Recommendation for a video camera

[Duane]

I would like a camera with hard drive storage and a stop watch function. What is helpful for a vaulting video camera? Any suggestion?

[cdmilton]

Why hard drive? I am very happy with MiniDV.

Why do you need a stop watch function? There is a time on the camera when recording.

[achtungpv]

I'm about to buy the Sony DCR-SR80. It has a 60 gig hard drive (40 hours of video).

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Just about any MiniDV camera and Dartfish!!!!

[Duane]

After a short search on the web it looks like hard drives are not that great. Mini DV looks good. A stop watch or clock with hundredth of seconds would be helpful in viewing hurdles.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Go to www.dartfish.com and down load the evaluation copy of the software. In the Analyzer is a timer that captures up to .001 seconds.

[cdmilton]

Since I can't post in the coaches forum...

I have a harddrive camera and use it for filming the vault. They absolutely suck, the resolution is terrible if you're not close. The only thing you save is ease of tapes or mini-dvds. When I transfer it to my computer, it's difficult to see the form. Right now I don't believe the technology is there yet, unless you want to spend over $1,000.

[Duane]

Do you find the dartfish software very helpful? What's the cost?

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Dartfish has become the backbone of our practices. It enables me to give my athletes immediate feedback on my laptop at full screen. Then that evening I email them my analyses of each practice. It's absolutely awesome.
It can be a little pricey. I arrainged for all of the University of Tenn joint athletic departments to buy it at a 60% discount. The retail cost for the version I have is $4,500.

[rainbowgirl28]

It enables me to give my athletes immediate feedback on my laptop at full screen. Then that evening I email them my analyses of each practice. It's absolutely awesome.

If you have a Mac, it's super easy to do this with iMovie. It doesn't do the technical analysis like Dartfish, but you can easily play the video on the laptop right there at practice, and email clips to your vaulters.

[ladyvolspvcoach]

Rainbowgirls suggestion is by far the less expensive way to go. I do some fairly sophisticated analysis on Dartfish which is why I went that direction...

[master]

I have found my Canon S2-IS still camera with video to be a very usable means of recording the vault. It is not without some problems. The first is the limited amount of memory for video storage (limited by the size of the memory card you install.) So unlike a mini-DV camera that you can let run and then trim to the sections you want, you want to use this camera's memory efficiently. I figure it takes less than 10 seconds to get an entire run and jump recorded. 10 seconds of 640x480, 30fps video takes 18MB so my 2GB card can store over 100 vaults. The second issue is when you freeze frame the replay, there is some undesirable blurring. Canon has a S3-IS out and another version coming out and maybe they will fix this blurring issue. (It is only a matter of taking the images with a faster "shutter speed".)

You can see the video quality in these two examples and decide for yourself if the quality is good enough for you. By the way, I process the video with QuickTime Pro ($30), both to do file size compression and things like the side-by-side and slo-mo. To do timing, I simply count frames and divide by 30 to get elapsed time in seconds.
1) previously linked video at UW Open
2) comparison video at RTBVC pv only meet

- master