A good helmet camera?

[Jezston]

Maybe I should work this out:

Highest Quality - 720p 60fps (this uses the most memory) = 7min per GB (1080p @ 30fps gives 8 min per GB)

= 146mb per minute

= 2.4mb per second

Thus Class 2 will be good enough ... for everything other than Action HD.

Thus Class 4 will be good enough for everything. As long as the card actually is class 4.

I'll get a branded card off Amazon directly and should be fine!

 

[BSRU]

Maybe I should work this out:

Highest Quality - 720p 60fps (this uses the most memory) = 7min per GB (1080p @ 30fps gives 8 min per GB)

= 146mb per minute

= 2.4mb per second

Thus Class 2 will be good enough ... for everything other than Action HD.

Thus Class 4 will be good enough for everything. As long as the card actually is class 4.

I'll get a branded card off Amazon directly and should be fine!

I find when I use 1080p I get about 10 minutes per GB.

 

[gaz]

What sort of file does the camera create?

Before you upload to you tube do you compress or convert the file in any way?

Or would you for instance upload a 500mb file for a 5 minute film, if so how long does the upload take?

It uses a h.264 codec in a .mov container.

the second question is dependant on how people edit and upload their files. I personally do compress it slightly to make a smaller file.

My latest silly cyclists video was 6mins long and a total of 688.3mb in size after compression. But note this has lots of layers, graphics, transitions and additional audio. For me it took around 40mins to upload to youtube. BUT upload speeds are totally depending on your connection and the upload speed that your ISP gives you. I have a relatively good upload speed of around 1.5Mb/s

 

[Rezillo]

The mov container can be a bit of a pain when it comes to playback on other devices. As it has h264 content, simply renaming mov to mp4 can be enough for it to work. However, this does not fool a PS3 or my phone.

There is an easy answer and that is to use software that repackages the content into an mp4 container. This does not re-render it, so the quality stays the same, and it doesn't take hours to do - usually just a couple of minutes. It then plays back on just about anything. The only downside is that if you have a Contour gps or +, you lose the gps content.

There are several programs that do this but this one is as good as any and is very easy to use. Yamb download . Pick the 'recommended download' with installer.

John

 

[BSRU]

What sort of file does the camera create?

Before you upload to you tube do you compress or convert the file in any way?

Or would you for instance upload a 500mb file for a 5 minute film, if so how long does the upload take?

The camera produces a h.264 quicktime mov file, I always re-render with Power Director as, I do not know if it is still true, YouTube does not like quicktime mov files.
I normally re-render as mpeg2 files, it does make large files and the upload is quite long, depending on how slow YouTube is, I also find it faster to upload from Firefox, Chrome is alot slower.

 

[gaz]

I do not know if it is still true, YouTube does not like quicktime mov files.

in what way? I've never experienced problems with mov files.

 

[BSRU]

in what way? I've never experienced problems with mov files.

I think when I checked which formats it accepted .mov was not one of them, but it was a long time ago so I may have just remembered incorrectly.

 

[daSmirnov]

Like gaz said, it's H.264 with AAC audio, in a .mov container. Windows 7 will play it out of the box (without QuickTime installed) and Windows Live Movie Maker will happily edit it (without QuickTime installed).

You typically won't upload the original .mov to YouTube, but either way YouTube handles H.264 and AAC fine, although when I stick mine through Vegas I usually encode them as WMV9/VC-1 as the built in encoder has a few more options than the H.264 on average 12mbps, so slightly down from the originals around 15mbps but by the time YouTube messes with it, it won't matter much. For other video stuff where I used to use Expression Encoder and encode to H.264 YouTube didn't have any problems re-encoding. At the end of the day it's just H.264 in a .mov container, mov is just a container like an AVI can hold divx/xvid/mpeg or other formats.

My PS3 won't play them over the network, not sure what the deal with that is maybe it only supports some H.264/AAC profiles, although actually I recall Premiere only reading the files as audio too, but I didn't investigate further and just used Vegas. After being renamed to .mp4 my Xbox 360 and Windows Phone plays them alright. I'm in the habit of renaming them to .mp4 anyway as it's a more appropriate extension for what the files contain, plus that way when the other half turns around and wants to watch something on the telly, I've got some choice content available on demand.

 

[gaz]

ContourROAM came out today. contemplating getting this as my next camera and not the +.

The + has lots of features that I don't require but the ROAM has everything I want from the +. Only downside i think is the battery

 

[benb]

ContourROAM came out today. contemplating getting this as my next camera and not the +.

The + has lots of features that I don't require but the ROAM has everything I want from the +. Only downside i think is the battery

What are the main differences?

 

[BSRU]

What are the main differences?

Contour's Comparison

 

[Origamist]

Contour's Comparison

Good battery life and waterproof are two pluses when compared to the + and GPS, but I note it will not record at 50/60fps.

 

[BSRU]

Good battery life and waterproof are two pluses when compared to the + and GPS, but I note it will not record at 50/60fps.

I was disappointed to discover that the Plus could not cope with a downpour without letting water in behind the lens cover, my 1080p's never had this problem even if far worse rain storms.

 

[Cordulegaster]

B*****r. It is always the same with electronics. You review the market, decide on which compromises to make, take the plunge and just after the point of no return a better gizmo is launched! ;-(

Glyn

 

[john stocks]

i have the Raider Action Camera Ten worth the money but some things wrong with the time stamp.won't stay at the right day and time.

http://www.youtube.com/user/spirit18471?feature=mhee