GoPro video cameras. Which one for Exige?

[cyberface]

My girlfriend is going to buy me a birthday present and asked me what I'd like under a particular budget.

I've been wanting a GoPro video camera to record my trackday driving and also my motorbike riding for some time.

Her budget permits only the SD versions, but that's fine for me as I'm not looking to broadcast my embarrassing efforts to everyone in HD!!!

The big question is 'Normal' lens or 'Wide Angle' lens. When in the Exige, I plan to mount it on the harness bar between the seats so it's not obvious (also I don't think many trackday organisers permit suction-mount equipment, however strong the suction mounts). For the bike, it'll either be stuck to my helmet or secured to the bike with a clamp attachment.

Regarding the bike, the Wide or Normal doesn't seem to matter. However I'm concerned that the Wide Angle lens may be a bit iffy inside the Exige and end up giving a view of the edge of the seats and the driver / passenger rather than through the windscreen.

What is the best recommendation for the SD GoPro? I know some of you lot have them because I've seen the videos on YouTube

[tertius]

I'd also look at the Drift Innovation X170. I recently bought the HD version, which I chose over the GoPro. It seemed to be more versatile, in particular it has a proper threaded tripod mount, whereas the GoPro has a sort of adaptor arrangement, and it has a remote control which makes starting and stopping it when harnessed in much easier.

FoV is 170 degrees, which I guess is the same as the wide angle GoPro. This was shot from the harness bar of my Elise, so should be more or less identical to your Exige:

http://www.vimeo.com/14877030

Personally I really like the wide angle view, and think its better to see something of the driver.

Also the x170 has a zoom, which I don't think the GoPro has.

[zebra]

All of my footage is via wide angle Go Pro _ perfect for the Exige.

[cyberface]

tertius said:

I'd also look at the Drift Innovation X170. I recently bought the HD version, which I chose over the GoPro. It seemed to be more versatile, in particular it has a proper threaded tripod mount, whereas the GoPro has a sort of adaptor arrangement, and it has a remote control which makes starting and stopping it when harnessed in much easier.

FoV is 170 degrees, which I guess is the same as the wide angle GoPro. This was shot from the harness bar of my Elise, so should be more or less identical to your Exige:

http://www.vimeo.com/14877030

Personally I really like the wide angle view, and think its better to see something of the driver.

Also the x170 has a zoom, which I don't think the GoPro has.

Thanks - seems about the same price and as you say, has a normal threaded adaptor.

But what other bits do I need to get her to buy? The website seems to imply that 'all the mounts you need' are included, but roll bar attachment, suction mounts etc. all cost extra. Also, can I dispense with the batteries in the car by just powering it from the USB port in my cigarette lighter socket?

I'd want primarily the harness-bar attachment (i.e. where yours is!), plus a screen / panel suction mount, plus something to attach it to my helmet, and the ability to run off in-car power rather than eating batteries.

I've got big SDHC cards and can do the techie side without too much trouble, assuming the MP4 format is standard. The Mac will handle it all. I also particularly like how your device can handle large SDHC cards, whereas the first-gen GoPro only takes 2 GB cards.

Looks like on actioncameras.co.uk that they are having a laugh with the 'bundles' - the 'Motorsport bundle' is cheaper to buy piecemeal than as a bundle!

So I'm thinking that I need the £130 base kit, plus the rollbar mount (£30), then the suction mount (£25) - £185 which is in budget. Sounds right? (I already have SD cards galore, and a twin USB socket output from the power outlet in the car)

[tertius]

Re. mounts, the HD170 came with various mounts, which look suitable for handle bars (too small for a harness bar) and helmet, etc..

I already had a mount - a Manfrotto Super Clamp - that attaches to the harness bar, so I simply use that, its very good and cost less than £20. In addition I have a small extension bar - about 100mm - that lifts the camera up a little.

I've never used a suction mount so no idea on that I'm afraid.

I'm not sure if you could power it from a usb port in the car, I expect you could as that is how it charges, however, I personally wouldn't want the cables flapping about on a track day.

[cyberface]

tertius said:

Re. mounts, the HD170 came with various mounts, which look suitable for handle bars (too small for a harness bar) and helmet, etc..

I already had a mount - a Manfrotto Super Clamp - that attaches to the harness bar, so I simply use that, its very good and cost less than £20. In addition I have a small extension bar - about 100mm - that lifts the camera up a little.

I've never used a suction mount so no idea on that I'm afraid.

I'm not sure if you could power it from a usb port in the car, I expect you could as that is how it charges, however, I personally wouldn't want the cables flapping about on a track day.

OK so any 'big enough' roll bar mount for 'normal cameras' will work... since it'll be teh carrotcake buying this for me, it'll be easier to order it all from the same web shop, so if you can do helmet and harness bar with the base kit plus a harness bar clamp, then I'll just order the roll-cage clamp and the suction clamp along with the kit.

I'm not too worried about a simple USB charging cable being in place on a trackday - I'd simply secure the cable *back* along the adaptor with a thick rubber band and then thread the cable through the map netting (I have this above the rear 'parcel shelf' on my car) and into the back of the camera - it wouldn't be flapping around.

How does it connect to a helmet - say a typical full-face Arai lid? The only thing I'm wary of regarding attaching cameras to my lid for motorcycling is that it's likely to tempt me into riding like a childish cock... I'm not *that* mature Especially with my Aprilia SXV-based special hopefully being built for early next year!


ETA - just watched the video - there'll be a lot of 'indoors' in the Exige, but if there's a zoom then I can focus it out of the windscreen a bit better. And it reminds me how much I need to get rid of the standard rear view mirror in my car, which is not only completely without utility (unless you like looking at intercooler plumbing), but large and takes up space, and would block a decent amount of any video from the harness bar. Neat driving at Brands - I stopped breathing at your line at Surtees (thinking WTF) until I realised you were driving the GP circuit. Hahahaha. Missed out on the GP circuit this year, it's ace isn't it! Oh, and you have the 240R wheels too? Fine choice sir Any engine mods, or is it all suspension and gearing in your car? I've got a potload more power if your car is standard but I have the feeling I'd be shown up badly... expertly set up Elises with normal power but low weight and decent drivers are annoying to fat but powerful Exige owners (the car's fat, not the driver - I'm skinny enough to be borderline unhealthy). I've got 260 bhp on the way to make up for all the lard in the S2 Exige but normal 'sport' suspension. With the extra power, gearing is absolutely fine for Brands IME - my last Exige (220 bhp) was in-between gears at Paddock and Druids (Druids was off-power in third but screaming in second and needing a change just as you're on the slippery bit where you're transitioning to full power and *may* need to catch a wiggle - but in the 240 bhp car it's fine to leave it in third and just nail it, it picks up - equally fourth at Paddock in the 240 bhp car is OK and nicely controllable, whereas the 220 bhp car was better in third but needed to grab fourth whilst still unwinding the lock on the way down the hill to Hailwood Rise). I'm anticipating that the next step to 260 bhp will just make the same gear selection work better.

But as two Lotus instructors have told me independently now, I need to forget about lines and car control and just focus on getting my psychology sorted. Apparently the skills are there but I just need to believe in myself and I'll be a couple of seconds quicker (on the Indy circuit, which is a hard-to-believe improvement when I'm already respectably high 50s - remember I'm not a pro racer, I'm an average driver and don't have special suspension or an ultra-lightweight car).

However for an information junkie like me, it's a LOT easier to focus on learning lines, apexes, braking points, car control techniques, etc. - it's just theory that needs to be put into practice and it's virtually all left-brain stuff. What is a LOT harder is getting my head straight... if my main weakness is psychological then it's going to be a lot harder to improve, since I can't use left-brain logic to re-program right-brain fears / over-competitiveness / self-doubt / self-abuse.

What particularly stood out with your GP lap was the laid-back impression you gave - seemed quick to me (though my only reference times for the GP circuit were in my old supercharged 993 when I was racing the 993RS boys, that was a summer's day I won't forget, one of the best trackdays I've ever experienced ) but importantly everything looked easy.

I presume you're therefore top-quartile quick, and the smooth lap looked very nice indeed. My main fear is braking from high speed (due to the snapped brake disc on my trackday special 205) so I've taken the easy way out - simply fitted the big AP brakes to my Exige with Pagid pads. Overkill, as none of the Elise Trophy guys use them, not even the 300+ bhp blown Honda lads, so left-brain says 'unnecessary, extra unsprung weight, waste of time' - but right-brain says 'great, overpowered brakes, no need for braking fear any more'. And believe me, it's made a MASSIVE difference if the last day at Brands Indy was to go by... I need to work on technique as I did have the ABS cutting in on the bumps into Paddock and coming up to Druids but it *was* absolutely chucking down with rain (it got to the point where there were three cars on circuit and everyone else had gone home - me because I *had* to feel at one with the car, and the other two were pro racers learning the track, one in a white Scirocco racer with 280 bhp and roll-cage, stripped out, etc. and the other in IIRC a Megane single-make racer, also white. Both were FWD, not sure what tyres, but more than a few thought I was insane taking the Exige out with standing water, freshly surfaced greasy track, unbuffed A048s (fitted the weekend before) and less than 2 hrs sleep the night before...).

Not sure I'd have been quite so successful if I hadn't had the ABS. But even though the car was sliding around on every corner, it felt like part of me. And I didn't have anything I'd describe as a 'moment' - a couple of wiggles, yeah, but not a 'whoa' moment.

So whilst the money I've invested in my Exige could get me a cheap S1 and enough left over to *maybe* do a season in the Elise Trophy (dream!)... I'm not sure I'm good enough yet. And I wouldn't want to pay all that money to do a lonely trackday every race running last and watching mirrors for being lapped...

Next year I'll be doing as many as possible - would be great to meet up (Snet no problem, Donny I'd *love* to do but bit far, I'm sure we can work something out). Perhaps all this should have been a private email, sorry everyone else for off-topicness...

Edited by cyberface on Sunday 19th September 20:37

[Gooby]

The wide angle (fish eye) lenses seem to be the popular choice. If I were to recomend a format I would avoid the HD format because you have a SERIOUS computer for the editing you are going to have BIG problems turning your footage into something watchable and entertaining...

[tertius]

cyberface said:

ETA - just watched the video - there'll be a lot of 'indoors' in the Exige, but if there's a zoom then I can focus it out of the windscreen a bit better. And it reminds me how much I need to get rid of the standard rear view mirror in my car, which is not only completely without utility (unless you like looking at intercooler plumbing), but large and takes up space, and would block a decent amount of any video from the harness bar. Neat driving at Brands - I stopped breathing at your line at Surtees (thinking WTF) until I realised you were driving the GP circuit. Hahahaha. Missed out on the GP circuit this year, it's ace isn't it! Oh, and you have the 240R wheels too? Fine choice sir Any engine mods, or is it all suspension and gearing in your car?

(I snipped the rest of your post for brevity.)

Cheers,

I think I'm pretty average really - always plenty of people quicker than me.

My car has been slightly breathed on - it has the DVAPower K06a kit, so perhaps 170-175bhp in about 800kgs. The main other mods are: suspension (Nitron 1-ways with Eibach springs), stiffer ARB, C/R gearbox, LSD, quick steering rack, 240R wheels as you say and sticky tyres (R888s), AP grooved ali-belled discs on the front but standard calipers. Inside I've got buckets and 6 point harnesses and not much else. Setup was done by Hoffmans and they did a brilliant job I think.

I do love the GP circuit and know it better than I do most other circuits, so I think that flatters my driving a bit.

The two places I have a gearing challenge are after Westfields up to Sheen where I snatch 4th for a few seconds, and then after Stirlings before Clearways, where I do the same. The alternative is to bounce it off the limiter for a few seconds. Paddock is 3rd and Druids is 2nd.

On braking I found it a huge challenge coming from the 993 with ABS to the Elise without it - really have to think about braking in a way I didn't before.

Re. the mirror - in my car it just slides off, as you say its a total waste of space at the best of time, and in an Exige doubly so I would imagine. Certainly makes the video look better ...

Don't know where you live but from SW London Donington is an easy day trip, Snetterton seems much further (longer) and I usually stay over. Next year I'll be doing plenty of days I hope, and maybe one or two more this year if the weather stays good. Brands Indy is always a possibility, and I'd be happy to meet up.

[zebra]

Gooby said:

The wide angle (fish eye) lenses seem to be the popular choice. If I were to recomend a format I would avoid the HD format because you have a SERIOUS computer for the editing you are going to have BIG problems turning your footage into something watchable and entertaining...

Goobs

I use a MacBook for all my editing and DVD creation. HD format has been fine for me although I do not go full out 1080p when uploading to YouTube but only because it restricts the file size and takes bloody hours. However, HD creation for DVD's is fantastic and looks incredible when shown on a 50 inch LCD Hi-Def telly.

[Pum]

A suggestion from left field - I recently bought a Sanyo Xacti CG20 from Amazon for £120. Does 1080i or 720p @ 30 or 60 FPS, and is also a 10 megapixel still camera. Has standard 1/4" tripod mount and 5x optical zoom. Very pocket size camera for all other purposes too, not just trackday recording. I mount it on a Mannfrotto Super clamp (less than £20) plus a Mannfrotto 494RC2 Ball Head (£40) on the roll cage - super solid, very adjustable and quick release head. Cheaper clamp options are available from Jessops, Amazon, etc. Spare batteries available from Amazon and ebay for less than £10. 16GB SD for £18 give over 3 hours of recording 720p @ 30FPS.

I think the wide-angleness is not quite as wide as the GoPro, but it is plenty sufficient for my purposes. I'll be posting pics and vids from it of yesterday at Rockingham later this week.

[zebra]

Pum said:

I'll be posting pics and vids from it of yesterday at Rockingham later this week.

Get on with it then and stop messing around!

[Pum]

zebra said:

Pum said:

I'll be posting pics and vids from it of yesterday at Rockingham later this week.

Get on with it then and stop messing around!

Heh Sadly working for a living cuts into my spare time for such activity, and I have prior engagements tonight and tomorrow evening. So maybe Thursday evening.

[Gooby]

zebra said:

Gooby said:

The wide angle (fish eye) lenses seem to be the popular choice. If I were to recomend a format I would avoid the HD format because you have a SERIOUS computer for the editing you are going to have BIG problems turning your footage into something watchable and entertaining...

Goobs

I use a MacBook for all my editing and DVD creation. HD format has been fine for me although I do not go full out 1080p when uploading to YouTube but only because it restricts the file size and takes bloody hours. However, HD creation for DVD's is fantastic and looks incredible when shown on a 50 inch LCD Hi-Def telly.

I have a suped up Imac which has more memory and fast drives for movie editing - I agree, high def looks great on the big screen but you never edit with HD footage, you will always minimise file size and density. You would start looking at high end mac pro (as the pros movie edit on) so it doesnt give you headaches. HD is a sod to get on youtube and FB etc. Even with a good BROADband it takes an age. (bring on fibre optics!)

[zebra]

Sorry Goobs, should have made it clear I am using a pro. You're spot on though _ 12 hours on one occasion for an upload.

[cyberface]

Gooby said:

zebra said:

Gooby said:

The wide angle (fish eye) lenses seem to be the popular choice. If I were to recomend a format I would avoid the HD format because you have a SERIOUS computer for the editing you are going to have BIG problems turning your footage into something watchable and entertaining...

Goobs

I use a MacBook for all my editing and DVD creation. HD format has been fine for me although I do not go full out 1080p when uploading to YouTube but only because it restricts the file size and takes bloody hours. However, HD creation for DVD's is fantastic and looks incredible when shown on a 50 inch LCD Hi-Def telly.

I have a suped up Imac which has more memory and fast drives for movie editing - I agree, high def looks great on the big screen but you never edit with HD footage, you will always minimise file size and density. You would start looking at high end mac pro (as the pros movie edit on) so it doesnt give you headaches. HD is a sod to get on youtube and FB etc. Even with a good BROADband it takes an age. (bring on fibre optics!)

Gooby

I presume you're not aware of my computer activities then? I'm pretty damn sure my hardware can handle *anything* any of these cameras could throw at it...

[zebra]

cyberface said:

I presume you're not aware of my computer activities then? I'm pretty damn sure my hardware can handle *anything* any of these cameras could throw at it...

What, even with all the porn you download?

[cyberface]

zebra said:

cyberface said:

I presume you're not aware of my computer activities then? I'm pretty damn sure my hardware can handle *anything* any of these cameras could throw at it...

What, even with all the porn you download?

Oddly enough, porn is one thing I've never been into. Generally happy with the real thing, not bothered about watching other people doing it. I guess this is because I was hacking away at the beginning of the retail internet, before the big corporations locked down the once-biggest-of-all businesses on the Internet (porn! - IIRC gambling has now overtaken porn as the biggest Internet business, but I may be wrong - porn was the highest income Internet sector for a LONG time though). And having gone from a pretty adventurous open-minded teenager to finding out just how utterly *sick* the human animal can be when it comes to sex (I'm the farthest thing from a prude you'll find, have some pretty bad habits and my old school chaplain declared that I was going to hell (fairy nuff, I was caught sleeping with an under-age girl in his bed, at a party hosted by his son)) - I found that some of the porn on the internet was just unpleasant. Not even amusing, but just nasty.

I used to have a somewhat cynical attitude to the extreme prude-type women who moaned that porn was just degrading to women, after finding out how much the successful girls earn and how the porn stars with a business head on their sexy bodies operate. *Those* women aren't being degraded at all, they're businesswomen making good money. However whereas there's a possibility that there are similarly business-minded women doing the really sick, violent / torture / pain type stuff, it's much more likely that those women are just desperate (addicts / indebted / mentally ill) and preyed upon by the sicko directors who make such movies.

And so, from an 'anything goes' type, I've realised that there *is* bad st out there, the nice big-money soft-porn industry is the same-old business I always thought it was, and the girls in *that* business aren't being degraded at all... but the filthy underbelly of the Internet exposed to me all the foulness that I'd not seen before. Must have had a fortunate, sheltered upbringing, though I wouldn't describe it that way myself...


Back on topic - since porn doesn't interest me, but I've accumulated the sort of computing horsepower that really is unnecessary (was #1 on the Seti@Home recent average credit leaderboard *in the world* for a while with my quad G5 Powermac), encoding video should be a breeze for my workstation, no?

It's a Mac Pro, 2.8 GHz Xeon 8-core box. I've installed 10 GB of the 800 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMMs and it's not short of memory bandwidth. The original graphics card was utter rubbish so it's been 'upgraded' (by Apple standards) to the Radeon HD 4870 with 512 MB RAM. The most important thing though IME these days, given how fast CPUs have become, is simply I/O. I've been championing solid-state over on the Computers forum for ages, being one of the first people not in the business (I'm sure Jamie Beeston and the ISP owning-crew had been trialling them well before I picked up on the trend) to bung them in my unnecessarily overpowered kit. So the Mac Pro has a list of the fastest SSDs available at 6-month intervals - there's an 80 GB Intel X-25M gen.1, and a 160 GB Intel X-25M gen.2, and the boot drive is the 256 GB Crucial C300. The 80 GB drive isn't internal since two bays have an old RAID-0 suicide array of WD Raptor drives. The workstation, like the other 10 Macs, connects to my Mac Mini Server (the twin mechanical laptop HDs replaced with 80 GB Intel X-25M SSDs - but that's more for I/O queue reduction when running Time Machine at the same time as a DNS and Mail server, which create lots of small files and give Time Machine a *very* hard time), and the Mini Server has two external enclosures for big storage (a couple of TB).

Displays? Apple 30" and Apple 24" LCD 'cinema' displays, plus an ancient 17" 1280x1024 'studio display' LCD that's still going strong. And a 'Bloomberg spec c. 2001' Eizo 18" LCD that cost me £2500 at the time!!!!

So the workstation should be able to eat through video encoding, no? If capacity is a concern (SSDs don't have huge capacity, though with 256 + 160 GB of the fastest SSDs, will that be enough for trackday videos?) then I'll probably rip out the Raptors (the only thing that's making noise in the Mac Pro) and bung in a single 1 TB disc.

Actually I'm considering selling the Mac Pro entirely, because these days I'm just hooking my main consulting laptop up to the 24" Apple display (it has a laptop charger and octopus cable for this very purpose). The laptop is a Macbook Pro 13", nice and portable, but again maxed out with 8 GB of RAM and one of the Crucial C300 256 GB SSDs. For most tasks that can't be scaled across more than two cores, the Macbook Pro feels as fast as the Mac Pro, to be frank. Only if you push the graphics card with the secondary display attached does the meatier GPU in the Mac Pro become obvious.

If I can ensure the laptop is kept cool enough for long-duration full-throttle use, then the Mac Pro is just an unnecessary dick-waving exercise. And as I've got older, I'm starting to ask why the hell I'm doing this early 20s stuff and having more computing power in a shiny aluminium box under my desk than my current client has in the production server for my fixed income performance and risk attribution system (which is mathematically *very* intensive and hence requires lots of horsepower).

I don't play games any more, simply don't have time for them. The Mac Pro spends all its time browsing the net, replying to emails, and remote working via Citrix. It's nonsense and stupidly overpowered for the task, and hence a massive waste of money. I'm guessing since it cost a LOT to buy and upgrade, it may be worth something now (Apple kit retains value, usually) so I'm going to flog it and do all my day-to-day stuff on the laptop, with a spare Mac Mini for web-browsing duty on the 30" screen.


So the question changes. Obviously the Mac Pro can render whatever video you throw at it - it's a professional box used in exactly this capacity by video pros, and I've got plenty of memory and the fastest discs you can buy retail (more or less). However if I get rid of the Mac Pro... will my Macbook Pro do the job? Most video encoders I've seen seem to have a shot at being multi-threaded, but there are certain aspects of video that have to be serialised by nature, no? So with only two cores to play with (running at 2.53 GHz compared to the 2.8 GHz of the Mac Pro), will it be out of its depth? It's got loads (8 GB) of fast (1067 MHz DDR3) RAM and the same stupidly-fast C300 SSD, and I can always connect some more SSDs via Firewire 800 if I need to.

I've got the laptop on a nice stand at the moment, but the CPUs *do* get very hot (compared to the Mac Pro) - all the way to 80˚C - for video work should I consider one of those fan-assisted laptop stands? They get as hot as this on part-load - just watching MotoGP races (it's Flash video streaming on the internet, and Flash on Mac OS X absolutely sucks).

I'm pretty confident that the laptop is powerful enough to easily handle this (since I use it to demonstrate that fixed income analytics system I mentioned earlier, and that's in Windows via VMware with only one core allocated) but I don't often have the machine running at 100% for hours on end. It's my favourite laptop in history - the 12" powerbook was my 'best of all time' laptop but this one has usurped it - so I don't want to reduce its life by running at top temperature overnight just to encode some trackday videos.


Apologies for all the techie talk (perhaps I'll shift some of this to the Computers forum but I've had enough of the anti-Mac BS and the number of idiots who will post just to say my post is too long (and add no content or reply other than 'dont read this' which is childish), so I've given up there TBH), but judging by the SELOC crowd there are a lot of Lotus owners who either work in IT or are IT-literate (I don't 'work in IT' but it (IT? ) consumes a lot of my time given the business I do!!!). If the above blather is meaningless to a majority then I'll edit it and chuck most of it out.

Main question - out of those of you who understand PC hardware (i.e. to the point of knowing what safe temperatures are at extended periods for, as an example, the Core 2 Duo in my MBP), do any of you run video transcoding jobs (from the GoPro or Drift Innovation box MP4 onto iPhone size / YouTube h.264, full HD if poss for TV, etc.) on quick laptops? Would additional cooling be recommended?

Apologies for the long post, but as I said, if the tech detail is OTT then I'll trim this as according to replies.

[cyberface]

Pum said:

A suggestion from left field - I recently bought a Sanyo Xacti CG20 from Amazon for £120. Does 1080i or 720p @ 30 or 60 FPS, and is also a 10 megapixel still camera. Has standard 1/4" tripod mount and 5x optical zoom. Very pocket size camera for all other purposes too, not just trackday recording. I mount it on a Mannfrotto Super clamp (less than £20) plus a Mannfrotto 494RC2 Ball Head (£40) on the roll cage - super solid, very adjustable and quick release head. Cheaper clamp options are available from Jessops, Amazon, etc. Spare batteries available from Amazon and ebay for less than £10. 16GB SD for £18 give over 3 hours of recording 720p @ 30FPS.

I think the wide-angleness is not quite as wide as the GoPro, but it is plenty sufficient for my purposes. I'll be posting pics and vids from it of yesterday at Rockingham later this week.

Hmmm...

I've got a Sanyo Xacti HD1A already. It allegedly takes HD video and 5.1 MP stills. It's an earlier model to yours - the 'HD' is 720p and not 1080i AFAIK. However the battery is dead and won't charge any more.

It has the standard size tripod mount screw fitting.

What I really want it to do is to be able to be charged via USB whilst recording... then I won't need batteries... if this is possible, then theoretically all I need is some clever bunch of clamps and brackets - since the hardware should do the job without me needing to buy a whole new camera setup?

What I'm not so sure about is whether the HD1A can sustain *smooth* HD recording, the FPS is suspect.

Where can I get Manfrotto clamps? I've got an old Hama clamp but it doesn't fit round the harness bar and doesn't give enough adjustment. Can I buy things like this in Jessops or decent indie camera stores?

[zebra]

cyberface said:

zebra said:

cyberface said:

I presume you're not aware of my computer activities then? I'm pretty damn sure my hardware can handle *anything* any of these cameras could throw at it...

What, even with all the porn you download?

A massive response to a joke.

How much would you have written had I made a serious comment?

[cyberface]

zebra said:

cyberface said:

zebra said:

cyberface said:

I presume you're not aware of my computer activities then? I'm pretty damn sure my hardware can handle *anything* any of these cameras could throw at it...

What, even with all the porn you download?

A massive response to a joke.

How much would you have written had I made a serious comment?

Probably a one-liner

Two-stroke keyboard, you see.

Anyway ignore all that BS, there's a new option - my old Sanyo Xacti - worth pursuing? I'm starting to feel bad about relentless gadget accumulation and the little use I'm getting out of the money I'm spending... so buying yet another camera (which *will* get proper use, though - I've wanted to record trackdays / bike riding for ages to refine my technique and learn to be better) when I've already got one that may do the job adequately is wasteful.

However if the Sanyo won't do the job (it'll record 44 minutes non-stop at 720p HD but I haven't checked the frame rate - I was checking for limits just in case it won't record more than half an hour (like some old cameras did) but it may just fill the card, which is a 4 GB card at the moment) then I'll get Miss Cyberface to get me the Drifty cam as per tertius' recommendation.

The reason why that over the GoPro? Because I'm going to buy some Manfrotto mounts *now* to try with the Sanyo, and if the Sanyo isn't up to the job, then the mounts can be re-used with the Driftycam - the GoPro needs bespoke mounts.

And, at the end of the day, I'm not a 'Hero'.