Which helmet cam ?

Twostage

Had another smidsy yesterday, white van man, caught up with him and pointed out his mistake. He was very apologetic but still he nearly forced me off the road. Made me seriously consider getting a helmet cam in case I need it as evidence (third time unlucky). Not wanting to put up YouTube videos.
I'll have a look in the usual places but I'd like recommendations from existing users.

I'm from Yorkshire originally so it needs to be good value. It must also record continuously and stop when the memory is full rather than overwrite old stuff. Don't think HD is essential.

All suggestions welcome.

gaz545

If you don't want HD then i would get a veho muvi, around £50 and many cyclists use them. Only issue is the poor mounting options for cyclists and the small field of view (Around 70 degrees i think)

optimisticbiker

This one



£15 plus a 8Gb microSD card @ £10 (or £7 from Savastore), records 720x480 @30fps in 5min chunks for about 2h on a single charge

Not great wide angle but works well enough. Comes with handlebar mount, but form-factor is easy to tape to helmet or make a mounting...

jeremyrundle

Have you checked out the countless previous posts on this on the forum, £9 ebay.

I use them

http://sirpatrickmooresales.co.uk/Ourpage.aspx

Twostage

OptimisticBiker wrote:

This one



£15 plus a 8Gb microSD card @ £10 (or £7 from Savastore), records 720x480 @30fps in 5min chunks for about 2h on a single charge

Not great wide angle but works well enough. Comes with handlebar mount, but form-factor is easy to tape to helmet or make a mounting...

Watched the review, it records over previous files when it runs out of space. I'd hate to lose footage if I forgot to switch it off (or was not capable due to an incident). I suppose a big enough memory card and running out of battery could substitute. It also has a two second gap between each five minutes of recording. In the review the two second gap misses recording an incident. Have you missed anything because of this ?

I like the price though.

neilvx

I have just dug out my MD80 clone

Twostage

jeremyrundle wrote:

Have you checked out the countless previous posts on this on the forum, £9 ebay.

I use them

http://sirpatrickmooresales.co.uk/Ourpage.aspx

What model are the £8 jobbies you refer to on your webpage ? I think I'd prefer 'bullet' style.

neilvx

Twostage wrote:

jeremyrundle wrote:

Have you checked out the countless previous posts on this on the forum, £9 ebay.

I use them

http://sirpatrickmooresales.co.uk/Ourpage.aspx

What model are the £8 jobbies you refer to on your webpage ? I think I'd prefer 'bullet' style.

MD80 clones

Twostage

Anyone got one of these :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-DVR-Helmet-C ... 4191wt_922

They state it is waterproof which is probably an advantage.

cloggsy

What about a #11 808 720p HD camera?

I'm going to buy one after I get paid as I've had quite a few encounters with idiots this month, so I seriously need to start recording my commutes...

See this review of the #11 808 cam

optimisticbiker

Twostage wrote:

Anyone got one of these :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-DVR-Helmet-C ... 4191wt_922

They state it is waterproof which is probably an advantage.

I suspect thats the same innards as the one I suggested with a different case/lens. Interesting bits are the stated 70deg wide angle... and the waterproofness...

tad more expensive but does have the helmet strap as well....

gaz545

Buy a cheap camera and you get one major problem. CRAP mounts.
The mounting is the key to getting a good picture. Your evidence will be worthless if the image is just bouncing around all over the place. Think about that before you purchase any camera.

optimisticbiker

gaz545 wrote:

Buy a cheap camera and you get one major problem. CRAP mounts.
The mounting is the key to getting a good picture. Your evidence will be worthless if the image is just bouncing around all over the place. Think about that before you purchase any camera.

Which is why I have made my own helmet mount and the pictures are pretty stable... mounting rigidly to a helmet which is strapped on properly so it doesnt move is pretty effective, as your head is a self stabilizing mount most of the time... mounting onto the handlebars is the worst IMHO cos they're all over the place (well mine are, lol). A frame mount over the front wheel might work well if its rigid enough and has some shock absorbing foam in there somewhere....

gb155

Biker, some good videos there, are they taken with that cam from that link ?

optimisticbiker

gb155 wrote:

Biker, some good videos there, are they taken with that cam from that link ?

Thanks, they were taken with the Dv007 keyfob camera, which is the same innards electrically and optically as the other one (I have one of those as well, not posted any video from it as not had a reason to yet lol). The differences are:
the tubular one:
- is a better form factor to mount but
- is more obvious
- has later firmware which records in 5min chunks (with 3 sec gaps) until the battery runs out - about 2.5h so far, which doesnt fill a 16G card, but an 8G card will give you the last 1h50min approx,

the DV007 keycam
- less obtrusive, but
- harder to mount
- records a maximum of 4Gbytes and then stops (about 54min)
- has a shorter battery life (about 70min, but you never can record that long)

The DV808 keycam has similar firmware to the tubular but has the limited battery life of course (physcial limitation of how big a battery you can get in there)

Twostage

cloggsy wrote:

What about a #11 808 720p HD camera?

I'm going to buy one after I get paid as I've had quite a few encounters with idiots this month, so I seriously need to start recording my commutes...

See this review of the #11 808 cam

Looks really good but only records for 40 minutes. I checked the website where someone has done a review of all of the range but doesn't say if the non-hd models have better battery life.

Twostage

OptimisticBiker wrote:

Twostage wrote:

Anyone got one of these :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-DVR-Helmet-C ... 4191wt_922

They state it is waterproof which is probably an advantage.

I suspect thats the same innards as the one I suggested with a different case/lens. Interesting bits are the stated 70deg wide angle... and the waterproofness...

tad more expensive but does have the helmet strap as well....

I've asked them if it records in chunks or one continuous file.
I'm beginning to think that I'm going to have to compromise here. That's life I suppose.

Twostage

Slightly OT. The Missus was at a horse riding event today and someone was renting helmet cams to the competitors. Apparently everyone who rented one fell off so there should be some good footage one YouTube shortly. They were charging £30 a go plus another £20 to transfer the footage to a DVD.
Neat little business.

optimisticbiker

Twostage wrote:

cloggsy wrote:

What about a #11 808 720p HD camera?

I'm going to buy one after I get paid as I've had quite a few encounters with idiots this month, so I seriously need to start recording my commutes...

See this review of the #11 808 cam

Looks really good but only records for 40 minutes. I checked the website where someone has done a review of all of the range but doesn't say if the non-hd models have better battery life.

Unlikely as the non-HD ones are older technology as well. Anyway, the keycam style are limited by the battery size... its a 240mAH in those ... so all keycam style are going to have a similar battery life.... the tubular one has a 400mAH battery

Twostage

Twostage wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

Twostage wrote:

Anyone got one of these :-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mini-DVR-Helmet-C ... 4191wt_922

They state it is waterproof which is probably an advantage.

I suspect thats the same innards as the one I suggested with a different case/lens. Interesting bits are the stated 70deg wide angle... and the waterproofness...

tad more expensive but does have the helmet strap as well....

I've asked them if it records in chunks or one continuous file.
I'm beginning to think that I'm going to have to compromise here. That's life I suppose.

Got a reply. It records in chunks so it probably is the same guts with a waterproof exterior. Wonder if that makes much difference ?

Kieran_Burns

OptimisticBiker wrote:

gaz545 wrote:

Buy a cheap camera and you get one major problem. CRAP mounts.
The mounting is the key to getting a good picture. Your evidence will be worthless if the image is just bouncing around all over the place. Think about that before you purchase any camera.

Which is why I have made my own helmet mount and the pictures are pretty stable... mounting rigidly to a helmet which is strapped on properly so it doesnt move is pretty effective, as your head is a self stabilizing mount most of the time... mounting onto the handlebars is the worst IMHO cos they're all over the place (well mine are, lol). A frame mount over the front wheel might work well if its rigid enough and has some shock absorbing foam in there somewhere....

Ummmm.... quite a few of my vids look like Stevie Wonder is riding my bike, so don't be completely sure about that :oops:

cyclingpast

I'm sorely tempted to go with this one:

http://www.veho-uk.com/main/shop_detail ... rticle=161

Only £136 on play.com, and it's full HD with an increased bit rate compared to the other Muvi HDs. That and Veho seem to be fairly good with customer service on amazon, responding to reviews and the like. Any thoughts?

DF33

OptimisticBiker wrote:

This one



£15 plus a 8Gb microSD card @ £10 (or £7 from Savastore), records 720x480 @30fps in 5min chunks for about 2h on a single charge

Not great wide angle but works well enough. Comes with handlebar mount, but form-factor is easy to tape to helmet or make a mounting...

Put a 16gb card in it. The batteries last approx 2 hours, a 16gb card should be longer than that so no danger of overwriting.

Mr Plum

The 808#11 looks good. Tempted @ £25ish. If I understand correctly, you can use the external AA battery pack whilst recording, which is great as the internal battery is so small. My experience of the MD80 clones is that the cheap Li batteries only last for 4 to 6 months if you're using them regularly.

optimisticbiker

Kieran_Burns wrote:

OptimisticBiker wrote:

gaz545 wrote:

Buy a cheap camera and you get one major problem. CRAP mounts.
The mounting is the key to getting a good picture. Your evidence will be worthless if the image is just bouncing around all over the place. Think about that before you purchase any camera.

Which is why I have made my own helmet mount and the pictures are pretty stable... mounting rigidly to a helmet which is strapped on properly so it doesnt move is pretty effective, as your head is a self stabilizing mount most of the time... mounting onto the handlebars is the worst IMHO cos they're all over the place (well mine are, lol). A frame mount over the front wheel might work well if its rigid enough and has some shock absorbing foam in there somewhere....

Ummmm.... quite a few of my vids look like Stevie Wonder is riding my bike, so don't be completely sure about that :oops:

Lol Kieran, I did say 'most of the time'.. I have a habit of ducking my head when going up a gear and pushing harder so i often have shots of the tarmac for several seconds! I have to remember to keep my head up!

Twostage

Right. Thought I'd got enough views and decided to go for the 7dayshop jobby with a decent size memory card so the battery would run out before over-writing. Clicked the link and they've ran out. :evil:

B*ll*cks.

DF33

They have different links for different packages, ie cam, cam + 4gb, cam + 8gb etc, search them and you'll get one.

Mr Plum

Just ordered an 808 11 with external battery pack - $53.99 (£33) from the US eBay.

I've got 3 MD80 clones that are now redundant...

noodles71

I've had two Muvi Atom's fail on me and have found the support from Veho woeful. They just emailed back each time to say they never seen the issue before and that was it.

The main problem was it just stopped recording anywhere between 12-24 minutes. Never as long as the battery or card would last which was a let down.

If you do buy a Veho product make sure you but it from a retailer with a decent returns policy. Play.com while I am not endorsing them were very good in organising a replacement each time.

Twostage

DF33 wrote:

They have different links for different packages, ie cam, cam + 4gb, cam + 8gb etc, search them and you'll get one.

Next attempt. Decided to go for the 4 gig version but the checkout insists it gets delivered to my home address and I want it to go to my work address. I've emailed them to ask how I do that.

gaz545

noodles71 wrote:

I've had two Muvi Atom's fail on me and have found the support from Veho woeful. They just emailed back each time to say they never seen the issue before and that was it.

The main problem was it just stopped recording anywhere between 12-24 minutes. Never as long as the battery or card would last which was a let down.

If you do buy a Veho product make sure you but it from a retailer with a decent returns policy. Play.com while I am not endorsing them were very good in organising a replacement each time.

I also had that issue!