[Christopher Murphy]

I just bought a 60GB hardrive sony vid camera. Made a nice mount for it in airplane and attempted to take some video in flt. It shut off as soon as the eng started. I read in the manual it won't work in loud enviroments. Anyone know about this problem? How to fix it.

Chris M RACE34

 

[noelf]

Hard Drive devices...

...are adversely affected by vibration and altitude. The spinning disk creates a relative motion between the disk surface and the "head(s)". Higher altitudes (above 10,000ft) results in less dense air, and the heads no longer want to fly above the disk surface. High vibration environments also can cause the heads to penetrate the boundary air layer and contact the disk surface. The vibration and altitude limits are dependent on disk size (not capacity) and rotational RPM. Check the environmental operational specifications that should have come with your equipment.

 

[GrayHawk]

Most likely it's vibration

Typical Specifications of interest:

Environmental Specifications
Temperature (English)
Operating 32? F to 140? F
Non-operating -40? F to 149? F

Humidity
Operating 8% to 95% Non-condensing
Non-operating 5-95% RH non-condensing

Altitude (English)
Operating -1,000 feet to 10,000 feet
Non-operating -1,000 feet to 40,000 feet

Vibration
Operating 0.00459 g?/Hz (10 to 500 Hz)
Non-operating 0.05102 g?/Hz (10 to 500 Hz)

So no high vibration or altitudes above 10K.

Suggestions:
1. Vibration dampened mounting (or hand held)
2. Go for a FlashCard camcorder. They are up to 32 GB and with the high quality MP4 codecs, the quality is very good & no moving parts.

 

[bhassel]

In terms of the 'noisy' environment most folks buy an external mike and stick it in their ear cup. This allows you to pick up communications & intercom without the overpowering engine noise you can get in some environments.

Bob

 

[Christopher Murphy]

thanks for the info

the camera has no provision for external mic. Probably won't work for inflight video but will try hand held see what happens.

Thanks.

 

[Greg Reese]

flip video

My wife bought me a Flip Ultra HD video camera for my birthday. Works great, small, variety of mounting options due to size and weight. Easy to use software to edit. Taking it on all my flights to catch whatever I can. 179 to 199$ depending on where you buy it. I'm thinking of getting another one.

 

[GrayHawk]

My wife bought me a Flip Ultra HD video camera for my birthday. Works great, small, variety of mounting options due to size and weight. Easy to use software to edit. Taking it on all my flights to catch whatever I can. 179 to 199$ depending on where you buy it. I'm thinking of getting another one.

This is a flash memory camera as mentioned above (or below depending on your settings).

There are tremendous advances going on in consumer level video right now, thanks mainly to the h.264 codecs and to high capacity SD (SDHC) flash memory cards.

My first 'portable' video outfit was a huge heavy 2-piece set that recorded poor quality video onto VHS tape. I now have a small fit-in-your-palm Canon High Definition (HD) camcorder that records HD video to SDHC cards of up to 32 GB.

As for flying, the Flip Ultra HD Greg has would be good. Along that line, I recently bought a DXG-579V HD from Costco for $99. I'm thinking of an underwing-access plate mount for use when flying.

 

[Marc DeGirolamo]

buy different camera..

I just bought a 60GB hardrive sony vid camera. Made a nice mount for it in airplane and attempted to take some video in flt. It shut off as soon as the eng started. I read in the manual it won't work in loud enviroments. Anyone know about this problem? How to fix it.

Chris M RACE34

Chris... I went throught the same troubles...and tried many different things to lessen the small (high frequency) vibrations with no luck..... Camera (Canon HD) works fine if hand held (course movements) but when attached to the plane it shut off in seconds....even in calm air....soution is to buy a different camera, one with SD card slot ie: no hard drive.....

Marc