Model Railway Forum

I would like to see what my layout looks like from the trains viewpoint. Gauge is OO and I imagine that any camera would need to be mounted in a truck pushed by an engine. As the layout is DCC I would like to capture sound as well. Has anyone made a video of their layout from one of their trains as it runs on the track and can they suggest a suitable camera to do it with? Searches for suitable cameras haven’t yielded much, miniature spy cameras without sound or ones for baby watching that gave sound but are too big for OO gauge. Thank you.

Quite a few out there that provide excellent resolution, but I couldn't tell you what. I used a "Hotwheels Video Racer," which went for about
20 BPS, comparatively. I has a grainy resolution, and actually records sound. This was one of my early attempts:

https://youtu.be/pZfePF_tClQ

Thank you Chops your post got me to renew my search using different terms.

I found this Camtruck at http://www.branor.co.uk/ "Full HD 1280 by 720 pixel definition. 30 frames per second MOV file video. High quality sound. 20 minutes recording by internal battery charged from you PC via a supplied USB interface cable. 120 degree wide angle lens."

Guess what I'm getting for my birthday

I'm sure there are much cheaper alternatives!

For example this cube camera is good - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Quelima-SQ13 ... 2749.l2649 and would fit inside an adapted goods wagon if you want to hide it's existence to some extent.

It may be worth buying one and a memory card to try out in advance of the purchase of an expensive one.

I've seen You Tube videos where people have used this (or at least very similar) cameras and they worked really well.

I now have a Camtruck and have had to test it in advance of my birthday. I am blown away by what I have received. The instructions that come with it are very extensive and easy to follow, on my PC the video quality is superb, however it is .mov format and the files are quite big making it difficult to send videos to friends etc. Uploading to YouTube appears to be at the expense of video quality.

However if you want to see them ......

https://youtu.be/tN4yPWiQ9I8

https://youtu.be/J680Fz2Plh8

Quality looks pretty good to me.

You could try converting the files to a different format. I have been using this https://www.any-video-converter.com/pro ... ideo_free/ for a long while.

They look really good. Well done.
Nice layout.

Thank you Mr Bones and Rog.

I have seen a number of free format conversion services but come from the school of ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’. Nice to be told about one that I can trust, will look at them as I have my own webspace to host them.

You can send big files (up to 2Gb) to any email address(es) using WeTransfer a free to use browser driven app, so nothing to install on your PC. No limit to the number of files or number of recipients, just the 2GB limit.

Once sent you get an acknowledgment and your addressees get a link to download from. Once they have the files you get another confirmation.

Only drawback is the link is only live for a set period (many days), so if they miss getting it you have to resend.


https://wetransfer.com/


I used to use any video converter when I was downloading TV series from Canada to play on the Apple TV box via iTunes as the format of the download wouldn’t play in itunes, hence the conversion. Never had any problems with it. I seem to remember you could mess with position and colour of on screen captions and sub titles, etc.