Camera for Flight Recording?

shyampatel94 said:
So I went out and bought the GoPro Black Edition! I can hopefully start shooting videos soon! Anyone have any tips on what kind of resolution I should use? How many fps? Anything that can improve my videos?
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1080 at 60FPS or 720 at 120FPS will reduce prop artifacts on shots that show the propeller.

Use the keychain remote instead of the IOS app.

When you aren't filming, push and hold the power button on the remote to turn it (and the camera) off.

Edit your videos for time and content. Youtube already has plenty of 14 minute POV videos.

Don't forget to take video from the ground every chance you get.

Don't forget to take video of people every chance you get.

Have fun!
 
I think the last two sentences there are important. If you can mix it up, your video will be much more entertaining. Also anyone can mount it on the glare shield facing straight out, but that gets boring to watch pretty quickly.

If you don't have the battery back pack, get it. Battery life on the gopro is bad. Real bad.

I like to suction cup mine to the rear of the side window. gives a nice perspective of the pilot AND the view out the front:

MEEDIKRT-L.jpg
 
fiveoboy01 said:
If you don't have the battery back pack, get it. Battery life on the gopro is bad. Real bad.
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Yes it is. If you're going to record with your headset you won't need the pack with our cable, but it's good to have for wireless recording
 
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Do you guys recommend me recording through the GoPro with Squawk060 cable or get a recorder and then get the cable?
 
I am not aware of all the available options, I just use a splitter which goes inline with my headset cable and then one end has a 3.5mm jack that plugs into the gopro's mic input via USB.

I'm not aware of a 12V outlet anywhere on the C152 panel so I'm not sure how I could continuously power the gopro unless I'm missing something.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
I am not aware of all the available options, I just use a splitter which goes inline with my headset cable and then one end has a 3.5mm jack that plugs into the gopro's mic input via USB.

I'm not aware of a 12V outlet anywhere on the C152 panel so I'm not sure how I could continuously power the gopro unless I'm missing something.
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This is basically the same thing, except GoPro uses a micro USB all-in-one connection now, and no others. So the cable connects through the all-in-one now on the GoPro Hero3's

If your aircraft doesn't have an aux power receptacle, you'll have to put one in. Very cheap addition, about 8-10 bucks. Just keep it on a 5Amp or smaller breaker.

But we have adapter cables with or without the charging option, and for whatever recorder, camera, phone, tablet or device you want to record with.
 
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Archammer said:
This is basically the same thing, except GoPro uses a micro USB all-in-one connection now, and no others. So the cable connects through the all-in-one now on the GoPro Hero3's

If your aircraft doesn't have an aux power receptacle, you'll have to put one in. Very cheap addition, about 8-10 bucks. Just keep it on a 5Amp or smaller breaker.

But we have adapter cables with or without the charging option, and for whatever recorder, camera, phone, tablet or device you want to record with.
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Awesome! So If I use the GoPro Hero3 audio cable, it would be the same quality as a recorder?
 
shyampatel94 said:
Awesome! So If I use the GoPro Hero3 audio cable, it would be the same quality as a recorder?
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get yourself one of these for $.01 (plus $5 shipping lol) and stuff it in your headset. as good as any audio out there. cord is long enough to reach from any reasonable position inside the plane. if you're going to mount the camera outside, yeah, you'll need one of these audio cables.

http://www.amazon.com/HDE-Computer-...TF8&qid=1379293559&sr=8-19&keywords=lapel+mic
 
rwellner98 said:
As I'm sure you know, that's not a problem with the Contour, airplanes are just really tough environments for action cams (and most other cams).

The only thing I can suggest is to make sure you are attaching to as stable a mount point as possible. For example, there is a big difference between attaching to the center of a crummy, thin airplane window compared with attaching near where that window attaches to the plane. There is a big difference between attaching to a random spot on the top of the panel compared to attaching to the roll bar.

I've also found that using a higher frame rate seems to help some kinds of vibration issues, so try going the max you can. For me, I happily trade 1080 for 720 in order to gain frame rate. I won't go to WVGA, but that's a non-issue on gopro3 as you can do 120FPS at 720P.
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Yeah I'm aware of that, still experimenting with it. Never considered the back window because I actually prefer more of the outside view than the cockpit view.

You're right about the window mounting location. I figured that out after my first few videos.
I have the Fat Gecko Dual Mount. That thing is rock solid.
 
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What do you guys think the best voice recorder is for the cockpit? Any recorders you have tried and recommend?
 
rwellner98 said:
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm talking about the self timer in the gopro that allows it to take a photo every .5, 1, 2 or 5 seconds. It's a brilliant feature for doing timelapse photography..
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That's too bad the Gopro is so limited, the Ghost has more flexible timelapse modes. That's another feature that is superior on the Ghost.

RW, I could write a small book about what you don't know about the ghost, but I don't have to, it's already been done.

Seriously, there's nothing wrong with the GoPro, but for many applications it costs more and does less than the latest Drift.

For your Quadcopter, yes, the GoPro is lighter, thanks to its small battery and lack of an LCD screen. No question.
 
Mike5250 said:
What model jvc?
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JVC GZ-MS100

You can plug ear buds or a lapel mike into it and put 'em under the earcups of your headset and the camera records everything you hear. I just let mine pick up the sound from the cockpit innards...

Chris
 
eman1200 said:
get yourself one of these for $.01 (plus $5 shipping lol) and stuff it in your headset. as good as any audio out there. cord is long enough to reach from any reasonable position inside the plane. if you're going to mount the camera outside, yeah, you'll need one of these audio cables.

http://www.amazon.com/HDE-Computer-...TF8&qid=1379293559&sr=8-19&keywords=lapel+mic
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That works ok for some digital recorders or one of the old cameras that have the 3.5mm connection. However that won't work for the GoPro3 that he's talking about.

In addition, I know that some of your headset speakers and mics may not be of a really high quality, so it may not create an issue. But if you use a 3.00 mic instead of a professional adapter cable in one of our headsets, you will hear the major difference between your audio recording and other people's. That's why other pilots are always asking "how did you get the audio so clear?"

Also guys, be aware that when you stick stuff through the earpads like a mic cable etc. that it depletes the passive noise reduction, and with an ANR system this issue will be even more pronounced.

I hope you all find what you need. :)

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
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shyampatel94 said:
Do you guys recommend me recording through the GoPro with Squawk060 cable or get a recorder and then get the cable?
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IMHO unless you're going to use more than one camera, or intend on mounting it outside the aircraft there is no need for the additional recorder. Plus when you go to edit your video, you have to match the audio with the video - not difficult - but just additional steps inside the cockpit. Well unless you want to make clips of your audio/video, then it becomes much more..."involved" when you use the separate recorder.

Basically if you don't need to make a checklist for your audio/video for your flight, that will keep you focused on preparing the aircraft instead. :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
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register@teamandras.com said:
Can you elaborate on why the keychain remote over the app? Thanks!
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I think, though I can't say I've been particularly serious in analyzing the data, that when I use the IOS app that the battery on the gopro runs down faster.

I know for a fact that I can put the gopro into wifi mode (whereby it listens for connections) and it will still have tons of battery left 24 hours later. I believe that if I try this with the IOS app running that things get tons worse. I should test this one of these days.

For sure, if you stream video to the IOS app, battery life drops quickly.
 
You are absolutely correct. Bluetooth requires a large amount of forward voltage to retain the exclusive connection to a device, i.e. the camera / phone app. So not only will the camera battery deplete much faster, but so will your phone / tablet that you are running the app on. Whereas wifi is a breadcrumb connection that only needs response intermittently and uses much lower power.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
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shyampatel94 said:
I don't know if I would take a risk in buying one of those until there are full reviews for it... I rather buy the gopro at this point!
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picked up a Gopro hero 2 from Costco with tons accessories for $ 199.00 plus tax
Very happy with it !
 
shyampatel94 said:
Okay so I have decided not to buy the battery bacpac for my gopro...

http://gopro.com/hd-hero-accessories/hero3-battery-bacpac

I was thinking about buying this instead? Any thoughts?

http://www.amazon.com/Veho-VCC-A008...F8&qid=1379303341&sr=1-1&keywords=veho+pebble
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I have a similar battery. One day I set the gopro H2 to the lowest resolution (for the max time on the card), hooked up the pack to the bacpac which I then attached to the gopro (with it's internal battery) and got ~8hrs of recording time lol.

[So the pack charged the bacpac which in turn charged the internal]
 
Archammer said:
IMHO unless you're going to use more than one camera, or intend on mounting it outside the aircraft there is no need for the additional recorder. Plus when you go to edit your video, you have to match the audio with the video - not difficult - but just additional steps inside the cockpit. Well unless you want to make clips of your audio/video, then it becomes much more..."involved" when you use the separate recorder.
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I mostly agree with this. The exception is that video takes up tons of space and if what you really want to capture is the audio so you can grab sound bytes later then your using the wrong tool. It's also pretty unusual that the audio needs to be "properly" synced with the video in flying settings. I've actually never bothered to do that except to prove to myself that it wasn't too difficult.
 
rwellner98 said:
I mostly agree with this. The exception is that video takes up tons of space and if what you really want to capture is the audio so you can grab sound bytes later then your using the wrong tool. It's also pretty unusual that the audio needs to be "properly" synced with the video in flying settings. I've actually never bothered to do that except to prove to myself that it wasn't too difficult.
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You're right about that. Pulling audio back out is much more involved that putting it in.
 
rwellner98 said:
I think, though I can't say I've been particularly serious in analyzing the data, that when I use the IOS app that the battery on the gopro runs down faster.

I know for a fact that I can put the gopro into wifi mode (whereby it listens for connections) and it will still have tons of battery left 24 hours later. I believe that if I try this with the IOS app running that things get tons worse. I should test this one of these days.

For sure, if you stream video to the IOS app, battery life drops quickly.
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Thanks!
 
Archammer said:
IMHO unless you're going to use more than one camera, or intend on mounting it outside the aircraft there is no need for the additional recorder. Plus when you go to edit your video, you have to match the audio with the video - not difficult - but just additional steps inside the cockpit. Well unless you want to make clips of your audio/video, then it becomes much more..."involved" when you use the separate recorder.

Basically if you don't need to make a checklist for your audio/video for your flight, that will keep you focused on preparing the aircraft instead. :)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
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It definitely adds more work, but I like using an additional audio recorder. I use the GoPro to capture the ambient engine noise and then separately capture the communications audio on my iPhone. Shortly after I turn everything on, I clap five times to give me something to see and hear in order to align the communications audio with the movement of my lips in the GoPro video.

Having a separate audio track lets me easily chop out extraneous communications, the occasional cuss word (doh), etc..., without affecting the engine recording.

It takes a while, but it's fun for me.
 
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