More tailcam! "Ditchin' The Wingdog"

[claycookiemonster]

I'm also amazed at these tail-cam videos, but my question is on the recorder. Are you using a standard Camcorder hooked up to a remote lens flopping around under your feet, or do you have a dedicated video recorder mounted semi-permanantly somewhere? Has anyone looked at the wireless cameras? Any good? Is it worth stringing cable back to the VS so as to have it ready later? I'd guess over time the camera recorder technology will change faster than the lens will so changing recorders is more likely, or am I wrong? Anyway, awesome work, and thanks for the continuing motivation!
Clay "Cookie Monster" Cook
-8 under way.

[groucho]

Originally Posted by claycookiemonster

Are you using a standard Camcorder hooked up to a remote lens flopping around under your feet, or do you have a dedicated video recorder mounted semi-permanantly somewhere?

I use miniDV camcorders to record the bullet camera video. Most camcorders these days don't have AV inputs, but there are still a few that do. Currently I have a Canon HV-10 and a Sony DCR-HC96. Both work well. I secure all the wiring & the camcorders in the cockpit before I do any flying. The camcorders, however, are not actually bolted down to anything...just wedged between the seats. My temperfoam seats squish just enough to hold the camcorders very tightly. I use zip ties to manage all the wiring. When I'm not shooting video, I cut the zip ties & remove all the extra wiring. The power/video wiring from the tail gets tucked under my seat when not in use.

As another option to camcorders, I have a friend looking into a solid state recorder for the same tailcam I have & that seems like it'll work well. I think there are solid state DVRs for around $300 that should work for this kinda thing.

There are wireless bullet cameras out there that should work & should save you from running wiring all over your plane. I talked with some local R/C glider guys who've used similar setups & they said they always seem to have drop outs in coverage. I figured their drop outs would be just from maneuvers or range problems, but one of the guys said he gets random dropouts with everything just sitting on the ground...and that's with 2.4GHz stuff.

The last thing I wanted was dropouts right in the middle of some cool video I shot. The second to last thing I wanted was any video quality loss because of transmitting the video around the plane. So, I pulled bulkheads & fairings and installed the power/video cable to the tail. It didn't take long & was semi-easy to do on a flying airplane (not WHILE flying, of course).

There are many, many ways to skin this cat. In my planes at work, it's common to have multiple Elmo bullet cameras all over the plane piped into a control cranium that goes to tapes, computer, or telemetry equipment. That's probably more than anyone of us would like to spend. For me, the $140 bullet cameras & my "general use" camcorders work well enough. I very much like the RAM-Mounted bullet camera in the cockpit. That allows for just about any in-cockpit angle you'd like for very little cash.

Hope this helps!

BTW, new motherboard, processor & RAM get here tomorrow. Standby for blazing video editing.

[claycookiemonster]

So...power and video cables to the VS, check. Mini camcorder that accepts A/V inputs, check. How 'bout the audio (radio, intercom, etc) input? Did you wire up a dedicated output from your audio panel? How was this done? If you're using more than one camera, do you un-plug one and plug in the other to get cockpit versus tail shots? Or, do you have a multi-channel recorder that accepts many inputs at once and you sort out which one(s) you like when you video-edit it later? I remember when I first saw a tail-cam video; it looked too amazing to duplicate - how wonderful to find out that they're as easily do-able as, say, building an airplane!!!!!!!
Thanks,
Clay
-8 wings underway

[jrsites]

Originally Posted by groucho

If anyone has further suggestions for music for me to "not" put video to, please let me know.

Sammy Hagar: Eagles Fly (sample here)
Kutless: Somewhere In The Sky (sample here)

[groucho]

Originally Posted by claycookiemonster

So...How 'bout the audio (radio, intercom, etc) input?

I have a 4-place intercom in my plane, so I hooked up a 1/8" jack to one of the output lines from that. Here's the fun part...I have a 6' extension for the audio. That feeds into a Y splitter with two 1/8" jacks. From each of those jacks, I hook up an 1/8" to RCA Y connector. I hook two RCA connectors to each camcorder. So, I get the exact same audio on both camcorders.

As you can imagine, that's a big pile of wires. Making sure they are tidy while flying is important. It's nice that I can easily remove all of it when I'm not shooting video.

This works well for syncing the video from the two camcorders once it's on the computer. I've found that the sync isn't perfect. Since video frames only happen 30 times a second and the clocks in the camcorders aren't perfectly synced, there is a slight time mis-match between paired up frames in the two video streams. By definition, it's never more than half a video frame off - or 1/60 of a second error. Close enough for me.

I typically don't use much of the audio that's on the tape though. No one wants to listen to me talk, so after I sync the video tracks (using the audio), I turn the audio channels down in the video editing software. That allows me to slap whatever song I want to over the top & still have everything match up.

Mic clicks work very well for syncing up the video streams. They make nice spikes on the audio tracks. I do them fairly often while filming & vary how many clicks I do so that wherever I decide to cut the video, there's probably an identifiable "sync click" nearby.

Jeff- thanks for the song recommendations!

Hope this helps!