Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

It'll just be missing the clean "write" at the end or invalid characters that make the file corrupt due to the sudden cut off in power etc.

Using a program as above will sort it Bris, I wouldn't be paying for a service given the free programs on the net you can download that basically run themselves.

Bring them around here if you want and I'll give it a crack if you CBF'd trying (im O/S in 2 days, you'll have to wait till mid June) :)

  • 2 weeks later...

Guys, just got back from a Tassie trip and have many a movie to upload to youtube. Trouble is the first file (which is typical) is nearly 2gb and about 15 mins long and YT is telling me it's going to take 400 minutes to upload. Seems clunky to me. Is there a smart way of doing this? Maybe file compression before uploading?

Thanks.

G'day Ben. I took your precise routes both south and then west / north and it was awesome. Absolutely awesome. Best drives of my life. I did about 1300 klms overall and the old girl turned in 14.5l/100 which is amazing. Highlight was the Hobart to Strahan drive which I managed to get done in 3 hours and 18 minutes on wet roads. I probably overtook about 6 vehicles in than time which is around 300 klms.......Drove as fast as conditions allowed the whole way.

In the end I missed Hellyer Gorge as the passenger side zorst fell off after which it was excruciatingly loud and all I could do was limp it home to Dev with my 'spirit o tassie shared berth' ear plugs in. I drove for about 30 klms with the zorst dragging on the tarmac as the road was too unsafe to pull over and it was tipping it down. In the end I pulled over the it fell off about 20m behind where i came to a halt. I walked back to it was it was a steaming mess that was half ground away. Had no choice but to kick it into the ditch and keep moving on. Part of the Porker has now been returned to the earth! Mechanic said it wasn't that well supported and the harmonics on the GT3s kinda blast the zorst to pieces in the end which I guess after about 5 hours of flat out driving was what may have happened! I also inadvertantly ran over some road kill in an early part of the trip and I figure that might have done some damage too as it made a hell of a din going under the car. I also had a bit of a tank slapper trying to pass someone in second just after I ran it over. I figured the rears were covered in mammal goo!

Very grateful for the advice and can confirm the route is a winner. Only downside is that due to the light and weather the first couple of hours of driving off the boat was in the dark.

Will post vids once I can work out a quicker upload than 400 fkn minutes per file.

G'day Ben. I took your precise routes both south and then west / north and it was awesome. Absolutely awesome. Best drives of my life. I did about 1300 klms overall and the old girl turned in 14.5l/100 which is amazing. Highlight was the Hobart to Strahan drive which I managed to get done in 3 hours and 18 minutes on wet roads. I probably overtook about 6 vehicles in than time which is around 300 klms.......Drove as fast as conditions allowed the whole way.

In the end I missed Hellyer Gorge as the passenger side zorst fell off after which it was excruciatingly loud and all I could do was limp it home to Dev with my 'spirit o tassie shared berth' ear plugs in. I drove for about 30 klms with the zorst dragging on the tarmac as the road was too unsafe to pull over and it was tipping it down. In the end I pulled over the it fell off about 20m behind where i came to a halt. I walked back to it was it was a steaming mess that was half ground away. Had no choice but to kick it into the ditch and keep moving on. Part of the Porker has now been returned to the earth! Mechanic said it wasn't that well supported and the harmonics on the GT3s kinda blast the zorst to pieces in the end which I guess after about 5 hours of flat out driving was what may have happened! I also inadvertantly ran over some road kill in an early part of the trip and I figure that might have done some damage too as it made a hell of a din going under the car. I also had a bit of a tank slapper trying to pass someone in second just after I ran it over. I figured the rears were covered in mammal goo!

Very grateful for the advice and can confirm the route is a winner. Only downside is that due to the light and weather the first couple of hours of driving off the boat was in the dark.

Will post vids once I can work out a quicker upload than 400 fkn minutes per file.

That's farking awesome, glad you enjoyed it Nick! I was smiling as I read that :)

Hi Nick, Glad you had a great run around the apple isle!

Best free program to use is something like Free Video Coverter http://download.cnet.com/Koyote-Free-Video-Converter/3000-2194_4-10805335.html?tag=main;dropDownForm (click the direct download link).

Then convert it to a format such as MP4 (MPEG4 codec), ensure the size is appropriate (IE HD 1280x720) and FPS is 25-30. Play around with the bit rate to get the quality right.

You will need to stuff around for a while to find the right ratio for size vs quality, but then the file should only be a few 100 Mb at worst.

Just bought an LCD "bacpac" for my GoPro...my god...how it transforms the camera for usability. All GoPros should come with this. Very impressed with the quality and size, a bargain @ $120. No more guessing when it's recording or using pythagorean theorem to estimate camera angle.

Latest firmware also supports the WiFi (read: live streaming to devices like iPhones) and (I think) remote control (read: mount camera externally and stop/start from inside the car) attachments that are due out later this year.

I'd like to see more done with the sound, GoPro 2's external mic compatability should therefore be interesting...but I guess if you really want a good sound track, you should use a seperate device for recording that and overlay it later in the video editing software.

See how the quality vs. file size goes but I would suggest 4000-8000. Try at 2000 and go up in steps of 2000 at a time.

Its a pain with video's as different sources and file types respond differently Ive found.

Hey Tim. Thnaks for that. What is a typical bitrate? The software is defaulting to 1248kbps. Is this a good start point?

I got this now. I've been fiddling around the conversion software and the bitrate is completely proportional to the file size. 2,000kbps seems to give a good enough resolution for the small youtube screen and a reaonsably small file size and upload time.

Thanks again. I'll post up some vid I've got later today. I'm a little disappointed in the audio but try to work through this.

This is about 1 hour into the drive from Hobart to Strahan. Haven't bothered to work out exactly where I was. 10:15 there is some good oversteery action. You'll have to turn the sound up as I had the mic on a low level due to the loud zorst. Still distorts....Poor sound at the end is me opening a window as I was boiling hot after the hills run!

  • 3 weeks later...

GoPro wifi bacpac finally up and working today.

what a fkn drama

there is about 30 steps that have to be followed in exact order to get it to work the first time.

testing distance at PI tomorrow now to see how it goes

then time to get the smartphone to work with it!

  • 1 month later...
  • 3 weeks later...

I've been cobbling together a little system for myself and have just started testing it.

For $45 delivered I grabbed a Kodak Playtouch HD - http://store.kodak.com/store/ekconsus/en_US/pd/PLAYTOUCH_Video_Camera/productID.200992300

Even on the WXGA setting of 480 the quality is quite good. IT also does 720 @ 30fps, 720 @ 60fps for slow mos, and 1080 @ 30fps.

Battery life is listed as around 110-120mins when recording at 720 @ 30fps, I'm expecting more when using the lower quality WXGA setting which should be fine for YouTube clips.

I've worked out that a 4GB SD card should be enough data for a track day, but for the extra 50 cents I'll just grab an 8GB (testing with a spare 1GB atm). It has a USB arm built in so it can be charged on the fly, Winton also has powerpoints and I've got a USB car charger so topping it up won't be an issue if it's needed.

Initial testing is good, though I'm not sure how the audio will fair in track applications or outside of the car. When tested in an adjustable phone mount in the work car it picked up a lot of noise from the mount vibrating, but I guess that's to be expected. For around $5 though you can buy a Sony Stereo External Mic off eBay, which seems to be quite popular for people running these types of cams.

I bought an adjustable suction mount off eBay for under $5, it's on the way so can't comment on quality on that yet. I'll start out by doing in car footage so if the mount fails it won't be a huge dilemma. If it proves to be trustworthy I'll attach it to the outside of the car, though I'll likely knock up some kind of protective case as well, or a tether to the car.

I grabbed some universal screen protectors for $1, as the unit is touch screen, and I cut one down and put it over the lens.

I've dug up my old Nokia E52 and have RaceChrono installed on that and have dabbled with a program called RaceChrono2AVI which allows you to generate gauges from gps mapping data and overlay those onto your in car footage. This will at least give me a track overlay with position and speed. The internal 1Hz GPS is not accurate enough though so I'll likely buy a QStarZ 10Hz unit and connect that via Bluetooth as that's a proven combination.

So all up I'll have spent under $150 (though I already had the phone) and should be able to get some OK footage with basic data on top that will show split times etc.

At the moment I'm still testing all this as I'm in the process of fixing the car but I'll post some footage when I have run it all at the track.

Edited by ActionDan
  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Guys

Just picked up a GoPro 2 a few weeks ago for powercruise and have noticed the terrible sound quality that these things have when mounted outside the car. I noticed that they can take an exernal microphone. Anyone found a good external mic for them as it seems GoPro dont make one. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Or any tips on how to improve the sound quality.

NOTE:I am using the backing cover with the holes in it, too much wind noise it what im refering to.

Do you want to mount the mic outside or inside the car?

I bought a $10 mic from Jaycar to test with my Contour+ and did 1 lap of the block using the cam's mic mounted outside the car than another lap with the jaycar external mic mounted inside wrapped around the passenger door handle and the sound was 1000% better.

YouTube has done something weird to the clip, some anti-shake feature, and it now has a fish eye effect in some parts which is not there in the uploaded file. I'm working to sort that but the site is currently undergoing maintenance.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • As discussed in the previous post, the bushes in the 110 needed replacing. I took this opportunity to replace the castor bushes, the front lower control arm, lower the car and get the alignment dialled in with new tyres. I took it down to Alignment Motorsports on the GC to get this work done and also get more out of the Shockworks as I felt like I wasn't getting the full use out of them.  To cut a very long story short, it ended up being the case the passenger side castor arm wouldn't accept the brand new bush as the sleeve had worn badly enough to the point you could push the new bush in by hand and completely through. Trying a pair of TRD bushes didn't fix the issue either (I had originally gone with Hardrace bushes). We needed to urgently source another castor arm, and thankfully this was sourced and the guys at the shop worked on my car until 7pm on a Saturday to get everything done. The car rides a lot nicer now with the suspension dialled in properly. Lowered the car a little as well to suit the lower profile front tyres, and just bring the car down generally. Eternally thankful for the guys down at the shop to get the car sorted, we both pulled big favours from our contacts to get it done on the Saturday.  Also plugged in the new Stedi foglights into the S15, and even from a quick test in the garage I'm keen to see how they look out on the road. I had some concerns about the length of the LED body and whether it'd fit in the foglight housing but it's fine.  I've got a small window coming up next month where I'll likely get a little paint work done on the 110 to remove the rear wing, add a boot wing and roof wing, get the side skirt fixed up and colour match the little panel on the tail lights so that I can install some badges that I've kept in storage. I'm also tempted to put in a new pair of headlights on the 110.  Until then, here's some more pictures from Easter this year. 
    • I would put a fuel pressure gauge between the filter and the fuel rail, see if it's maintaining good fuel pressure at idle going up to the point when it stalls. Do you see any strange behavior in commanded fuel leading up to the point when it stalls? You might have to start going through the service manual and doing a long list of sensor tests if it's not the fuel system for whatever reason.
    • Hi,  Just joined the forum so I could share my "fix" of this problem. Might be of use to someone. Had the same hunting at idle issue on my V36 with VQ35HR engine after swapping the engine because the original one got overheated.  While changing the engine I made the mistake of cleaning the throttle bodies and tried all the tricks i could find to do a throttle relearn with no luck. Gave in and took it to a shop and they couldn't sort it. Then took it to my local Nissan dealership and they couldn't get it to idle properly. They said I'd need to replace the throttle bodies and the ecu probably costing more than the car is worth. So I had the idea of replacing the carbon I cleaned out with a thin layer of super glue and it's back to normal idle now. Bit rough but saved the car from the wreckers 🤣
    • After my last update, I went ahead with cleaning and restoring the entire fuel system. This included removing the tank and cleaning it with the Beyond Balistics solution, power washing it multiple times, drying it thoroughly, rinsing with IPA, drying again with heat gun and compressed air. Also, cleaning out the lines, fuel rail, and replacing the fuel pump with an OEM-style one. During the cleaning process, I replaced several hoses - including the breather hose on the fuel tank, which turned out to be the cause of the earlier fuel leak. This is what the old fuel filter looked like: Fuel tank before cleaning: Dirty Fuel Tank.mp4   Fuel tank after cleaning (some staining remains): Clean Fuel Tank.mp4 Both the OEM 270cc and new DeatschWerks 550cc injectors were cleaned professionally by a shop. Before reassembling everything, I tested the fuel flow by running the pump output into a container at the fuel filter location - flow looked good. I then fitted the new fuel filter and reassembled the rest of the system. Fuel Flow Test.mp4 Test 1 - 550cc injectors Ran the new fuel pump with its supplied diagonal strainer (different from OEM’s flat strainer) and my 550cc injectors using the same resized-injector map I had successfully used before. At first, it idled roughly and stalled when I applied throttle. Checked the spark plugs and found that they were fouled with carbon (likely from the earlier overly rich running when the injectors were clogged). After cleaning the plugs, the car started fine. However, it would only idle for 30–60 seconds before stalling, and while driving it would feel like a “fuel cut” after a few seconds - though it wouldn’t fully stall. Test 2 – Strainer swap Suspecting the diagonal strainer might not be reaching the tank bottom, I swapped it for the original flat strainer and filled the tank with ~45L of fuel. The issue persisted exactly the same. Test 3 – OEM injectors To eliminate tuning variables, I reinstalled the OEM 270cc injectors and reverted to the original map. Cleaned the spark plugs again just in-case. The stalling and “fuel cut” still remained.   At this stage, I suspect an intermittent power or connection fault at the fuel pump hanger, caused during the cleaning process. This has led me to look into getting Frenchy’s fuel hanger and replacing the unit entirely. TL;DR: Cleaned and restored the fuel system (tank, lines, rail, pump). Tested 550cc injectors with the same resized-injector map as before, but the car stalls at idle and experiences what feels like “fuel cut” after a few seconds of driving. Swapped back to OEM injectors with original map to rule out tuning, but the issue persists. Now suspecting an intermittent power or connection fault at the fuel pump hanger, possibly cause by the cleaning process.  
×
×
  • Create New...