Video

I've got a relatively old now Canon 630i Digital Video Camcorder. It's hopeless for still work - less than 1mp. But it's a pretty good basic digital video camera.

I have finally started to learn how to use it. You know how it is - you buy these things with the best intentions in the world, thinking you're going to be the next Steven Spielberg, then you get the instruction manual out and see how much there is to learn and get discouraged.

Well I've moved past that part and actually know what buttons do what. I cn't say yet that I have mastered it but I'm at least able to learn.

I've jsut discovered the very basic Window Movie Maker program that comes with XP and I've made a couple of basic movies with titles and transitions and trimming the clips etc. It's great fun.

Of course that takes away from my building time. I'm working on the fuselage of an RV8 QB.

I'm interested in getting a video camera mounted in it - maybe more than one for some different angles!

I've seen some great RV7 shots in Southern California on the web. I'll follow up the guys who made that too.

I would love to set things up from the start so that I can shoot some video from the plane in a useful way.

Anyone with tips and techniques for that? What equipment is avilable. I see videos on skydiver's helmets. I figure I must be able to get something like that in the aircraft. Is there something that would allow me to fix the Canon in the cockpit. How do you protect the lenses of externally mounted cameras?

Any good websites dealing with the above?

Ken Stanton

I'm not building yet - so I've got plenty of time to dream. What I want to do is mount This in the baggage compartment and mount lipstick cameras in the cockpit, VS and both wings pointing in toward the canopy (probably within the landing light lenses). Total weight should be minimal, and with 4 channels to choose from, an awesome video can be produced of a memorable flight. Because the digital recorder uses a hard drive, I would be limited to using it at lower altitudes - I'd need to consult with a drive expert to see how high a hard drive will operate at.

That looks interesting.

Baja_Traveler said:

I'm not building yet - so I've got plenty of time to dream. What I want to do is mount This in the baggage compartment and mount lipstick cameras in the cockpit, VS and both wings pointing in toward the canopy (probably within the landing light lenses). Total weight should be minimal, and with 4 channels to choose from, an awesome video can be produced of a memorable flight. Because the digital recorder uses a hard drive, I would be limited to using it at lower altitudes - I'd need to consult with a drive expert to see how high a hard drive will operate at.

Click to expand...

Hard disks are rated to work up to about 10,000 ft. I've talked to military types who have had them working up to 20,000 ft. The heads fly on a cushion of air. If the air gets too thin...CRASH! YMMV.

Just saw this DVR on sale at Fry's for $499 minus the lipstick cam accessory. Thought I'd re-visit this thread and post it here for future reference.

Items for consideration.

I had run a tablet for charting, moving map, weather download.

Frequently going west to east I would go up to 15,000 to take advantage of the winds. After 2 or 3 hrs of this my hard drive was trash.

Also used a non digital video for taping aerobatics from in the cockpit. At about 1.5-2 Gs the motorized mechanisms sieze up and after repeated flights the camera was trashed.

If you plan prolonged flights above 10,000 or if it is turbulent at any altitude or if you are going to pull Gs do not run a disk drive or motorized camera.

Good source

This is a very good source for DVR's, personal and multichannel... Also has some good lipstick cameras.

http://www.atvresearch.com

N395V said:

Frequently going west to east I would go up to 15,000 to take advantage of the winds. After 2 or 3 hrs of this my hard drive was trash.

Click to expand...

You wouldn't think that 15k would cause a large enough offest in pressure to blow out the seals on a hard drive. It makes me wonder if higher quality drives would have tougher seals and perhaps be better suited to high altitude use?

not the seals

Doesn't have anything to do with the seals, it has everything to do with the density of the air (or lack there of) between the heads and the platters...Ipods (unless they are the solid state versions) have the exact same problems.

This has me confused but then again my education on hard drives and/or physics might be lacking or possibly just plain wrong. When I took an intro to computers class way back when, I was taught that hard drives must be absolutely air tight at all times because the tolerance between the head and platter is so tight that any airborne pollutant (such as a spec of dust) would cause the head to crash.

If air can't get in or out, and assuming the metal case doesn't change size like your Pepsi bottle when you take it up to altitude, how would the air pressure inside be able to change in relation to itself? In theory, the planten and head should think it's at sea level at all times. Of course, like I said my education was entry level and happened about 10 years ago so I reserve the right to be absolutely wrong.

Nevermind, I went to how stuff works and got my own answer. I should have done that first.

Underneath the board are the connections for the motor that spins the platters, as well as a highly-filtered vent hole that lets internal and external air pressures equalize:

Click to expand...

Hard drives either didn't have that 10 years ago, or my instructor left that part out of the discussion or (more likely) I just forgot. Either way, it makes sense now.

-Cheers