Top 10 In-Car Video Camera Systems For Street & Track

Everybody loves recording themselves. There’s a reason why YouTube is regularly ranked among the top 5 websites on Earth. And, no, it’s not because of the piano cat.

Cars and driving are no different. People love hearing exhaust notes under full throttle, seeing driving technique, learning a new racing line, watching a crash or otherwise peering into something that they couldn’t see any other way. From Formula 1 onboard videos to 9-second quarter-mile Mustang runs, people love in-car video. And there are a lot of choices out there.

From tape to HD and $200 to $8,000, there are a lot of cameras out there that can be used inside a car. All of these units have pros and cons, you’ll just have to weigh them yourself to figure out what’s best for you.

1.    Camcorders

For our purposes, we’re going to lump together pretty much all handheld-type camcorders. These are the kinds of cameras that are designed to capture family moments and baby’s first steps. The market is changing now but, for years, digital uploads and easy editing were not concerns for these cameras.

In-car camcorders fall into two basic categories, those that use tapes and those that use memory cards. Tape based camcorders are now dirt cheap, starting at only $100 used. We suggest using Hi8/Sony Digital8/MiniDV camcorders at a minimum, as anything lower will be horrible video quality by today’s standards. You’ll have to capture/input the video into your computer to upload but the camera’s cheap enough that if you destroy the car during a race, the camera can be written off. Be careful of certain models and vibration though, we’ve had numerous tape camcorders shut off from excessive vibration the instant we got out on track.

Moving up in $$, memory card-based camcorders are the standard of today and many come with amazing full 1080 HD capability. One of our favorites is the Canon HF100, which can be found around $500 used. These camcorders don’t have any moving parts and can survive hell rides in tooth rattling drift racecars. If you’re looking for a solely in-car camera, cheaper options exist but these camcorders can be still be used for baby’s first steps as well.

MSRP: $100~$1000 used

Pros: (Cheap camcorder) - rolled the car? Who cares? (HD camcorder) - can be used for more than just in-car video

Cons: (cheap camcorder) - cell phone level video quality (HD camcorder) - price

We say: Ebay is your friend

Source: Ebay

Continue to In-car camera #2 - Go Pro HD Hero >>>