[gomanvongo]

I'd wanted one of these HW video racers since I first saw them, and over the weekend my lovely wife and 4 year old surprised me with one as an early father's day gift!

I took it down to the slotcave, and began messing around with it to get it around the track - I tried pins front and rear with a push car, free swinging trailer (no guide pin), hand pushing it around the track (and making cool sound effects - vroom vroom!), and last night I strapped it to a US-1 flatbed trailer, and got it all the way around my setup.

The video is dark, too fast, and the soundtrack doesn't measure up to the other summer blockbuster films, but here's my directorial debut! (click the pic for video!)



It's a lap and a bit (watch the lighthouse on the left at the start of the video, and after about 56 seconds you'll see it again!)

I'm going to have to play a bit more, and see if I can get even better quality out of the camera (the cave is way too dark!), and I want to run it on all 4 lanes, which are all equidistant, but lanes 1 & 2 take a somewhat different path than lanes 3 & 4 for about 1/3 of the track!

I know that on a PC there's fancy hotwheels editing software available, but being on a mac, now I've got to figure out Imovie a bit better. At this point, I can brighten it in Imovie and slow down the video, but I'm sure there's even more that could be done with just a little knowledge!

anyone have any other tips (other than better lighting, and a bit more practice than 15 minutes of play time!) to make the video better? What's the best way you've found to get one of these around the track? Any suggestions would be welcome!

Thanks!

j

 

[Boosted-Z71]

I read in one of the threads that someone mounted one of these to a AFX Semi trailer, and as I recall the video was good, But I also think he had good lighting in the room. I have one but have not used it, I plan on putting mine in a semi trailer or putting guide pins in it and towing behind a car. Good luck with yours, post what you try with it.

Boosted

 

[slotking]

John peckham set 1 up as well,

key is to go slow

video looked good

 

[ParkRNDL]

Here's where I posted some stuff I did with mine:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=349633

Down at the bottom of the first page of the thread, and again at the top of the second, are a few videos I took. This is the best of the videos:

In the thread, there's also several pics of the gruesome contraption I concocted to haul the camera around the track. It's basically a hacked up Turbo Train dummy car rubber-banded to a US-1 truck. I'm sure others have created much better solutions...

As far as getting the speed right, I was able to use a very simple movie editor (Windows Movie Maker) to cut the speed in half and get it to look kinda right. here's the thing, though: the camera has two settings--outdoor, which shoots 30 frames per second, and indoor, which is set up for lower light and shoots 60 frames per second. When you turn it on, it defaults to outdoor. If you slow down video shot at 30 FPS, it starts to look jerky, like you're flipping cartoon pages in a drawing book. If you use the indoor setting and shoot it at 60, then slow it down to 30, it still looks pretty normal. If you're pretty good with iMovie, you'll have no problem running the vid at half speed and you'll be amazed how much better it looks.

--rick

by the way, your video came out very cool. i like the way you can see the cab of the truck but it's not blocking your view. getting me thinking here... once school is out i'll have more time to play in the dungeon and pretend to be Michael Bay.... awesome... :thumbsup: