Need Advice on Camcorders

Looking to get a POV video cam for skiing, boating, motorbiking, etc.

Any experience with either GoPro HD, Contour HD or VIO POV is appreciated.  Also ease of editing is important, for example, Contour's native output is .mov which means possibly converting codecs before editing, depending on your software.  Right now I'm leaning toward the VIO POV HD.

Also looking for a quality hand held camcorder, choosing among Canon HF-S21, Panasonic HDC TM700 and Sony HCR-CX550.

Thanks for any input.

GoPro's have far better sound quality, and the footage is a little more crisp. However, I think they look goofy as hell and they seem a bit more exposed than a contour.

Contours are cheaper (I think?). The GPS model is awesome. when you watch your video it pulls up something like Google earth and it shows you your line, top speed, change in elevation, stuff like that. Also, you can adjust the brightness/contrast/hue through bluetooth and your phone. It may have to be a smartphone, though. Contours are very easy to use and have nice conveniences. For example, when you turn it on, it beeps once letting you know it's on. To start recording, it's a big sliding switch which you can use with your gloves on. Same beep alert to let you know it's filming. Also, they have two red lasers around the lens, so you can level the camera by looking at something with the lasers on.

They both shoot in .mov. What are you editing the footage with? If you're just using Windows Movie Maker (which I assume because you said you might have codec issues), it's going to KILL the video quality.

If you're not set on 1080p, check out the Jonescam. It films in 720p, is about the size of a tube of chapstick, and it's locally owned. Jonesy, the guy who makes them, is up at Gore just about every weekend. Just look for the black guy.
These have been around for 10-15 years. When you see POV cams in monster trucks they are usually his. There is some movie that I can't think of where the main character has one on the side of his head. They're MUCH cheaper than GoPros and Contours. $180

http://www.jonescam.tv/products/helmet-cameras/

As for the handheld, what are you looking for? HD or SD? Tapes or Hard Drive? Do you have a laptop or desktop?

A few years ago I would have told you to stay away from HDD (hard disk drive, not hi-def), but from what I hear they're getting a lot better. Tapes are a pain because you need a Firewire port to capture footage and you have to capture at the speed of watching it.. HDD you just connect with a cord, copy & paste.

I ask laptop or desktop because laptops, for the most part (expect Macs), don't have a firewire port. PCs have PCI slots where you can put one in if you don't already have it. This is only an issue if you're looking to use tape.

A few years ago, the best bang-for-your-buck was a Canon HV30. 1080p resolution, small, good colors, and reasonably priced. I got mine for $500 (refurbished) off of tigerdirect.com. I'm not sure what they go for now. They record to tapes or MiniSD cards (which I have a hard time finding, so you would need a MicroSD and an adapter. One of my friends is selling an HV20, if you're interested I can see how much he wants for it. It would be shipping from Salt Lake City, though.

Here's a camera I heard about recently that sounds awesome. under $750, 32gb SSD, 3 MOS sensor, 1920x1080
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&SID=&sku=674275&AID=10655283&PID=3741077&is=REG&A=details&Q=

Fuj is all over this.

Oddly enough, the best place to research this sort of stuff is on Newschoolers.com.  Those teenagers know what they're talking about when it comes to skiing video technology.

Thx, Fuj, good info, good questions:

I have Nero editing suite, which I hate and plan to replace with whatever makes the most sense.  I have both desktop and laptop PCs and the desktop is due for replacement.  I know if I am going to do more HD editing I need more horsepower, be it Mac or PC.  Definitely looking for a full HD camera.

The things which appeal to me about the VIO are the looping feature, remote controlled clip and tagging ability, plus in-field adjustments by viewing a tethered 2" LCD display. It's twice the GoPro price, but I think it's worth it. Some of the VIO features are not as important for skiing, but more important for trail bike riding, road biking and other activities I want it for.  Also the VIO does native 1080p with no upscaling on output as the other two cameras do - and plugs into the TV directly (maybe the others do, as well).  The reviews on the trail bike rider forums and Youtube show crashes where the VIO always comes out undamaged (although the rider gets a POV bruise).

On the hand-held, I'm indifferent to the hard drive or removable memory as long as you can edit off camera.  That Panasonic TM700 got great reviews and the current version is the TM700K.   That's a tough decision among the Sony, Canon and Panasonic.

Nick has a gopro and he loves it. Great sound and video quality and very, very easy to set up and use. Runs for 2.5 hours straight on one charge and hold a ton of video or images depending on the size of the memory card you have.

mattchuck2 wrote

Oddly enough, the best place to research this sort of stuff is on Newschoolers.com.  Those teenagers know what they're talking about when it comes to skiing video technology.

Yes and no. I say no because 99% of them will say GoPro and if you contest them, they will fight 'til the death (advertising/trendwhores). I say yes because I think the GoPro is the most durable and has the highest picture quality.

Macs are great and all, but they're just expensive. I was originally going to get a 15" MacBook Pro*  for school and was pricing them out. The one I wanted was around $1600 and had decent specs (i5, 320gb HD, 4gb RAM), but was just too expensive. I went to Craigslist and found an RPI student trying to sell his 1.5 year old MBP for $950. I told him I was in PA, but would be by in two days to buy it. Called him to ask when I should come down, he said it was gone. Damn.

*Mac has been waiting for USB 3.0 to come out for a while, so the regular Macbooks no longer come with a firewire port. The MacBook Pro has a Firewire 800

After realizing buying a new one would be way too much money for sub-par specs, I just dropped close to the same amount of money for a much more powerful machine. (i7, 500gb 7200 RPM HD, 6gb RAM, ATI Radeon graphics w/ 1gb dedicated memory, a 6 cell and 9 cell battery) $1200.

I run a lot of physically demanding programs, and they've all held up fine. I have the Adobe CS5 Master Collection, Autodesk Revit Architecture, Autodesk Inventor, and AutoCAD. With the exception of AutoCAD (which is probably because it's the student version), they all run very smoothly.

Ok back on topic. Yes, editing HD takes quite a bit of memory from your computer. You'll probably need a minimum of 4gb RAM and 2.0gHz processor to run things smoothly. The biggest concern, though, is hard drive space. Uncompressed HD footage runs about 9gb per minute. External hds are good, but I think an internal is much more reliable. It's a lot faster, too.

I've never used Nero, but I'm pretty sure it's no better than Windows Movie Maker. Possibly on par with iMovie. Good editing software is Sony Vegas, Adobe Premier Pro, and Apple Final Cut (express or pro). Buying them retail is very expensive (~$500-$1000), but if you could find a student discount, that helps a LOT. You can get them off the internet for free, but I think there's a word for that...

I didn't comment on the VIO because I have never heard anything about it. I can tell you that Contours and GoPros are very durable as well. GoPro just came out with a clip-on LCD viewer to review the footage, but I don't think that it has live view capabilities.

I got the V.I.O. POV HD. Haven't really skied with it yet. Season has changed so this is a test on the goggle mount on the trail bike last weekend. So far I really like it. Unfortunately, Youtube has all these video artifacts on the HD file I uploaded, which I can't figure out why. There is a great loop feature and remote wrist control that makes it easier to record only interesting clips without wasting a lot of video time and storage on the SD card.

Nice Stall

I spied Spring Street Deli!

You bad boy.....skirting traffic and watching that chic at the crosswalk stroll away.

Wish the woods around here were that bare so I could ride my quad. Soon.

Snowballs wrote

You bad boy.....skirting traffic and watching that chic at the crosswalk stroll away.

I thought that was among the reasons to ride motorcycles.....women, breaking the law, etc.