Lance's review of the Garmin VIRB camera
 

I got the chance to borrow a Garmin VIRB Elite yesterday at our last autocross of the year. I couldn't adapt the Garmin Cam to my RAM mounts that I use with my GoPro so I picked up an extra GoPro accessories kit and cobbled together a mount to attach the Garmin to the inside of my windshield. With 3 different adapters used, the camera vibrated a bit more during runs than I would have liked, but that wasn't the cameras fault.

This camera has a couple of cool features that I like. First, it is super idiot proof. There is a big slide button on the side of it, slide it forward and the camera turns on and starts recording...slide it back, camera stops and shuts off. There is also a LCD screen on it that lets you preview and review shots right on the camera. The other cool feature is it uses GPS to embed data in the video file like speed, direction, altitude, and G-forces and lets you put different graphics on your videos showing the external data taken during your runs.

Mounting and operation of the camera during events is top notch and it takes very good video. The owner of the camera had it set to 780p and 30 fps I believe to save memory space as he road races with it and I didn't change those settings. We took 8 videos with it 3-5 minutes in length each and it still showed 5 hours of battery time left when done.

I downloaded and installed Garmin's free Video Edit software and used the cord to plug the camera into the USB port. The software found the camera and the files automatically and imported them to the PC. I then started to learn the software. It's pretty user friendly from scratch. Making the first few videos was easy. Then I started overlaying the GPS data onto them and it got a bit more complicated. Trying to sync the data to the video takes some practice. I got a few right on and a few were several seconds off. I think there is some tricks to this and I'll work on figuring those out. On to the good stuff. Here is my third and fastest run of the day as seen from the Garmin cam.



I'm going to work on a few of the other videos to clean up and show the different templates you can use to overlay the data in a bit. I'll update this thread as I get them uploaded. Might take me a few days though.

Here is the in car from my first run taken with the GoPro, you can see the Garmin cam attached to the windshield.



And here are the two cameras on their mounts I used yesterday side by side.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-v...191833_791.jpg

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N...191925_301.jpg

Any questions, just fire away. I think I'll be picking one of these up as well as a very versatile Ram Mount for it before next racing season. Not that it is really better than my GoPro Hero 3 Silver, but it offers a few features that I can't get with my GoPro. I consider it a nice compliment.

This video is the closest I got the data matched to the video so far, was my fastest run of the day but I got a four letter word cone during the run.



I've learned how to put a few different overlays in that show the G-Forces and what not and once I get those dialed in and uploaded I'll share as well.

I'm starting to get the hang of this...check it out...

I'm really curious as to how it's audio performance is on exterior mounts, with and without their wind block. Audio is where all these cameras really fall short IMO.

The overlays are a big bonus.

Looks like it's definitely competition to GoPro. Nice report. :thumbsup:

Syncing the GPS data to the video takes some practice. What I ended up doing was trimming the video first, then using the red dot on the data side of the software to sync with the video. The screen overlays lag behind in the preview screen of the video. Trying to sync using the overlays (specifically the MPH on the start of the run) doesn't work. I got it real close on the second try using the red dot and one second increments back until it was perfect. I believe the one I posted is about a half second off, but it's pretty darn close. To get that kind of data and video out of an easy to use $250 camera is fantastic.

There are a couple of spikes in the data which I believe I can contribute to the shaky mount. Like the 68 mph coming out of the left hand 180 near the start. A more firm mount has to help with that.

Now I'll start playing with video meld and my GoPro videos and what not to really see what I can get done.

This is the same camera I used, you can skip through the middle parts of the pit stop but it'll give you an idea of the wind noise when coming down from speed and then getting back up to speed. The camera was mounted on the top of the windshield for this with nothing for wind blocking.





It sounds like he was messing with the audio controls during the editing of the video during the pitstop as they get louder and quieter.

Great review,

I can tell your car loves the Sutton tune in the first video. Instead of tires screaming and squealing it sounds like they are laughing and having a good time.


Does it create a map on the right hand corner or is that something that you had to program.

Braelyn needs a neck foam....heads gonna pop off. LOL

The car LOVES this style of track and the driver is getting better at it as well. I got me a class win yesterday beating the two guys that have been beating me like a drum all summer long. Sometimes it all just clicks in your favor I guess. :lol:

When you get into the video editing software, there are about 10 different templates you can choose from with different style of gauges and graphs to display the GPS data (g-forces, speed, position, direction etc) log. Some of those templates include the "track" that the data was logged on. Basically it builds the track from the GPS data log. It is VERY slick.

You choose how much or how little of the data you show by picking from the different templates.