

Edited by AMD87 on Monday 25th February 02:27

[Ian974]

Thanks for all that. I'm looking at doing the SIDC session in march and should be booking soon, so I'll let you know whether I'm going. It'd be good to try a camera with my recorder as well, just to see how well it copes and how good it all comes out!

[jason90]

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I recently bought a archos sytem with bullet cam, when ever I try to record the unit shuts off after about 5 secs

Anyone else had this problem ?

[AMD87]

jason90 said:

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I recently bought a archos sytem with bullet cam, when ever I try to record the unit shuts off after about 5 secs

Anyone else had this problem ?

how are you powering them both? if you are trying to run the camera off power from the battery on the archos it could be just taking all the power.thats what happens with my 500r hence the need for it to be plugged into the cig lighter all the time.

(mever used an archos so cant say for sure)

Ian974 said:

Thanks for all that. I'm looking at doing the SIDC session in march and should be booking soon, so I'll let you know whether I'm going. It'd be good to try a camera with my recorder as well, just to see how well it copes and how good it all comes out!

no problem let us know if you do ill usually be lurking around the BT evos

Edited by AMD87 on Monday 25th February 14:53

[jason90]

AMD87 said:

jason90 said:

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I recently bought a archos sytem with bullet cam, when ever I try to record the unit shuts off after about 5 secs

Anyone else had this problem ?

how are you powering them both? if you are trying to run the camera off power from the battery on the archos it could be just taking all the power.thats what happens with my 500r hence the need for it to be plugged into the cig lighter all the time.

Its the 504 unit with seperate plug in bullet cam, all power comes from the unit itself. The starnge thing is that without the bullet cam plugged in the unit is fine

It was fine the 1st time I used it but has never worked properly since

[AMD87]

jason90 said:

AMD87 said:

jason90 said:

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I recently bought a archos sytem with bullet cam, when ever I try to record the unit shuts off after about 5 secs

Anyone else had this problem ?

how are you powering them both? if you are trying to run the camera off power from the battery on the archos it could be just taking all the power.thats what happens with my 500r hence the need for it to be plugged into the cig lighter all the time.

Its the 504 unit with seperate plug in bullet cam, all power comes from the unit itself. The starnge thing is that without the bullet cam plugged in the unit is fine

It was fine the 1st time I used it but has never worked properly since

it sounds as if the bullet camera is just draining all the power.have you tried to recharge the battery on the unit and use the bullet camera at the same time? if it works then then if could just be a case of its draining the battery power.Also just noticed that dogcamsport have stopped selling the archos 404 kits due to complaints of file corruption and shutting itself down.

[jason90]

AMD87 said:

jason90 said:

AMD87 said:

jason90 said:

Not wanting to hijack the thread but I recently bought a archos sytem with bullet cam, when ever I try to record the unit shuts off after about 5 secs

Anyone else had this problem ?

how are you powering them both? if you are trying to run the camera off power from the battery on the archos it could be just taking all the power.thats what happens with my 500r hence the need for it to be plugged into the cig lighter all the time.

Its the 504 unit with seperate plug in bullet cam, all power comes from the unit itself. The starnge thing is that without the bullet cam plugged in the unit is fine

It was fine the 1st time I used it but has never worked properly since

it sounds as if the bullet camera is just draining all the power.have you tried to recharge the battery on the unit and use the bullet camera at the same time? if it works then then if could just be a case of its draining the battery power.Also just noticed that dogcamsport have stopped selling the archos 404 kits due to complaints of file corruption and shutting itself down.

Yep tried that, looks like a bought a bit of a pup, never mind, note to self look into things in a bit more detail before buying

[volant165]

I have used the RF concepts camera with Archos 504 for over two years now. Ring them and they will walk you through the right cam and how to mount etc for your needs. Picture Quality and Sound is great.

[Alexbirch43]

www.4kam.com do some good kits for specific purposes, and have some demo videos aswell.

[Kermit power]

I can't comment on the actual bullet cams, but I have frequently taken my Archos (AV500) off-road mountain biking to use as an MP3 player, and never had any sort of problem with it skipping or jumping, so I don't see why it wouldn't be fine recording.