Oops! I had a slip...

[goo_mason]

He's turning into the Spielberg of the helmet-cam world!

Hope you manage to sell your other stuff to cover the cost, else I fear Mrs B will be selling your bikes (the root cause of all the extra expense)

OTOH - maybe you could sell your services as a cameraman to cycling groups / clubs and tag along on their rides filming them and creating souvenir DVDs for lots of cash?

 

[magnatom]

He's turning into the Spielberg of the helmet-cam world!

Hope you manage to sell your other stuff to cover the cost, else I fear Mrs B will be selling your bikes (the root cause of all the extra expense)

OTOH - maybe you could sell your services as a cameraman to cycling groups / clubs and tag along on their rides filming them and creating souvenir DVDs for lots of cash?

That assumes I can keep up!

 

[GrasB]

But it's not that simple. With the higher efficiency of mpeg4 codecs you may well find that the higher number of keyframes used outweighs mpeg2s fast motion advantage. mpeg4 from pure keyframes takes mpeg2 to the cleaners for fastmotion video.

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

But it's not that simple. With the higher efficiency of mpeg4 codecs you may well find that the higher number of keyframes used outweighs mpeg2s fast motion advantage. mpeg4 from pure keyframes takes mpeg2 to the cleaners for fastmotion video.

I nearly said all that, but then actually realised my head would have exploded.

 

[BentMikey]

I suspect though, that the end user reviews and writeups that Magnatom is basing his choice on are probably right though, whatever the reason for the better quality from the setup he has chosen.

 

[magnatom]

But it's not that simple. With the higher efficiency of mpeg4 codecs you may well find that the higher number of keyframes used outweighs mpeg2s fast motion advantage. mpeg4 from pure keyframes takes mpeg2 to the cleaners for fastmotion video.

If that is the case I'll just use the MPEG4 codec!

I notice it also has a connector for GPS. Mmm. That could be interesting.

(Blimey, I'm such a geek!)

 

[GrasB]

BM, you're right there are so many variables that mpeg2 v's mpeg4 is a fairly minor issue. If a higher quality encoding engine is used on one or the other you can wipe out most of the difference as well. The difference between x.264 & xvid for instance is quite big but both are mpeg4 codecs.

magnatom, I'd try things out. There are so many variables it's hard to say which will work best. As I said it's not that simple.

 

[magnatom]

BM, you're right there are so many variables that mpeg2 v's mpeg4 is a fairly minor issue. If a higher quality encoding engine is used on one or the other you can wipe out most of the difference as well. The difference between x.264 & xvid for instance is quite big but both are mpeg4 codecs.

Fairy nuff. I suspect that the encoding engine is better.

What we need is for a cyclist, who is a regular commuter, and has a helmet camera to run some tests on equipment provided by one of the helmet camera resellers. Mmm. Who would be capable, and willing to do that.....?

 

[Sh4rkyBloke]

Fairy nuff. I suspect that the encoding engine is better.

What we need is for a cyclist, who is a regular commuter, and has a helmet camera to run some tests on equipment provided by one of the helmet camera resellers. Mmm. Who would be capable, and willing to do that.....?

Wouldn't most of us want to see how it coped with high speed action though?

 

[magnatom]

Wouldn't most of us want to see how it coped with high speed action though?

I was waiting for that!

 

[GrasB]

Depends what you define as fast motion.... I'd be happy to run a +40mph test down the local descents.

 

[Jezston]

I'd imagine that encoding to MPEG2 is a much less intensive process, so on the simple processing capabilities of such a device it might handle MPEG2 better than MPEG4, and also get better battery life.

I'll shut up now.

 

[GrasB]

Very true. I was thinking about the recording unit in my Exige of course this has 1.5TB of storage & doesn't need to really worry about power usage with a 70A alternator to draw on.

 

[Crankarm]

Of course with all the extra information being written to the memory card using high resolution, a good one is going to be needed with a suitably high write speed and huge reservoir of memory. How about this SD card?

http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SDXC/Panasonic/Panasonic-SDXC-Card---Class-10

It's not cheap .......... yet.

I saw the Veho 003 Muvi DV cam was on Amazon for £49.99 a few days ago. This offer has now ended so presumably they ran out of them at that price. Many of the reviewers say they are not at all waterproof which seems a bit pointless if using for cycling, running, watersports or skiing.