Setting up a shoulder camera to record your rides

My camera setup. I do not have ANY monetary interest in the below companies, this is just my setup. Note that there are *SOME* Police Officers that will cite you if you attach a camera to your helmet as not complying with DOT regulation 49 C.F.R. Sec. 571.218 that does not allow attachments that exceed 0.20 inches (except ???Bluetooth??? an 'essential accessory'?), IANAL (I Am NOT A Lawyer), your milage may vary, Etc. Etc. Etc. This is part of the reason why I have a shoulder camera, plus I like the camera view better. Mounting the camera on the bike frame doesn't IMHO, offer the 'bike Ride Feel' I am looking for, just a view of the road. I DO, however, try to obscure the speed on my bike just in case I *ahem* exceed local speeds so that when I publish the video to Youtube I don't a have a speed citation show up in my mailbox.

Quoting from 49 C.F.R. Sec. 571.218:
Projections. A helmet shall not have any rigid projections inside its shell. Rigid projections outside any helmet's shell shall be limited to those required for operation of essential accessories, and shall not protrude more than 0.20 inch (5 mm).
And later:
Make no modifications.

My YouTube Channel with many videos while riding and my Space Shuttle videos:
https://www.youtube.com/@GandalfDDI_

The GoPro Hero 13 Camera, My current camera

I switched from the Mobius comera (below) to a Go Pro Hero 13 for several reasons, a MUCH better video capture of my rides: Some of the downsides of changing: After you get your video you will need to transfer the videos to you computer, there are many many files. See the Go Pro manual for a description. Each .MP4 file is about 35 minutes (plus of minus, size of 11 GBytes). The MP4's can be concatenated together into one long video using ffmpeg. Just create a file named "concatfiles.txt" with each file on a new line looking like:
file 'GX010016.MP4'
file 'GX010017.MP4'
file 'GX010020.MP4'
And then use the ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i concatfiles.txt -c copy aaaout.mp4

I had to attach the Go Pro to my jacket, the shoulder velcro I used for the Mobius camera didn't work. The next picture is the new camera attached to my jacket. I also cut velcro into small squares to adjust the angle of the camera so that the 'view' of the road has a little bit of the motorcycle and alot of road / landscape in the frame so that the viewer gets a feel for how the road looks from my perspective.

FYI. Example of the GoPro video riding the Triumph Tiger with the camera without the extra velcro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms76VEC_BGo
Example of the GoPro video riding the Harley Road King with the camera with the extra velcro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjoZXgUQztw

This is the velcro patch with the GoPro attached, you can see the 'extra' velcro squares on the left I keep / insert behind the camera when I am riding the Harley. This is set up for the Triumph Tiger:


This is a closeup of the velcro patch I sewed into the jacket that the camera (and the velcro on the camera) is attached to. As you can see from the above picture the camera is on the velcro on the right. The velcro strip on the left attaches to the anchor strip that is ty-wrapped to the camera mount to make sure we don't lose the camera. The Velcro is attached using Kevlar Thread:
2" Velcro hook and fuzz tape with adhesive backing - https://www.bing.com/search?q=Velcro%20self%20Adhesive
Kevlar Thread - https://www.bing.com/search?q=Kevlar%20Thread:


This is a side view of the velcro patch I sewed into the jacket that the camera is attached to, the small block of velcro is JUST enough so that when I am riding the Triumph Tiger (a more straight up position) the camera's point of view has some bike but mostly road and horizon:


This is a side view of the velcro patch I add to the velcro for when I am riding the Harley. Since the riding position on the Harley is a little bit more leaned back I have to move the top of the camera a little more forward to see the road, otherwise it would be looking mostly at the sky:


This is the velcro I put on the GoPro Hero 13. I didn't trust JUST the velcro on the camera body so the second strip of velcro on the right of this picture attaches to the jacket (the second strip of velcro in the above picture) and has a ty-wrap connecting that second velcro strip, the anchor strip, to the provided mount for the camera, which is ALSO covered in velcro and secured with ty-wraps. The white Ty-Wrap around the camera body is to hold the velcro in place so that the camera doesn't flop forward. The velcro starts to melt off when temperatures get above 100 Degrees F. Not the prettiest setup in the world but I haven't lost the camera yet:



The Mobius Camera, My FIRST camera

FYI. Example of the Mobius video, if you look in my rear view mirror on the left you will see the white USB cable going down to the power bank that is in my jacket pocket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ6sWoLVGVg

Here is the walkthrough for a shoulder mounted camera, you will probably end up spending about $200 or so with all the "extras" ... (I haven't added it all up):
The camera (the basic kit $80), VERY small camera as you can see from the manual - https://mobiusactioncam.com/mobius_1s_lens_a2/. The owners of the camera has changed and I am not sure how these newer models work or how well they work but you can probably find a small camera that is cheaper than the Go Pro to try out recording your rides and seeing how you like it. The biggest thing to me is the ability to connect a power bank to the camera so that you can ride a few hours without running the battery down.
Weatherproof cover with replaceable Windows, Super Capacitor battery replacement - This is so you can use an external power source (apparently these are not sold anymore)
Power Bank - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16875306001
Memory card, 256 GB. This will last about / a little less than 28 hours for a full image capture. When formatted you get 238 GB with a ~2 GB MOV file generated every 15 minutes, no matter what get the fastest card you can afford so that the data will be written correctly - https://www.newegg.com/samsung-256gb-microsdxc/p/N82E16820149174
Silicone Sealant - https://www.bing.com/search?q=silicone+sealant
1/2" or 3/4" and 2" Velcro hook and fuzz tape with adhesive backing - https://www.bing.com/search?q=Velcro%20self%20Adhesive
Kevlar Thread - https://www.bing.com/search?q=Kevlar%20Thread

First we stitch (using the Kevlar thread) a strip of "hook" Velcro onto the shoulder. You want it as far out on the shoulder so that when you turn your head you don't hit the camera too much. You also want the hook far enough forward and back depending on whether you sit upright or in a 'sport bike' position so that the camera will point forward when you are sitting on your bike:


Put the Super Capacitor into the Mobius - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPX4ssAiplE

Put a small flash card into the Mobius (2 GB or less if you have it otherwise use the 16GB card they give you formatted FAT or FAT32 ) and update the software to the latest (You CANNOT upgrade the software with the 256 GB card installed)
https://www.mobius-actioncam.com/downloads-info/

Put the Weather cover on with the front replaceable window. Using the sealant glue your USB cord onto the back (I had to cut a *small* amount of the cover off to make the USB snug for gluing but the silicone sealant with fill in the gap for you). Silicone sealant helps in two ways:


Put layers of the 2" Velcro adhesive tape on the bottom to allow easy mounting of the camera.
Note: The lopsided Velcro stack is adjusted so that the slope of your shoulder and the Velcro stack match so that the camera is horizontal to the horizon

Put two strips of the 1/2" or 3/4" tape over the top and secure to the bottom 2" Velcro to ensure that the camera doesn't fall out of the 2" Velcro Cradle.

Note: All this Velcro makes hitting the button on the camera body difficult so in the Setup Software I set it to record as soon as power is applied to the camera. I don't use the picture mode:


When you are done filming you will have a BUNCH of MOV files on the camera (you just plug it into your computer and open the camera as if it was a flash drive). I chop out the parts I don't want / stitch them together with ffmpeg:
http://ffmpeg.org/download.html

Overall not many people say much (if anything) about the camera, some people probably don't realize with all the Velcro that a camera is hidden inside.

The Mobius has external power ability and can be looped so that it continuously records to the SD Card:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/mSetup.shtml#sgal_2


I use Hyperlapse-Pro to stabilize my videos and just set it to the 1X position, but you can speed it up to 25X if you wish - Click on 'Try It':
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/computational-photography-applications/microsoft-hyperlapse-pro/

Some FFMPeg commands to get you started (yes, you will need to use the command line):
Cut the first 30 seconds off the video and copy the next 5 minutes and 30 seconds worth of video:
ffmpeg -i Input_Movie.MOV -ss 00:00:30 -t 00:05:30 -c copy Output.MOV

Concatonate several video files together:
ffmpeg -f concat -i concatfiles.txt -c copy output.mov

Example concatfiles.txt file to concatonate REC_0001.MOV, REC_0002.MOV, REC_0003.MOV and REC_0004.MOV:
file 'REC_0001.MOV'
file 'REC_0002.MOV'
file 'REC_0003.MOV'
file 'REC_0004.MOV'

When I ran this the following error popped out, this happens quite a bit on .mov files for the last few frames that can be ignored.
[concat @ 0000000000f361e0] h264_mp4toannexb filter failed to receive output packet speed=57.2x
concatfiles.txt: Invalid argument

Look at the size of the output.mov file to see how many actually got concatonated. I see that the file size is 3.8 GB, therefore ffmpeg was able to concatonate the first two files REC_0001.MOV and REC_0002.MOV. Now we redo the concatfiles.txt to use the output that WAS sucessful output.mov and concatonate the files after the error.
Example concatfiles.txt file to concatonate output.MOV (which contains REC_0001.MOV and REC_0002.MOV), REC_0003.MOV and REC_0004.MOV:
file 'output.MOV'
file 'REC_0003.MOV'
file 'REC_0004.MOV'

And the ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -f concat -i concatfiles.txt -c copy output_2.mov

If you get more errors then you just repeat the above and finally all of your files will be concatonated into one file.

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