ContourHD – HD Helmet Camera by VholdR
ContourHD – HD Helmet Camera by VholdR
ContourHD is the world’s first High Definition wearable camcorder that combines amazing video clarity (choose between High Definition or High Action), a wide-angle lens (135 degrees), single-button simplicity, and a click to share online experience.
Perfected for outdoor use, ContourHD can switch between crisp HD quality video (captured at 30 frames per second) or SD quality video (captured at 60 frames per second). This camera is the ideal complement to your outdoor gear with its all-in-one design ContourHD has no wires or separate recorder. Instead it records up to 8 hours of HD video to its own internal memory card (compatible with up to a 16GB microSD card). It’s light (4 ounces) but armored aluminum body enables you to capture video in any weather conditions. ContourHD’s Trail Mounts seamlessly attach the camera to your body, helmet, goggles, or vehicle for hands-free recording.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Broken
The camera is small, so portability is great. It is also priced well. I bought the windshield mount for my car, and it mounts fine. Picture quality in the wide angle mode looks bad (I don’t remember the mode name), too much like a bubble. The other video mode worked great, except for 2 things. 1) The audio recording was broken on my camera. There were only faint sounds, or no audio at all. 2) The color recording broke after two days, trying to record after that only recorded completely distorted colors. It could be a good camera if you get one that works. As the other reviewer mentioned, another bad thing is that there is no lens cap or cover.
2 Stars A bit dissapointed
I use this camera for Mountain Biking and the picture is not bad if you can find a program that plays it. The software (easy edit) is horrible. I view it on real player and am not able to edit it at all.
It is also odd to sell a $250 camera and send a cheap $1 helmet mount, expecting people to pay another $25 for a strapped vented mount. The glue on the stick on mounts were unusable in my packet and when the company was called they offered for me to purchase another mount on line.
Too bad not a lot of thinking went into the “whole” package because the picture it delivers is quite good.
4 Stars Great product for the price
PROS: Rugged, Easy to Use, Alignment lasers are useful, Easy to load videos to PC, Great battery life, Simple twist-to-level, High resolution
CONS: Set viewing angle…doesn’t work well for recording anything more than 40 feet away, Rear cover is easily opened inadvertently while turning the camera on, Mounting hardware doesn’t work well on curved surfaces or non-helmet objects. Editing software is VERY basic.
The flat disk mount sticks well, but trying to detach the camera from the mount is dicey. It feels like the mount could break at any moment (though it hasn’t). I worked up a strap wrapped around my ear protection muffs…not ideal, but you can see the results here:
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These are recorded in 720P, which is more than adequate. Recording at 1080p is overkill, and results in a choppier image. Overall, it works as advertised and I plan to be recording and posting videos for a long time using this product. Be sure to check for the latest verson of the camera firmware and software on the vholdr website. When I updated the firmware, I found added functionality for tuning the recordin brightness, contrast, volume, etc. Very helpful.
1 Stars You will loose your records (motorcycle)
It is a good camera I like it very much except for the fact that many of my records were lost.
I have some movies taken from my gsx-r 600 by this camera and those which were recorded properly (example: [...] or if this link was removed by amazon, search for: [...]) are quite good however in some cases after stopping and checking the camera I learned that it stuck on recording and only by temporarily removing the battery will reset the camera.
In this case the recorded video is still on the memory card (I bought a 8g sd card) but it is not accessible and I only can delete it. I can’t copy it to my hard drive and there is no way to fix the movie by any means (by any software I know).
The downloadable video editor from the contourhd site work on my office pc but fails with no error message on my home pc, most likely because I have a web cam at home and the software fails to detect this camera properly.
As to the fact that I bought 2 contourHD 1080p I’m very disappointed and I don’t recommend it for those who need a camera which can take vibration.
This one obviously can’t.
5 Stars Great for outdoors sports
The camera is perfect for what it is designed for: outdoor sports. I’ve used it skiing and biking, worked great.
Cons: There are a few caveats though. The sensor is not very sensitive so no night filming for you. During the day it is great. While skiing I’ve had the microphone stop working once in a while, it’s either the cold or snow from my gloves blocked the hole.
Pros: Battery lasts long and is chargeable with any USB complaint charger, I’ve used my iphone’s and also GPS’s. Head mounting is the way to go to reduce shake, it’s way better than mounting any camera onto a bike’s handle bar.
Future: It would be great to have wireless access to the camera, to get the live video feed and also to control, say, start and stop. Having ad-hock wireless network and feeding the video directly onto an iphone would be a blast!
Filed under: Mountain Bike Reviews