In-car video

[beanbubbabean]

I'm just installing a beautiful aluminum fabricated video camera mount in the race car (custom made by Jasen Dawson - drove 40x the first race). I will be using a couple year old Sony Hi-8 video camera. My questions are ...

What is the best software to convert the movies to video files ? Special hardware needed ?

What is the best way to post them for others to view ?

Thanks.

[Corey]

I used an ATI TV tuner card, Hauppage (spelling?) makes something similar. Play the analog video into the card and it can convert it to digital formats.

Youtube.com works well for hosting sub-10 min videos that anyone can watch, but the quality is crappy. If you're on Shaw, they offer 10 MB (maybe more) personal space to host files. Ask them for details on how/where to upload the videos.

[90RioGS]

I saw a 47 minute video on youtube the other day, so I'm not sure if they've lifted that limit or if someone just worked around it somehow.

[speedzilla]

Buy a MAC. Everything you need is in it ready to go. That's what I did.

[yofa]

ati tv tuner cards will come with some software to receive the video feed:

http://www.computeravenue.ca/product.php?txtCatID=358&txtProdID=3035

and youtube would be the most convenient way to share it with everyone else.

if you want to take it a step further, divx would probably be the highest quality/smallest size/relatively common format out there:

http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download/index.php

and like corey said, you can host it on your internet provider's personal web space.

[Corey]

As a bonus, most of these let you use your computer as a personal video recorder - you'll never touch your VCR again!

[jeff]

If you don't care about the TV tuner, there are cheaper options too. I picked up a 3-port firewire card with 6' cable for $25 at Computer Boulevard. It came with software too, but I recommend Windows Movie Maker for your video editing. It's got enough features for basic editing, and it's very easy to figure out.

[Rallyboy]

once you go mac you'll never go back.