JVC Harddrive camera

[jeffmarmus 0]

I was just wondering if anyone has used one of those new harddrive cameras that JVC came out with. I heard threre was some sort of a drop protection feature in it and I just wanted to make sure it works in skydiving before I spend over 1000 dollars on it. Thanks and hopefully someone has some info on that

[hexadecimal 0]

Altitude could be a problem for the drive. Check the operating specs.

[Zee 0]

You might want to check out the max operating altitude for the harddrive in the camera before you buy - you could be making a very expensive mistake

Edit to add: The max operating altitude isn't specified in any of the online documentation - standard is usually below 10,000 feet so I would proceed with caution if I were you.

Peace,
Z

Action©Sports

[jeffmarmus 0]

I wonder how the camera knows the altitude its at, that seems kinda wierd. Someone out there must of tried it. If not ill have to demo one for a day and find out for everyone. Thanks for the responses

[nate_1979 9]

So a search on here for hard drive specifications. There is some technical aspects of a hard drive that can cause them to "crash" at high altitudes where the air gets thin. Other than that, it does not know it's altitude.

FGF #???
I miss the sky...
There are 10 types of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.

[Zee 0]

I posted this once before in response to a question about using I-Pod's at altitude - I suspect that the camera you're referring to uses a similar microdrive, so the same specs will likely apply.


The following came directly from IBM Support in answer to a user who was thinking about using the microdrive on a vacation in Napal:

The Microdrive does need "AIR" to float the heads and typically above 10,000 ft the mass of the air is too low and the drive requires a pressurized environment similar to an aircraft or spacecraft. At high altitude the air bearings begin to loose support from the air molecules needed to provide the "air bearing" for the Negative Air Bearing Surface (NABS) design of the head. If this "air bearing" is removed or lowered (as is the case with low density air at high altitudes) the head damages the media and you could have loss of data. The drive is vented to maintain equal pressure inside and outside to provide the air and to maintain the same pressure. This eliminates the need for sealed and rigid covers that can tolerate pressure differences.

The OEM Functional specification defines the warranty range for operating altitude as 3,000 M or 9,000 ft (3ft/M). If the customer is mountain climbing with a GPS or digital camera above 9,000 ft the drive might have problems. (Mt Fuji ~ +13,000ft, Mt Raineer ~ +14,000 ft). Please note, this is the operating environment. Non operation at high altitudes, including vacuum, have no ill effects on the microdrive. Within passenger aircraft, the cabin is pressurized to 9-10,000 feet hence the drive would experience no difficulty operating in an aircraft cruising at 35-45,000 ft !

Peace,
Z

Action©Sports

[AirCanada 0]

Zee,

You posted that to me, and I proceeded to "test" it.

It's true.

My ipod would repeated "skip" starting ~13,000asl and would shut itself off, usually by ~15,000asl. I tried it again in Tibet this fall... same story.

My Ipod is now only semi- fuctional... so, I wouldn't recommend similar testing.

Upshot being... that camera probably won't work for skydiving...

Josh

[pope 0]

If the altitude wont kill it, the fact that it's JVC will.
pope

[pcalandra 0]

1st off I wouldn't recommend a JVC ANYTHING, but beyond that hard drives and opening shock probably won't get along too well for any length of time even if you get past the altitude problems.

When FLASH memory get cheap enough and someone makes a high quality MPEG2 camcorder (thats under $1,50.00) that will be the cats ass, but until then I'd stick with the tried and true DV tape format, and preferably stay with Sony. I strayed once and bought a Canon, didn't last for shit! The picture quality and optics were good but it couldn't take the beating that skydiving hands out!

Pat

[jeffmarmus 0]

Thanks for all the help, the harddrive would probably would bugger up on the opening. Has anyone seen that new samsung sport cam with the wide angle lens that saves it to a flash card. would that work?