Unhappy with video quality

[davidmcintyre]

I took my two new PDR100's to the track for the first time this weekend, and installed them into a friend's car (one on the main rollbar facing out the windshield, and one on a sticky pod suction cup stuck to the windshield facing towards him).

I had some other problems (see my Video Breaker Tripped thread), but got video in one session.

The problem is that I am really pretty unhappy with the video quality. I had it set on HIGHEST video resolution. Watching it in quicktime on my Mac, it looks not great, with horizontal lines making everything look stepped.

The movie properties say this file is:

MPEG2 Muxed, 640 x 480 pixels
FPS: 29.97
Data Size: 936.35 MB
Data Rate: 8.51 mbits/s
Duration: 0:00:15:22.94
Normal Size: 640 x 480 pixels

I am using QuickTime Player version 7.5 on a MacBook Pro. I went to the preferences tab and turned on "Use high-quality video setting when available."

Worrying that QuickTime Player was my problem, I tried using VLC, which did no better.

Then, thinking that maybe his racecar was too vibratory, I mounted the camera on the trunk of a pace car (facing backwards), which was a street car with a much smoother ride. The problem is in that video as well....

So, thinking that maybe these videos just didn't place nice with MacOS, I copied them to a nearby Windows XP SP2 machine, and viewed them with MSFT Windows Media Player 11.0. Unfortunately, the videos looked even worse.

Even more disturbing, the guys parked next to us had a new GoPro camera, which they just bought for $189. Much lower quality, and 2GB limit on memory, no remote controls, etc, but I'll tell you that the video I saw on their Windows laptop on the track blew my videos away. Their stuff was fantastic.

So, am I doing something wrong? Did I get (two) bad cameras or recorders (seems unlikely) or what?

Thanks, Dave

[tristancliffe]

The problem is interlaced video being watched on a progressive screen (a computer monitor).

The chasecam records interlaced footage (Google if you don't know what that is). If you burnt the raw footage to a DVD and watched it on your TV it would look nice, as the TV and the Chasecam are both interlaced.

But computer screens have been progressive for YEARS; and as 99.999999% of Chasecam videos get watched on a computer screen they look awful unless you deinterlace them manually. This is a pain in the wotsit, but the only way to get half decent end-footage for use on a computer screen.

I use Mediacoder, which is FREE, and can deinterlace your video into a nice H.264 video in a relatively short amount of time. It's not a simple program, so you'll need to be a bit computer literate.

We can only hope that Chasecam do the decent thing in this day and age of progressive displays of making a PDR100 Progressive. If it's for the same money as the current PDR100, then they will destroy the rest of the market.

[admin]

The main problem is the delinterlacing done by Quicktime. Try using VLC and setting the delinterlace to one of the choices.

Though there is certainly a different quality and look to interlaced vs progressive on a computer screen, the really bad stair-stepping is a setting problem in your player, not the result of standard interlaced video.

[davidmcintyre]

I'm pretty discouraged. I have viewed a short video with all the various deinterlacing settings in VLC, and it never really looks very good.

I found the JES deinterlacing software, which is highly regarded (apparently) in the various DV forums. For half the settings I tried it produced a video 2x the filesize with only a minor improvement with a long conversion time (and crashed the other half). There may possibly be some combination of settings that might make the video watchable on a computer; I'll do some more web searching.

So, just to make sure it is the computer screen, I just hooked up the video output to a plain old Sony 13" TV. The video does not look great. It doesn't look as good as the video we took 10 years ago on a Sony videocamera in the car. From the back of the pace car, as you watch the track behind you, the white line along each side of the road is completely jagged, comprised of a series of white horizontal lines.

(There are also periodically white vertical lines which appear from top to bottom of the entire picture).

I'm glad I took these PDR's to the track last weekend, because it's appearing like I have a month to find something else to record our videos of the Targa Newfoundland. I just can't use this video, it is seeming.

The PDR100 is so well-built, and the remote and audio/video in/out features are fantastic, but honestly if I knew that it wasn't going to produce useful video I'm not sure I would have bought two. Sigh.

Ah, and while you post that "The main problem is the deinterlacing done by Quicktime" it looks just as bad on Windows Media Player.

-Dave

[admin]

Something still is not right. These are the same units used for the television show Two Roads to Tapau filmed in New Zealand. Same units used for the show Gillette Young Guns Shoot Out. They did not have an interlacing problem.

I will look more into this.

[Harb]

I agree this seem really odd.....what cameras are you using?

[davidmcintyre]

I purchased two PDR100 kits from Racer Parts Wholesale, and also two 520-line bullet cameras, part no #CHC-CAM1. They have the ChaseCam sticker on them, here is the URL:

http://www.racerpartswholesale.com/product/387/ChaseCam_Video_Systems_and_Components

They were $275 each.

-Dave

[BroussalM]

David

Be sure that you bought nearly the best recorder and cam on the market, if it doesn't work, there's a long time Chasecam fall down.
But, you have a problem and it's not very pleasant. Telling you that it's working for all the other guys it's not a solution. Understand that it's special to have the same problem on 2 PDR and cam. On 1 PDR or cam it could happen of course, but the same problem on 2 ??

Some questions :
What kind of CF do you use ?
What kind of power ?

You can test your system on a desk, when it'll work correctly, you'll don't see the differences between recording from race car or desk or...from the moon. As there is no pieces in mouvement, vibrations absolutly don't affect the PDR ( apart from powered by AA, the very small differents size of the AA is a problem ). It's the same for the cam if you fixe it rigidtly on the chassis.

Horizontal lines steps seems to be a miss information for the recorder. To check the menu control of the PDR, test all the differents resolutions, from low to high, you must to have differences. Don't worry with Quicktime, it's a simple but quite good soft ( As WMP of course...:-) )
Due to interlace, it's true that you have steps, but they are very small, you need to deinterlace in post production, but realy not to look at your race in the paddock with a perfect quality on your Mac or PC.

Chasecam is going to give you the solution, be sure of that, but I think that the guys with the most experience are in hollidays, they coming back soon...

Don't regret GoPro, the guys who have that can make illusion on a PC stamp window but absolutly not on 19' or a TV !!. And I don't tell you about the "sound" of there cars!
If your Chasecam work correctly, you had been the "Spielberg" of the day. It's coming soon, certainly on an other track...

Regards
Michel

[davidmcintyre]

Michel,

Thanks for the encouragement.

For power, we used NiMH batteries. In one, Sunpack 2650mAh rechargeables (which came with the RPW kit), and in the other Duracell 2650 NiMH, both recharged freshly each night (and only used for around 15 minutes of video each day).

For memory, both had a Transcend "133x" 2GB card (which came with the RPW kit).

I'll try using the different quality levels today if possible to see what happens.

Thanks, Dave

[davidmcintyre]

OK, I put the camera in my daily driver today, stuck the camera on the roof with a StickyPod, and recorded short pieces of video at lower, subnormal, normal, high and highest resolutions.

I can definitely see that highest > lower.

I have a 23 second piece of video on a website, it's 23MB. The URL is:

http://race-stuff.com/binary/V6highest.MPG

I'll keep it there for a while to help people help me! The bit rate is reported at 8515bps. Download it and see if you think it's great or if I am deluded. The white lines painted on the road are completely solid, not striped in any way (this is the Garden State Parkway around exit 130 in New Jersey). Ignore the audio; it's just whatever I was listening to on the radio!

Thanks, Dave

[tristancliffe]

I downloaded your video and deinterlaced it using Mediacoder (Yadic Mode 0) back to an 8MBPS MPEG2 file, and the quality was still a bit poor, but hugely improved. The white lines and edges of cars were smooth and clean.

There was a lot of noise around the trees (looks like jpeg compression noise), so perhaps your memory card isn't fast enough so data is being lost?

[glenn]

I am also having a problem with video quality and vibration. I get the zagged lined that are discribed, plus a lot of vibration.
Everything was good with my Samsung Camcorder. I thought I was upgrading to the chasecam. You compare the quality and decide. These are both using the same mounts in the same car. The chase cam is HORRIBLE. I know that youtube quality is bad, but even on youtube the samsung looks better!!

Is my bullet camera defective????

CHASECAM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-a8rFhvHBU)

SAMSUNG CAMCORDER (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Iecy8XtCI)

[tristancliffe]

Were you using a bullet camera with the camcorder, or the camcorder on its own?

Secondly the interlaced video will not look that good on a progressive screen unless you deinterlace. I use mediacoder for this, and VLC Media Player can do real time deinterlacing (use linear, as this is generally the best)...

[davidmcintyre]

I downloaded your video and deinterlaced it using Mediacoder (Yadic Mode 0) back to an 8MBPS MPEG2 file, and the quality was still a bit poor, but hugely improved. The white lines and edges of cars were smooth and clean.

There was a lot of noise around the trees (looks like jpeg compression noise), so perhaps your memory card isn't fast enough so data is being lost?

The memory cards were those included by Chase Cam in the package, and appear to be the same brand as they are currently included in the current package.

You say the quality was "quite poor"...do you think it is worse than what your system produces?

I'm trying to figure out what my next step is here? Do you think I should get an RMA and send my units back for testing?

The problem is that I'm getting close to d-day for the Targa Newfoundland. We leave in around 4 weeks, and producing high-quality video is the way we make our sponsors happy. Without good video, we don't have good sponsors. I'm worried about this, and the concept of spending more $$ on a few good small camcorders is starting to become more and more realistic.

Thanks, dave

[NoHelp]

I am also having a problem with video quality and vibration. I get the zagged lined that are discribed, plus a lot of vibration.
Everything was good with my Samsung Camcorder. I thought I was upgrading to the chasecam. You compare the quality and decide. These are both using the same mounts in the same car. The chase cam is HORRIBLE. I know that youtube quality is bad, but even on youtube the samsung looks better!!

Is my bullet camera defective????

CHASECAM (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-a8rFhvHBU)

SAMSUNG CAMCORDER (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Iecy8XtCI)

Hi glenn, yes the camera in the Chasecam clip is faulty and should be replaced.

[Cat7SuperLight]

Hi Tristan

Would it be possible for you to explain how to convert the file with mediacoder as I am also seeing very poor results from my Chasecam.

Nathan

[glenn]

when I tried to unscrew my cam from the mount, the back of the camera (piece with the threads) came loose.

This is obviously why the camera has always had a vibration and was never in focus. With the housing moving slightly, the video was always fuzzy to outright a shaky mess. I knew that something had to be wrong and why I was asking for help.

I wished I would have thought about the possible causes before my last event. I have been working on the mount and also thinking maybe there was a lens problem.

Shaky Video from TMS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_1112m7Kxg&feature=PlayList&p=FA1D0DD9A29C0022&index=9)

Friends clean video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYFTkfPFUC8&feature=user)

I am going to call chasecam and see how soon I can get a replacement.