camcorder for helmet

Hi, with all the recent discussion on using a camcorder for helmet , has anyone recently bought one (waterproof) they would recommend...... and anyone any examples of the video quality ?

 

regards

Bullet HD 720p Helmet Head Action Sports Camera Cam MTB on eBay (end time 26-Feb-11 20:58:08 GMT)

I bought this one because it's HD and has a 170 deg viewing angle. The video quality is quite good and it does what it says on the box. at £168 it's expensive and about twice as good as a £20 one. I still had to buy a 16gig memory card at £32, so thats £200 total!

 

This one is effectively free because it comes with an 8gig memory card that' normally costs more than £20, but it's not 100% waterproof. It should be splashproof, but if it packs up due to water, you can throw it away and get another one for that price. Thanks to Streethawk for that one.

7dayshop.com - Online Store

I ordered that 7dayshop one with the 8gb card yesterday, i'll post a video up when i get it.

Ready when you are...

 

1) Northwick Park

 

2) Welsh Harp

 

(No-one said these would be interesting, by the way, but at least they're not very long. And do lick the 'full screen' button on youtube - they are marginally better full out on your computer rather than on the tiddly size.)

 

Both of these videos show the strengths and weaknesses of the helmet-mounted camera (leaving to one side those of the rider/cameraman).

 

The cameras are fixed focus, and 'automatic' aperture, which means that when you point them at the bright sky, they'll react to it and in a couple of seconds give you a nice picture of blue sky and clouds. If you THEN point the camera at darkened woodland, it will, for the first few seconds, look like dead of night, until the camera reacts to the new light and brightens up.

 

So, looking from one to the other, as in the second video, the Welsh Harp ride, doesn't give a consistently viewable picture. This doesn't happen that often when riding on roads, but in late autumn and early spring, with the low sun and long shadows, it's more common.

 

Another point shown up by both videos is that (self-evidently!) if a camera is mounted on your HEAD, then it points where you look. And if you look right, then left, then right, in quick succession (as all good road users often do), you'll get a bit of a blur as the camera tries to find something to focus on, fails, then tries again. It also takes a few goes with the duct-tape (or whatever) until the camera is at the right angle on your head - there is no viewfinder, so you stick it on, walk up and down, watch the film, adjust it, and so on. Once it's fixed, it's fairly static.

 

You could mount it on your bars, but then you lose the filmed view of the car about to pull out from the side, which (hopefully) you would get from the helmet view.

 

The first video also shows the sort of sound level you get - that is just me talking, showing my partner her route across a park into a car-park, but if you wish someone a cheery good-morning or shout at a bus-driver, it's all recorded.

 

For £13 it is amazing, and I'm not sure that the problems shown up in the videos would be much less on an expensive camera - although I suppose it might react more quickly to changes of light level.

 

(Oh, the reason the DATE is 2 years out is because on a Mac you don't get access to a program to change the time and date on the camera - apparently you do on PCs).

 

Hope this helps you.

 

 

Allen, Wisper 905se.

thanks guys for this info. the bullet looks brilliant.......may have to put that on my wish list.......

£20 for the 7 day shop item is unbelievable and will be worth a punt. thanks for showing the video clips to illustrate the shortcomings....

 

regards

Those roads look even worse than the ones round here (NW London).

 

But the traffic seemed to be passing you nice and wide - have you got a big flag stuck up your saddle?

 

A

That's one of the smoother Manchester roads:( . The traffic did seem to give me a lot of room, but then i suspect that the worst of the drivers were watching the Manchester derby on TV this afternoon. Commuting traffic is much less respectful...

Put the camera on the off-side of your helmet, wear a yellow reflective jacket and the cars suddenly seem to be very courteous - perhaps too courteous. They're obviously more observant than I expected.

That's the plan, but i haven't figured a helmet mount out for it yet. My helmet is a Casco eMotion, so no vents to poke a strap through. EDIT i'm thinking self adhesive velcro...

 

http://www.evanscycles.com/product_image/image/cb9/392/1b8/47243/product_page/casco-emotion-helmet.jpg

 

and

 

http://www.sourcinggate.com/images/large/201011/16/Car-DVR-D011-Mini-DV-1289886192.jpg

Edited February 13, 201115 yr by Streethawk

Has anyone seen a wide angle version of the mini camcorder?

 

A friend took a Go Pro camera snowboarding and the quality and coverage is amazing. It takes in 127 degrees so you only need point it vaguely in the direction of the action and it gets it all in shot.

For the mounting, there's two ways (neither of which you'll like).

 

1) Drill a couple of holes in the helmet for straps

or

2) Do what many of us do, and use strips of duct tape.

 

The straps might give you easier adjustment, which you'll need initially to get the angle right-ish (on your film, for example, it seemed to be pointing just a tad too far down, so you got loads of tarmac but no sky).

 

 

A

Can one of you proud owners clarify the 7dayshop camera a bit?

 

The blurb says

When the memory is full ,the device will auto delete the files taken, then continue to record

Does it literally mean that it deletes all of the files at this point? Or is it a proportion of what has been recorded, keeping the latest files? (What proportion?)

 

How long is recorded when using a 4Gb or 8Gb card?

 

Has anyone seen a link to the instruction manual/sheet?

 

Thanks

More info on this thread if it's the Mini Sport Digital Camcorder you're talking about.

 

I can confirm that 15 mins per GB is about right. The manual is sparse to say the least and you are not going to get much out of it apart from a rough guide to what the buttons do. Great little budget camera though and the helmet mount works great if you've got vents.

 

Not sure about the deleting though. I always copy my videos straight off the card and delete them so I've never hit the hour limit.

The camera makes a rolling road recording. After each 5 mins it saves the video as a file about 0.5GB until the card is full. Thereafter before it saves the 5min file, it deletes the oldest one, so, if you want to record a long journey (boring) you need a big card, but, if you only want to record in case of incidents, then you can use any size card as long as you switch off recording after an incident (otherwise you run the risk of deleting it. The camera can be run continuously all day by getting one of those £9 12v lithiumm cctv batteries, a cigarette lighter socket and using the supplied car charger. I'm very impressed with this camera. I also bought a £200 one but it can't run continuously -only as far as the battery life or until the card is full, neither of which lasts long enough for the journeys I do, and the picture quality is only a little better than the £20 one (now £17 with a free 4GB card).

Thanks. My journeys can last over an hour so I think it's safer getting the 8Gb card. It's not that it's masses of money.

 

I don't usually wear a bike helmet (I found car drivers seemed generally to take less care, and I'm not too keen on the 'ornament sitting on top of a shelf' look) but this could be the thing that gets me to change. I've actually got 2 of them, the second from Aldi feels far more comfortable than the Canyon I'd originally bought (and that was after trying every make I could find).

I like the the look of the Casco in Streethawks post though. I think it warrants a little research.

Another test video here, taken on my real commute this morning, the handlebar mount keeps slipping down,

 

Also, i've sorted the helmet mount, using self-adhesive Duotec, which is a little like velco, except much stronger and more durable (also more expensive, but its worth it because this stuff has a million uses!).

 

Duotec Fastener at Clas Ohlson

 

I tried the camera with it on the way home, but i didnt get it straight, however if stayed where i put it, so i just need to practice so i get it pointing straight. A wider angle would help, but the cheap camera all seem quite a narrow field of view.

 

Also, i estimate my camera will take about two and a half hours footage on the 8gb card.

Edited February 14, 201115 yr by Streethawk

Yes, that's a better angle, and yes, it probably is that all the cheap cameras only give a narrow field of view. It'd be interesting to know from someone who's bought a (relatively) expensive camera just how good a field they give, because I can't see the actual picture quality being much better than your sample.

 

Allen.

Yes, that's a better angle, and yes, it probably is that all the cheap cameras only give a narrow field of view. It'd be interesting to know from someone who's bought a (relatively) expensive camera just how good a field they give, because I can't see the actual picture quality being much better than your sample.

 

Allen.

 

As I said before, I bought this one:

Bullet HD 720p Helmet Head Action Sports Camera Cam MTB on eBay (end time 26-Feb-11 20:58:08 GMT)

The picture is wider and a bit better quality, but you're limited to 2 hrs per battery and when the memory card is full, it stops. I'm not sure yet whether it can run from the usb charger. You can see some sample footage in the advert, which is fairly representative. I'll try and post my own in a couple of days,

Thanks for the reminder.

 

As you say, the quality isn't enormously better - and you still get a lot of the problems that you often get with automatics, where the snow is nicely lit, but the figures are blacked out. But it has got that fish-eyed wide field of vision.

 

Interesting to see your own cllips.

 

 

A

The significantly better helmet cameras all seem to be £300-500, which i think may be too much, unless you can find another use for them. Having done a little research, the most popular three are:

 

The GoPro HD Hero which looks like a toy, but gives great quality.

 

The Contour HD or GPS (GPS is the latest and best model) which looks the aesthetically pleasing and boasts lasers to help you align the camera.

 

The V.I.O. POV.HD which has the disadvantage of having a wire from the camera to a head unit. Also £500. Although it has a screen on the head unit and you can edit video on that too. Its also got the best battery life and uses AA batteries. The biggest advantage is the remote which you can mount anywhere and press to "tag" your video. The tag will then select an amount of video you;ve preset and save you trawling through the whole thing to find the part you want in post production. For example, a car cuts you up, so you press the tag button, this then tags a 5 minute section backward from when you pressed the button. This also saves card space.

Another test video here, taken on my real commute this morning, the handlebar mount keeps slipping down,

 

Also, i've sorted the helmet mount, using self-adhesive Duotec, which is a little like velco, except much stronger and more durable (also more expensive, but its worth it because this stuff has a million uses!).

 

Duotec Fastener at Clas Ohlson

 

I tried the camera with it on the way home, but i didnt get it straight, however if stayed where i put it, so i just need to practice so i get it pointing straight. A wider angle would help, but the cheap camera all seem quite a narrow field of view.

 

Also, i estimate my camera will take about two and a half hours footage on the 8gb card.

 

 

hi streethawk, good video of manchester deansgate area........

thanks for your posts on this subject...now if you can just show us a photo of how you attached onto your casco helmet, that would be very useful....

 

regards

Yep, well spotted, its a bit of Deansgate and Victoria Station then across Corporation Street. I work for the Co-op.

 

Here's another YouTube video

 

Bit of Duotec on the side of the Casco:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/5448564331_6a1f1840b9_b.jpg

 

And roll some around the camera. Actually it doesnt need as much as i put in the camera, i'll probably remove some and neaten it up now i know it works. It has three loops on, the front one does nothing and i think i could lose the back one too. Currently i can lift the helmet by the camera with no movement at all.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/5449173376_b773e65dd8_z.jpg

Yep, well spotted, its a bit of Deansgate and Victoria Station then across Corporation Street. I work for the Co-op.

 

Here's another YouTube video

 

Bit of Duotec on the side of the Casco:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/5448564331_6a1f1840b9_b.jpg

 

And roll some around the camera. Actually it doesnt need as much as i put in the camera, i'll probably remove some and neaten it up now i know it works. It has three loops on, the front one does nothing and i think i could lose the back one too. Currently i can lift the helmet by the camera with no movement at all.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/5449173376_b773e65dd8_z.jpg

 

that's a cool helmet: what is it again? who has them?

The 3M equivalent to the German manufactured duotec is dual lock velcro