camcorder for helmet

[allen-uk]

One other disadvantage of the HELMET-mounted camera shows up if you also have a bar-end mounted mirror!

Because... particularly on a main-ish road, when you're often passing parked cars, you are ALSO often looking down at your mirror (road ahead/mirror/road ahead/mirror/road ahead) and it doesn't make for good entertainment.

I'm still working on making my camera bar-mounted, which will no doubt also have its drawbacks.

Allen.

 

[Streethawk]

My HDmax arrived this morning. I've not had much chance to play yet, as i'm in work, but i'll mount it up for the trip home and post some video later.

Agreed with the helmet camera problems, but the bar mount also misses cars emerging from side roads quite badly, whereas you can acknowledge them with a turn of your head with a helmet mount. Also, my 7dayshop camera vibrated much worse on the bar mount.

My neck is no steadycam, but it results in clearer video than the bar mount! The new camera is 135 degrees, so the wide angle should mean its less affected by camera shake.

 

[morphix]

My HDmax arrived this morning. I've not had much chance to play yet, as i'm in work, but i'll mount it up for the trip home and post some video later.

Agreed with the helmet camera problems, but the bar mount also misses cars emerging from side roads quite badly, whereas you can acknowledge them with a turn of your head with a helmet mount. Also, my 7dayshop camera vibrated much worse on the bar mount.

My neck is no steadycam, but it results in clearer video than the bar mount! The new camera is 135 degrees, so the wide angle should mean its less affected by camera shake.

At this price, why not have two cameras, bar mounted for a continuous road shot and helmet cam for side shots..perhaps you could rig up a switch for the helmet or only use bits of film you want included in the final video..videos will look very professional with the switching camera angles ;-)

 

[allen-uk]

At this price, why not have two cameras, bar mounted for a continuous road shot and helmet cam for side shots..perhaps you could rig up a switch for the helmet or only use bits of film you want included in the final video..videos will look very professional with the switching camera angles ;-)

Well, an alternative to that is Quick Time Pro - it's only about £20 - and then you can cut and mix different clips into one, if you've got time/patience.


A

 

[morphix]

Camera arrived today

My little camera arrived today from 7dayshop...I just unpackaged it and I'm really surprised and impressed by the quality. I wasn't expecting much for £16.99 delivered. It's a really well made camera and an absolute bargain at this price.

The case is anodised aluminium with a little screw cap at the end which protects the USB port and card slot. It's an auto focus / fixed lens camera
and the lens at the front is protected by a plastic cover. There's a Li-ion rechargeable battery inside that charges via the USB port or via a car cigarette lighter with the car charger provided.

It comes with two camera holders, one for mounting on a car windshield and the other for mounting on bicycle handlebar. The windshield mount moves up and down and rotates 360 degrees. There's a handy release lever on the base to detach the camera mount and the camera itself easily pulls out of the holder. The camera unscrews easily from the handlebar mount so can be quickly removed when it's raining.

There's a power on/off switch on the end, and a record/pause button on the top with 4 LED's to show the camera status. It comes with a 4GB micro SD card (for 2 hours recording) which is incredibly tiny. I've never seen one that small.

Tip: If you put an upturned glass on a windowsill the camera can be stuck to that and doubles as a discrete security camera!

 

[Streethawk]

It comes with a 4GB micro SD card (for 2 hours recording) which is incredibly tiny. I've never seen one that small.

I bought a 32gb MicroSD for the HDmax, which is amazing that such a tiny thing can hold 6 or 7 hours of HD video.

I tried uploading the samples last night, but my internet connection dropped twice while i was doing it. Its going to take a while, 3x 500mb videos.

 

[Streethawk]

CamSports HDmax Extreme commute home, in glorious 720p HD

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

[allen-uk]

Just seen Part 1. Quality is certainly impressive, almost no fisheye.

Some questions.

a) don't you have any sort of mirror?

b) how the FECK did you get past that dumper truck? Did your bike breathe in, too? (Up the inside coming towards the red light).

c) why use the pavement on that stretch near the footbridge, where you turned left? (i.e. why not the road?)

d) where were all the people on the long canal path part of the ride? Whenever I go along such short-cuts, they are TEEMING with people, dogs, kids, etc.

But impressive consistent bit of filming.


A.

 

[dmcgoldrick]

My little camera arrived today from 7dayshop...I just unpackaged it and I'm really surprised and impressed by the quality. I wasn't expecting much for £16.99 delivered. It's a really well made camera and an absolute bargain at this price.

The case is anodised aluminium with a little screw cap at the end which protects the USB port and card slot. It's an auto focus / fixed lens camera
and the lens at the front is protected by a plastic cover. There's a Li-ion rechargeable battery inside that charges via the USB port or via a car cigarette lighter with the car charger provided.

It comes with two camera holders, one for mounting on a car windshield and the other for mounting on bicycle handlebar. The windshield mount moves up and down and rotates 360 degrees. There's a handy release lever on the base to detach the camera mount and the camera itself easily pulls out of the holder. The camera unscrews easily from the handlebar mount so can be quickly removed when it's raining.

There's a power on/off switch on the end, and a record/pause button on the top with 4 LED's to show the camera status. It comes with a 4GB micro SD card (for 2 hours recording) which is incredibly tiny. I've never seen one that small.

Tip: If you put an upturned glass on a windowsill the camera can be stuck to that and doubles as a discrete security camera!

me too ! just put it on charge..... will try the streethawk method of fixing to side of helmet.

regards

 

[dmcgoldrick]

CamSports HDmax Extreme commute home, in glorious 720p HD

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

very good quality streethawk....looks like you really got the video bug...
keep posting.....

regards

 

[Streethawk]

Just seen Part 1. Quality is certainly impressive, almost no fisheye.

Some questions.

a) don't you have any sort of mirror?

b) how the FECK did you get past that dumper truck? Did your bike breathe in, too? (Up the inside coming towards the red light).

c) why use the pavement on that stretch near the footbridge, where you turned left? (i.e. why not the road?)

d) where were all the people on the long canal path part of the ride? Whenever I go along such short-cuts, they are TEEMING with people, dogs, kids, etc.

But impressive consistent bit of filming.


A.

A. Nope, i've abandoned all mirrors on the Aurora because i've not found one that works well with it.

B. I leant over the kerb. I don't undertake lorries unless i'm certain they cant move anywhere, and i could see the cars in front and the red light.

C. Experience on that stretch tells me that the drivers tend to squeeze you toward the railings, because the road has been made into two lanes where its really only wide enough for one. Its lethal, so i hop on the pavement.

D. That's a really rough area and doesn't seem to attract any leisure use really.

The quality is actually a LOT better than here, somehow i've screwed it up when editing and got that black border. This is only the 720p mode, the 1080p mode should be higher again, but with the files being so big its hard enough to process 720p so i doubt i'll use 1080 much. I'm planning on doing a proper video review of the camera soon.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

I was going to post a side by side comparison of my two helmet cams. I have the £13 7dayshop one and a £164 (plus £16 memory card) HD wide angle Bullet cam. Guess which one won't work any more? I'm kicking myself now for wasting so much money. I could have had a new motor and controller instead!

 

[Streethawk]

No warranty on it?

The difference between my two is huge. 15x the price, obviously not 15x better, but perhaps 5x better quality.

One big positive on the HDmax... i can read all the car numberplates!

 

[dmcgoldrick]

No warranty on it?

The difference between my two is huge. 15x the price, obviously not 15x better, but perhaps 5x better quality.

One big positive on the HDmax... i can read all the car numberplates!

re the various camcorders....the video quality on 'you tube' will not be noticeable on a normal pc monitor. in fact even pro camcorders will not look very different to small file size web video.
'you tube' greatly compress the files and even the highest quality deteriorates.
i would expect the quality difference of your various camcorders to be huge if projected on a large scale directly from the original file after video editing to mpeg 2 format. have done a lot of work on this for projecting onto various screen sizes including up to full cinema size. big hd files rule !
your new camcorder footage will look great on your 50 inch hd tv........
regards

 

[Streethawk]

re the various camcorders....the video quality on 'you tube' will not be noticeable on a normal pc monitor. in fact even pro camcorders will not look very different to small file size web video.
'you tube' greatly compress the files and even the highest quality deteriorates.
i would expect the quality difference of your various camcorders to be huge if projected on a large scale directly from the original file after video editing to mpeg 2 format. have done a lot of work on this for projecting onto various screen sizes including up to full cinema size. big hd files rule !
your new camcorder footage will look great on your 50 inch hd tv........
regards

Yes, the camera comes with a HDMI cable and it looks jaw dropping on my HDTV.

YouTube does lower the quality quite a lot, it especially seems to have lost sharpness. I'm hoping to improve it a little yet though. I still have huge amounts to learn about video editing, just taking my first few steps here.

 

[dmcgoldrick]

Yes, the camera comes with a HDMI cable and it looks jaw dropping on my HDTV.

YouTube does lower the quality quite a lot, it especially seems to have lost sharpness. I'm hoping to improve it a little yet though. I still have huge amounts to learn about video editing, just taking my first few steps here.

dont want to get into the mac v pc thing, but on mac ,the imovie (included) software and final cut package (this is an extra) make video editing a breeze and the finished quality is professional assuming you have good quality capture equipment. i am using this on a daily basis in the education sector...
i know kids are quick learners with this stuff, but within half an hour tuition they are off producing brilliant video footage from the mac's.

regards

 

[morphix]

CamSports HDmax Extreme commute home, in glorious 720p HD

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Glorious video quality and hardly any camera shake. Head mounting seems a better position than handlebars in that respect, don't get so much bump impact plus you get a nice clear filming angle.

 

[aseb]

I'm still at the 'thinking about it' stage. What just struck me was that you can't make out the car number plates which is a shame. I don't think I've read of where they have proved being worthwhile yet- apart from some drivers seem to take more care. Maybe I'll wait......

 

[Streethawk]

All the numberplates are readable before the video is compressed by YouTube.

 

[Streethawk]

15 minutes of 1080p footage uploading now... so the detail should be much better, its very good before YouTube gets it anyway.

2.4gb 160 mins to upload on my fast connection!