Sorry I've missed this thread - I've been on travel for the last week with work with extremely slow internet (like 1kb/sec!). Here are some random notes responding to a few different messages above.
The cameras I listed on my tailcam page (
http://www.thedukes.org/rv/tailcam.html) are not based on what Circuit City/Best Buy have to say about them. I've found that their websites & the sales staff at both places don't often have the right info (I have a spare camcorder that doesn't have AV inputs if anyone wants it
) Anyway, those listed were based on manufacturer direct info. Of course, please re-verify for yourself because specs can change.
I currently have a Canon HV-10 & a Sony DCR-HC96 and they both work quite well for capturing bullet cam video. The HC96 is a standard def camera & the HV-10 is HD. (All the affordable bullet cams I've found are standard def, so no need to worry about HD unless you want it for something else. The AV inputs in camcorders are almost always composite video anyway, so standard def it is!
Of the cameras I listed on my page, the only ones still available that have AV inputs are the Canon HV-10, HV-20 and the Sony DCR-HC28. The HC-28 is available at Circuit City for $250. All of those cameras transfer video via the firewire port. The Canon HV-10 won't transfer via USB - not sure about the HV-20 or Sony. I have firewire on my computer & that's all I've used. Works for me.
Keep in mind I listed miniDV camcorders only. In my opinion, actual tape is less likely to have issues when strapped to a vibrating & aerobatic-ing airplane than a hard drive camcorder. Since I bought my HV-10 a year ago, flash camcorders have become more available (flash, not hard drive). Those may be worth looking at too.
Cameras with optical image stabilization (i.e. the HV-10 & HV-20) don't do well at all when used in the plane to shoot video through their lens. My HV-10 just makes a blurry mess when I mount it to shoot video. (It's an HD blurry mess, but still a blurry mess.) The HC96 & my old Canon ZR70MC - stolen!) with electronic image stabilization do very well in the cockpit when shooting video natively. All the above cameras do well recording bullet cam video. FWIW, because of the optical image stabilization vibration (for lack of a better word) I've seen, I don't hard-mount my HV-10 in the cockpit. Jamming it between the seats keeps it held snugly in place in my plane.
The little DVR recorders should work well & their video quality is probably roughly what the bullet cams put out. I wanted a camcorder anyway, so I opted to get a camcorder with an input instead. DVR's typically have the added benefit of being able to just hit the record button instead of having to dig through camcorder menus to get things going.
On a semi-related note, I really love my HV-10 for shooting camcorder-style non-flying video. I think it has a great picture & it's easy to use. If anyone cares to see some of it's HD output, check out some of the videos I have here:
http://www.thedukes.org/rc/ (just make sure you get the HD files, not the small ones.) Some of those (all?) are resampled to 720p instead of the camera's native 1080i. You should still be able to get an idea of the quality...great for a "consumer" camera I think.
I've been ordering from B&H Photo for over 10 years & have had nothing but good luck. Two thumbs up.
If there's anything on my site that's inaccurate
PLEASE let me know so I'm not feeding bad poop to the masses.
Bullet cams...easy! (right?
) (...still waiting on it to warm up to paint my tailcam mount!)
CHECK THIS WEB SITE
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