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General discussion

Best camcorders for capturing fast action sports & replaying slow motion and/or pausing frame-by-frame

May 23, 2004 2:02AM PDT

I'm researching the following for a gymnastics coach. Want to incorporate video into training sessions. Looking for best camcorders that video fast movement gymnastics then can immediately replay in practice sessions in slow motion and/or pause and show frame-by-frame to educate gymnasts in proper/improper technique. Paused frames must show gymnast very crisp--no blurring. Guess we're looking for digital camcorders with high frames-per-second capability? Any advice would be very much appreciated! -- AFNOLE

Discussion is locked

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No.
May 23, 2004 3:04AM PDT

Your consumer camcorder records at a "standard" video rate of about 27 frames per second and that's that.

For high-speed video, you won't be looking at the usual consumer models and such will cost one arm and one leg.

Bob

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Re:No.
May 23, 2004 3:41AM PDT

Thanks Bob, didn't know that--good info. I'm thinking though that 27 FPS will be good enough. Now my question is, which camcorders have a good frame-by-frame pause and slow motion feature. Thanks--AFNOLE

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Still not good enough. Here's why for most.
May 23, 2004 4:38AM PDT

The image is scanned from top to bottom and in some (most?) camcorders the image is then scanned again to capture the next field (two fields per frame.) The frame will look somewhat blurred if there is movement and you look at one frame.

"Stock" camcorders do this to keep the video to the NTSC (or PAL) video standard.

Your requirements outstrip normal NTSC video.

My background is in CCTV design and for what they consider high speed video, we don't use camcorders of any normal variety, but custom sensors and usually a PC to capture at about 100 frames or better per second in a non-interleaved frame. Its much closer to taking a bunch of still shots than anything else. The price tag for high speed (non-standard) video runs in the 5 figures still, so people have to really need this stuff.

http://www.lurkertech.com/lg/dominance.html is a bit heavy to consume, but when they write "progressive-scan images" then you are about at the point where you don't see the interleaved field issues.

---> http://srmudry.tripod.com/interleave.html has a really good example of the interleaved frame issue when you look at an image frame by frame. The reason we get away with such terrible frame by frame content is that we play it back at full speed and our eyes and brains help fill in the missing or corrupt content.

Bob

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camcorder
Dec 16, 2004 1:59AM PST

Did you find a good camcorder? I am looking for one for volleyball. Would love any advice you may have.

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They do exist
Dec 20, 2004 9:52AM PST

The Panasonic NVGS120 (in Aus, PVGS120 in US I think) has single frame advance. It appears to work reasonably well from what I saw, although it is slow given that you must advance through 27(?) frames each second. I am trying to find this feature in a less expensive camera, without success to date. Down here none of the sales staff in shops know or care about this feature (why would you want to do that??) so it is difficult to research. My area of interest is rowing coaching.

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Slo Mo as Learning Tool for Fencing
Mar 11, 2005 1:44PM PST

I'm in the same fix. I'm looking for a camcorder that I can use at indoor fencing tournaments (so it has to be pretty good in "gym" light), bring back to our fencing center, hook it up to the TV or VCR and have the coach watch it on TV so he can go through it with my son in slo mo and freeze frames.

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I'm a golf instructor and I've got a good one for you.
Oct 30, 2010 3:39PM PDT

The Kodak Playsport has worked great for me. I've tried all types of cameras with super fast shutter speeds but this one actually takes the cake. I shoot in 720p HD at 60 frames per second and it's wonderful. On even golf swings above 100 mph I can see the face of the club at impact with little to no blur whatsoever and it's easy to pull the video off an put into my digital coaching software because it's all saved on an SD card which I just pop in my PC and pull into my software that allows me to use all kinds of cool tools to help my students out. Also, when just using the unit alone it skips from frame to frame quickly and 60fps is more than enough to see every little detail of something as fast as a golf swing so I'm sure it would be great for a gymnastics coach, though I can't say I know exactly how fast the extremities are moving during flips and such. I can tell you lighting makes a big difference and my camera works best when in sunlight. I would love to know what makes a high speed camera work better inside but the Playsport isis the best I've had indoors as well. Hope this helps!

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Kodak Playsport
Apr 27, 2011 9:12AM PDT

Which model of the Kodak Playsport ar you using the Z3 or Z5?

Thanks / John McRae