A tape has been made. The quality is not looking so hot in the capture preview. The steering wheel is in the way of the top of the speedo and also in the way of the right gauge cluster. It may also be out of focus.....

Well crap! I just made a 6GB DV file that is completely unwatchable. The camera does not work well in low light and the focus is a bit off. Looks like the next attempt will hafta be during the day.

BTW I just posted a record tank at 74.9 mpg calculated, 74.5 displayed!

edit

Actually the tape is not that bad after all. MediaPlayer was not playing the MJPEG file correctly. I made a DVD quality MPEG 2 clip and it looks a lot better. The steering wheel is still in the way but at least the mpg numbers are visible and readable.

Congatulations on the great tank!

Too bad about the video, but it still may be interesting to see.

Eric Powers

MHG Organizer - www.MadisonHybridGroup.com
Hybridfest - A Hybrid Electric Car Show and More! www.hybridfest.com
Third weekend in July
Madison, WI

I did a test video with the camcorder placed between the driver headrest and the seatbelt loop on the center pillar. With the steering wheel dropped down the view is pretty good.
I set the camcorder to manual focus on the FCD, then zoom out & reposition to see the road.

I'll be going for a 3rd taping this afternoon

Efficient drivers do it better.
1003 miles a tank personal record. 74MPG calculated. HCH1 CVT

Ericbecky

Thanks. I suspect that the super high calculated number is a bit of a fluke, we will see next tank. I honestly think that a corrected figure of 4% below the dispayed value is closest to the truth. That would put the last tank 71.5 mpg.

Hot_Georgia_2004

Was Bush just in your neck of the woods (just kidding)? Your tape should turn out a lot better than mine. I was thinking of doing a similar thing. I'm reading up on manual focus and such. My first effort is already in the mail to Tbaleno for hosting. I'm a little paraniod about spreading too much personal info around on the internet so my video is just of the dash. Yours will be better if it shows the road.

Your mileage is fantastic for as fast as you drive. I drive a lot slower and I'm in the same ballpark MPG wise.

Does 74.9 count? Looks like you were right. At first I didn't think the numbers could get up that high. Those numbers are way out of reach in the winter (unless you have an Insight). I've continued to refine my driving but the warmer weather is by far the biggest factor. How are you surviving without your lil red mileage machine?

I had an average day of MPG to work today at 63.3.
I taped it all the way, and while the camera placement is very good the dash is vastly underexposed, except while driving through shadows of trees, etc.

This makes me think that I should try it again on a dingy, cloudy day.
Today it is a bright, sunny 85 degree almost windless perfect day in Atlanta.

I also taped my ride home last night and at 2:00AM I was pulling a series of very steep, long staircase hills near my home and noticed an agressive tailgater right behind.

I moved into a center Left turning lane and used it to allow the tailgater to pass.
Wouldn't you know it was a city cop patrolling for DUI.
He pulled me over and I explained that I was avoiding an agressive tailgater.
Of course he denied doing so, and said that he is watching for DUI.
When I pulled over I switched off the car which stopped the tape but I think I still have some footage up to that point, I'll see if I can post a funny of it.
Too bad my camera wasn't turned the other way!

The fact that he couldn't give me a ticket for anything makes it kind of funny, like last winter when my own city cop pulled me over to "check me out for DUI" because I was driving below the posted limit!

Efficient drivers do it better.
1003 miles a tank personal record. 74MPG calculated. HCH1 CVT

Hi Lakedude:

___Congrats indeed as that was a great last tank! It hasn’t been that warm around these parts and the winds have been ridiculous so you might have a few more mpg’s yet to go. No one anywhere has achieved that high a tank in an HCH which makes your last very special indeed! Now lets get 15 gallons in her with a vapor recovery fill and blow through a 1,100 miles before her next fillup

___Would you be interested in a long hypermiling tank heading towards Hot-lanta to visit Hot_Georgia_2004 next month if he is available? Except for a rough section through some of TN. and KY., the rest of the trip south is relatively clean. I have some great new techniques for mountain driving I learned in the Insight on the MA. Turnpike last month that I am sure would work great with your HCH w/ a stick as well. Driving East on I-74 to I-65 then South the long way around is far more Hypermiler friendly then I-24 to I-75. That was my experience on the drive to Sebring, FL. and back with the Ranger 2 months ago … Second item. I want to go along

___I miss my Little Red Beauty but given the great weather for one day (high 70’s/low 80’s and light winds) to terrible weather the next two or three (low 40’s.low 50’s, raining, and terrible 20 + mph side and head winds) here in and around Chicago, I would be pretty flustered behind the wheel right now. The 100 + mpg tanks locally would still be at least another 2 or 3 weeks probably. Her final voyage to MA. included a great tank of course but the weather was fairly cooperative for those 2 days … The Accord is so new that the terrible conditions are masked in some form because I don’t know exactly what she is worth yet. I sure wish she had the Insight’s multiple FCD’s vs. the one and only she is equipped with because the Instantaneous is almost always pegged (poor design) and a relatively stable averaging display beyond 700 + miles makes for some pretty dull feedback

___Good Luck and congrats again. You deserve it!

___Wayne R. Gerdes
___Waynegerdes@earthlink.net

World's most boring 30 minute 75MB movie has made it into tbaleno's hands. I'm running $9.94 WalMart connect dialup so 75MB would take me about 3 weeks to upload. Thanks for the bandwidth Tom!

75 MB!!! I think you need to have that compressed. You should also try and stream it, but I think you may need a special server for that.

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It started out at 6GB so it is highly compressed already. I cropped out everything but the dash, reduced the resolution to as low as possible while still being able to read the numbers, smashed the sound down from a bit rate of 224 to 40 and used the latest MPEG4 codec Xvid to code the video. What else would you have me do?