Thinking of Upgrading the Muvi to a ...

[Armegatron]

Well Im not sure what to get. Ive had another "incident" tonight and the Muvi was not rolling due to its low battery life. Combine that with the lack of waterproofing and Im thinking of ditching it for something better. Also my (now onto a second) Muvi seems to have fogged up lately.

I like the design of the X170 non HD version but Im off put by the fact that Im paying alot for not much gain apart from the wide angle. On the otherhand the GoPro 960 looks amazing for a little extra cost but I hate the design and menu system. However, Ive noticed Gadget show etc all use the GoPro cameras so they cant be that bad.

Ive done some reading on the GoPro's and it looks like the early AA powered ones have problems when getting 50% battery and cutting out - but Im not sure whether this has been fixed with the 960 version as it uses a "lithuanian battery" (as my mother calls it).

Does anyone have any feedback on the 960 version and this battery problem?

Thanks guys!

Mike

 

[gaz]

Both Origamist and bentmikey use a gopro but the full 1080p one. I think gb155 uses the 960p model.

My personal preference is the ContourHD, it appears to be slightly better at night and the better helmet mount / shape is a bonus.
Having said that, the drift cameras are good.
I suggest looking at the reviews that svengalie has done. He has got his hands on every helmet camera out there that is worth testing and he makes some great points about all of them!

 

[Simon_m]

both very pricey. I see muvi are releasing new models, a muvi004 is just below the £50 mark. I hada cheap plastic clone and he battery went down hill after 3months of use. Although it was only £10. Are the official muvi's any better?

 

[Armegatron]

Both Origamist and bentmikey use a gopro but the full 1080p one. I think gb155 uses the 960p model.

My personal preference is the ContourHD, it appears to be slightly better at night and the better helmet mount / shape is a bonus.
Having said that, the drift cameras are good.
I suggest looking at the reviews that svengalie has done. He has got his hands on every helmet camera out there that is worth testing and he makes some great points about all of them!

Cheers Gaz. Ive looked at the reviews and it seems the 1080 and the 960 models both use a lithium battery so thats probably resolved this low battery cut off issue.

both very pricey. I see muvi are releasing new models, a muvi004 is just below the £50 mark. I hada cheap plastic clone and he battery went down hill after 3months of use. Although it was only £10. Are the official muvi's any better?

Ive not been that impressed with how my muvi has lasted to be honest. Ive had 2 and it seems that they have both deteriorated in quality, although it is watchable plates are much more blury which defeats the purpose. I really should get back into the habit of shouting the plates out lol. My main gripe is the lack of waterproofing so I feel uneasy riding in the rain without the camera as backup, although I see the waterproof case is only £20 now so Ill buy one of them to see how it affects quality and reasses it from there.

I have a clone for the rear, and in daytime its quality now surpasses my deteriorated Muvi, although night time quality is awful but enough to capture headlights which in my case last night was enough for the officer to acertain who was at fault. Again its not waterproof but Ive made a resistant case for it which seems to do the job. Batterywise I swapped out the 270mAh battery for a 750mAh battery which gives about 8 hours battery, about 2-3 hours recording on an 8GB card.

Well, I think my minds made up. Buy waterproof case for Muvi, make sure I keep it charged when I get to uni, see how I manage from there. If Im still having problems Ill head down the GoPro 960 route.

Cheers guys!

 

[gaz]

Like I said, I have the contourhd 1080p and I actually run it in 960p mode. This is so I get a taller image and more detail. If you choose the 960p gopro you will not be disappointed!

 

[Redvers]

I’m on my second Muvi cam and debating whether to go for a third or to upgrade to something with a replaceable lithium battery.


I haven’t had the problems with the 2 Muvi cams that a lot of people complain of but I have found that slowly over about 18 months or so of regular use the battery deteriorates from giving about 2.5 hours of use down to now on the older one only about 15 minutes.
It seems to me that the camera itself is fine, it just needs the battery replacing.


I hate waste and lithium is really not the sort of thing to be going into land fill sites. These companies that produce products with built in batteries really should be offering some kind of service to replace the battery or refurb used kit.
I have emailed Veho about this but I didn’t even receive a reply, perhaps an indication of their level of customer service.


The Contours and Gopros are better cameras than the current range of Muvis but I don’t often wear a helmet and the current crop of bar mounts are bulky and still vibrate badly most of the time. The Muvi design is great for just clipping on to a backpack shoulder strap which means that you never leave the camera on the bike. Also I don’t particularly want it to be obvious that I am using a camera.


So like Mike I am not sure which way to go and would welcome any new ideas.

 

[downfader]

Thinking of getting a new cam myself. Prolly wont be a Drift though as the video format is too fiddly. The HQ2 has served me well but I want something else and more compact. I want to mount my cam up high or on helmet. This is the one I've considered:

http://www.dogcamspo...let-camera.html

ContourHD is still on the list.

BTW watch this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/winter_sports/9363478.stm

 

[Simon_m]

still pretty chunky. has anyone tried changing a muvi battery, is it even possible? like redvers was saying, the cameras work fine, its jst the batteries

 

[gaz]

The Contours and Gopros are better cameras than the current range of Muvis but I don’t often wear a helmet and the current crop of bar mounts are bulky and still vibrate badly most of the time.

Only if you mount them badly.

Example, my rear contourHD is mounted to my frame, no vibrations even when going over bumps at 40mph - http://www.youtube.c...h?v=F8hc2i-gbTo
Origamist has his gopro mounted on his stem, and the picture is crisp and clear. - http://www.youtube.com/mrorigamist

 

[Origamist]

The Contours and Gopros are better cameras than the current range of Muvis but I don’t often wear a helmet and the current crop of bar mounts are bulky and still vibrate badly most of the time. The Muvi design is great for just clipping on to a backpack shoulder strap which means that you never leave the camera on the bike. Also I don’t particularly want it to be obvious that I am using a camera.


So like Mike I am not sure which way to go and would welcome any new ideas.

If you mount the GoPro on your stem (using the roll bar mount) and wrap bar tapearound the stem (to absorb road vibrations) you get very little wobble/distortion - particularly if you use the 720/60fps setting.

 

[Redvers]

Only if you mount them badly.

Example, my rear contourHD is mounted to my frame, no vibrations even when going over bumps at 40mph - http://www.youtube.c...h?v=F8hc2i-gbTo
Origamist has his gopro mounted on his stem, and the picture is crisp and clear. - http://www.youtube.com/mrorigamisthttp://www.youtube.com/mrorigamist

I must admit that the video clips are convincing, maybe it’s worth my reappraising the humble bar mount or maybe Gaz and Origamist just cruise along beautifully laid un-pot-holed roads.

Seriously though I find the bar mount a bit low after videoing from the shoulder for a couple of years now.

It’s also nice to not to have to think about unclipping expensive kit every time you get off the bike. A friend left his Garmin 500 on his bike for no more than 30 seconds recently and it was gone!

 

[DrSquirrel]

Personally I don't like the shape of the Muvi, but tis what I use.

GoPro also has a dodgy shape for helmet mounting, and I find the contour too bit.

At the moment there are 2 options that include HD...

http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/dogcam-bullet-hd-camera.html
Good price (£100), small, not wide angled, good shape (bullet) for helmet mounting - cheap HD is going to be of dubious quality of course, but should be a bit better than the muvi at least. Personally I am not impressed by the pan shots with it and hope to see more sample videos sometime. Oh bonus is this is submersible underwater!

http://hedcamz.com/BulletHDcam
Bit more expensive compared to the above (£165), a little bigger but still smaller than a contour, wide angle and the obvious bullet shape again - same "cheap HD" issues, seems a bit better with motion from the samples, a little washed out colour wise. Says waterproof to the point of submersion but not exactly touting it as something you can dive with (not that it couldn't would like to find out).


http://www.dogcamsport.co.uk/HDS-720p-bullet-camera.html
£230 for the price id rather this over the contour mainly for size granted I cannot personally justify this amount atm.

 

[semislickstick]

There are a couple of Muvi HD's HD7 and HD10. A couple of clips on youtube(a guy hang gliding up't north & a small clip on South Africa Action Camers website. It has a 160 degree wide angle lens.
Seem to go for about £100 - £140.

I can't find too much footage or anything that shows how it performs at night.

 

[DrSquirrel]

I forgot the Muvi HD, for the price it looks nice... wireless LANC too. Problem with it though is it's not water proof at all you can get a case but this makes it even bigger, and the screen makes the device a lot larger than the original muvi to start with.