I run open track road racing events and got an HV20 with the hope of getting hd in car footage. Regular shots looked great. Mounting the camera in my car however, was a disaster.

I took a look at my footage with the Canon and it isnt working out for in car. Unlike the great footage for regular shots, on the track it is just jerky and crap. I used both a mount on the harness bar and my 6 inch suction mount I had success with other cameras. It seems the tape transport is moving and messing things up.

I successfully returned the HV20 and I got the Panasonic sd1. It was ranked as having the best OIS and the build quality is better than the Canon.

One final thing, the base of the Canon is not structurally sound and flexes quite easily where you mount it on the tripod. I could lock the camera on the base and could easily get it to flex it 3 or 4 degrees up and down fully screwed down. I lashed the camera to the base with gaffers tape while doing in car filming for that same reason. It is really weak to the point I would guess you will have issues if you do a lot of shooting on a monopod or tripod.

Hopefully my new SD1 will be better for a crash cam...

thanks for the info GT40. That's a shame.
I didn't buy the HV20 specifically for in-car video, but good to know I shouldn't expect it to handle that well. Guess I'll be asking my passenger to hand-hold it during my stop by the Nurburgring in August :)

My old, cheap Canon ZR50 did a nice job of in-car with a homemade mount
Nurburgring in-car (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8252571630183295037&q=edelbach)

What kind of car do you drive? What track(s)?
Did you have the OIS turned on or off?


Kurt

I run a Mitsubishi Evolution. I have put a lot of work and money into the car over the past 4 years to set it up as a track car.

Yes, I tried OIS on and off + different shutter speeds on the two mounts...