I must confess this is a compelling item. The data overlay functionality has been improved and the cam integrates with race studio.
What I simply cannot understand is why it’s limited to 1080. This is 5 years behind the curve. Current Gen Gopro is 6k I think.
I don’t know if they added image stabilization but I would assume so.
Anyone taken the plunge?
At nearly $1000 and only 1080p I’m gonna have to pass. I either have time to only quickly review data or a longer break to watch video. I don’t see the need to review both at the same time with a 1:1 overlay.
My Mychrons barely makes it thru a weekend without a glitch so I’m not so sold that this will be any less reliant.
I think that’s the main draw. From what I hear it’s very reliable and it seems they design it with the set it once and forget it philosophy. You can have it start filming anytime the kart reaches a speed threshold, for example.
But yeah, 1k is a lot of clams for a 1080 cam.
Higher res is much harder on power consumption and heat generation. I’d say that drove the decision for 1080p. With how much the higher res cameras either run out of battery or overheat, having that kind of a situation would not really fly for your data logger.
I just have not had heat issues at 4k. The hero 10 did, though.
I would assume 4k would be fine as I have run many hours at 4k 60. Hero 5-9 have all been good with heat.
To me the data overlays are really important. Being able to see minimum/max speeds through corners tells me a lot and laptimes are very useful too.
For playing back at the track on a laptop or small monitor, 1080p is fine, but if you want to edit or post the video online, 1080p is the bare minimum.
I finally got around to finding a better solution for making videos out of clips. I had been making the clips, loading them into a program like hitfilm to put them together. This re-encodes the footage yet again and makes it look awful.
So I bought a program that allows you to combine them without re-encoding. The video I just posted of all the passes was made with it. Much better result.
The next thing I’d like is to be able to put title page in that doesn’t involve encoding. Gotta be a way to do that.
GitHub - mifi/lossless-cut: The swiss army knife of lossless video/audio editing
I’ll have to look into that. I’ve mostly been playing around in DaVinci Resolve.
True but how often are you cropping your 4k+ video? As an analysis tool I’m not sure if it makes much difference.
That said, the 1080 sample I’ve seen is not fantastic either.
For lossless cutting I use Avidemux. Perfect for getting a short clip to YT without too much messing around.
I have the Smarty 3 Sport and it has its pros and cons.
Pros are that it really is a set and forget. It fires up when the dash starts up and auto records/stops. File sizes are small so it’s not super critical to always wipe the SD card. Data overlay is already built into the video files so you don’t have to use RS3 to have the data.
Cons are the image quality does leave a lot to be desired. It’s good for data usage mostly, not so much for posting online. Using a circular polarizer does help a bit with it. But no where near the quality of GoPro or DJI. It also doesn’t have any form of stabilization. Using a ram mount with a rubber isolator works better than an Odenthal mount. It does cost a lot more than a GoPro. Some of the cost is justified in the sense of it works and seems to be durable. But it is a hard pill to swallow.
Here is a spec piñata race recorded with ours. Not sure how you could want better video than this. It is a coaching device, not a device for recording hi res cinematography. Sebring Spec Miata Race Start from P49 of 90 Cars - YouTube
I am very happy with it. It gets super hot though, not sure why.
That’s cool footage. Love the overlay.
Having the overlay is nice but the video quality is trash unfortunately, not worth the money IMHO
Can this thing get its power from the cable connection to the Mychron 5, or does it need its own power source?
[quote=“Jim Maier, post:11, topic:10545, username:Jim_Maier”]
a spec piñata race [/quote]
I am now going to refer to miatas as piñatas forevermore:
I think it’s part of an ecosystem that has a bridge box central to it (optional). There are cable options for external power supply.
How does one justify buying this? You can get better footage with a GoPro for less, and the same data overlay from a mychron for free.
I guess it’s just a convenience fee.
I honestly cant either. The image quality is too low for YouTube. You can do dashes with dashrender or racerender. It’s too expensive.
But, as a coaching tool, it’s fabulous. You don’t need high def for playback on the laptop in the trailer. What we want is the integration with race studio to be able to show video of the stuff in data. The convenience factor is great, overall.
I justified it for the simple reason that it works. I’ve had multiple GoPros (Session 5, Hero 8 Black, Hero 10 Black, etc) freeze at different parts of sessions and lose all footage from that point on. I have yet to have a single problem with the Smarty *knock on wood. It’s not designed for Youtube vlogs or artistic videos. It’s designed as a coaching tool. And it does that really well. You set it on the kart and you don’t have to mess with it (other than to pull the SD card or to change track maps). File sizes are small and include the overlay directly on the video file, so you don’t have to plug it into RS3 to merge the data and video. If you do import the file into RS3, you can look at data and video at the exact points where you had a bobble. Instead of trying to figure out what lap is what when looking at video on a GoPro. It has a high convenience fee. But it’s worth if if you want to use it as a tool, not for YouTube views.
I agree…
It all depends on what you want. Youtube or coaching.
Being a data guy I want one.