Contour HD 1080p review & vids

[skier666]

I think more than one of you may be interested in this....

New contrast settings get me more interested, but do I REALLY need one?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/29/v...-on/#continued

[Eldo]

This made me laugh:

"anybody with a pair of skiis or a snowboard in the closet is walking with a bit of a spring in their step. A whole new season of extreme powdery antics is just a few months away..."

A bit concerned though about the reviewer's cred, since the guy not only can't spell skis but thinks the wicked awful chromatic aberration is some sort of unusual purple hue in the clouds.

Someone buy it and do a real life test so we can see if this sucker is worth the money.

[Se7en]

I've got one pre-ordered, they're supposed to start shipping at the end of the month. Will be my first helmet cam, so I'm not sure when kind of review I can offer but I'll be more then happy to post of my impressions and a few quick videos.

[unpossible]

Can anyone who owns the old models comment on the weight? Given the perceived size in the pics I would think it would wobble quite a bit when attached to a google strap.

I really like my VIO POV1, however, the lack of HD and the $10 charge just to get proper contrast firmware has got me looking for something better.

[LeeLau]

This made me laugh:

"anybody with a pair of skiis or a snowboard in the closet is walking with a bit of a spring in their step. A whole new season of extreme powdery antics is just a few months away..."

A bit concerned though about the reviewer's cred, since the guy not only can't spell skis but thinks the wicked awful chromatic aberration is some sort of unusual purple hue in the clouds.

Someone buy it and do a real life test so we can see if this sucker is worth the money.

Supposed to get one sent to me mid next month. Bit early for snow tests

[pogs4ever]

my thoughts:

-will anyone use 1080p? takes a beast of a computer to edit and as far i know no websites stream 1080p yet, straight to blu-ray edits i guess.
-60FPS @ 720p would be nice and is the very tempting part for me, old contourHd is 30fps which is 720p by definition i guess.
-its still Electronic Rolling Shutter, read: jello-vision on a mountain bike, but for road/sky diving/skiing (pow) it wont be too bad, especially if you use the 60fps settings.
-they are using the same lens system as the countourHD. Which means, most likely the effective imager array is the same size. Which means its collecting the same amount of light per square mm but instead of 1280x720pixels it will be 1920x1080pixels, which means you could theoretically get more 'clear' pictures at certain physical distances from the lens, but you would get more noise at lowlight (smaller pixels tend to be more leaky/noise).

Unpossible: i use my contour HD for mountain biking and just random POV stuff for film projects. I havent had the pleasure of using the POV, but i noticed, even when i have my goggles tightened to the point were my head hurts, the countour mount can actually slide down my helmet a little, sometimes slide off completely (onto where my ear would be). they do have a glue/sticky mount, but i like my helmet too much.

[sierraskier]

Can anyone who owns the old models comment on the weight? Given the perceived size in the pics I would think it would wobble quite a bit when attached to a google strap.

I really like my VIO POV1, however, the lack of HD and the $10 charge just to get proper contrast firmware has got me looking for something better.

I have the original vholdr and pov.1. I have not actually mounted and used the Vholdr or the pov1 on a goggle mount, but based on it's weight and my experience with other mounting options (such as a vholdr mount epoxy'd to a velcro strap mounted to a biking helmet) I don't think it would work well without lots of shake. the vholdr is too heavy for a goggle mount and needs super firm contact/mount to not shake with any significant movement. pov1 head is significantly lighter and lower profile. for the pov1, I've used indudstrial velcro on the bottom of the wide flange base mounted to a patch stuck to both my full face and my remedy, just above the goggle strap, and it has been bomber for riding, skiing, and sledding so far. have not used it on a goggle mount yet b/c I have the older mounting option and my current setup works great.

as far a video quality goes, I'm not very technical and can't speak to the contourHD, but I think video quality is better on the pov1 compared to original vholdr. pov1 also has a wider angle lens than the vholdr, which I liked. I'm told contourHD has a newer, wider angle lense though. at $299 or whatever for 1080p, vholdrHD is crazy cheap. if you have firm mounting surface and don't mind the extra weight/volume on your head, vholdrHD is a pretty damn good/cheap option but personally, I probably wouldn't spend the money to replace the pov1 for what I'm doing. especially since I'm sure VIO-POV is not far behind on HD.

[Eldo]

Supposed to get one sent to me mid next month. Bit early for snow tests

Look forward to your review, Lee.

Can you check one thing after you do shoot some footage? Whether the 720 @ 60 FPS is really 60 FPS?

The reason I ask is that with some new digital cameras that claim 60 FPS in their vid mode, the sensor is not actually capturing 60 frames, the camera is just duplicating each of the 30 frames. More a marketing gimmick than actually useful.

[LeeLau]

Yah I'll check that. I'm also going to try the Vholdr with some aftermarket mounts to see if their substandard and frankly crappy stock mounts can be improved. True 60fps could give you frame by frame capture but it depends on quality of video captured, of course

[SB]

Here is a standard Gopro vid I just shot on the Gauley river, for comparison purposes.

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/6977843"]Upper Gauley river part 2 on Vimeo[/ame]

[Eldo]

Awesome! (And beautiful wooden paddle.)

To me the whole POV vid thing seems to work so much better for paddling than mountain biking. The wide angle lens on a POV matches the wide open space of a river better than bike trails that are usually in the forest. Most biking POV vids have that tunnel vision/claustrophobic feel to them with most of the frame filled with blurry trees rushing past.

Your vid must look cool at full resolution.

[unpossible]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've got the new goggle mount for my POV1, as I too don't want to stick anything to my helmet either (skiing is primary use). It has worked out pretty well, better than their original goggle mount for sure. I would love to get rid of the bulky battery/recording pack that I keep in my jacket but don't want to tolerate any more shake than what I'm seeing now.

One would hope VIO is not far behind on HD but I don't have a lot of confidence given the POV1.5 update, the bullshit $10 firmware upgrade, and their general lack of comment regarding when and if we are gonna see an HD unit. I realize they don't want to announce something before its ready but they are about to lose my business as the competitors are catching up very quickly.

[LeeLau]

Here's my initial impressions using a test unit provided by pointofviewcameras.ca

SUMMARY

The ContourHD 1080P will be $ 55 Cad/ $ 50 USD more expensive then it’s cousin the ContourHD (for the sake of clarity I’ll call the earlier model the ContourHD 720). Both units are available for sale. Vholdr is not obsoleting the 720p just offering customers a choice between a grab and go unit (720p) and a higher end, more customizable camera with user adjustable settings like contrast, sound recording and exposure at a higher resolution.

At $ 363 Cad ($330 USD) vs $ 308 (280 USD) the Contour HD 1080p will be worth it if you have: (i) a pretty fast computer and (ii) want to view your videos on a 1080p HD viewable computer or TV. NOTE that I have yet to investigate the ability of the ContourHD 1080 to be configured by software so reserve the right to alter my opinion if the ContourHD 1080’s performance can indeed be tweaked by software.

In reading this opinion, keep in mind my previous opinion that the ContourHD 720’s video output was already very good for a POV camera. The ContourHD 1080p is an incremental improvement that, for my purposes, is probably not worth an upgrade. Think of the ContourHD 720’s video performance as a Porsche. The ContourHD 1080P is a Porsche Turbo. But the roads I drive on (substitute bandwidth for roads) are pretty rudimentary and I could never harness the power, performance and handling of a Porsche Turbo.

Perhaps you can, you with your new iMac, and your premium high-speed internet connection, or your new 1080P HDTV in which case the ContourHD 1080p is the tool for you.

[LeeLau]

This made me laugh:

"anybody with a pair of skiis or a snowboard in the closet is walking with a bit of a spring in their step. A whole new season of extreme powdery antics is just a few months away..."

A bit concerned though about the reviewer's cred, since the guy not only can't spell skis but thinks the wicked awful chromatic aberration is some sort of unusual purple hue in the clouds.

Someone buy it and do a real life test so we can see if this sucker is worth the money.

Eldo - I just need some meaningful snow. And I'm not going to drive to Rogers Pass just for this. Funny - ContourHD was released in late Spring and I never got a unit in time for winter pow skiing conditions in graybeard. Not surprising that it works in bright sunlight but i want to know if it looks like poo in typical coastal PNW "light"

Can anyone who owns the old models comment on the weight? Given the perceived size in the pics I would think it would wobble quite a bit when attached to a google strap.

Yeah - the goggle strap sucks balls when used on a goggle. It's OK on a helmet but not good when used on a hat where you can't really tighten the goggle too much as you'll squash your head. Also the ContourHD wobbles on the damn goggle rails. I've used the ContourHD with the Vio hook & loop mount ($9 accessory) which is waaaaay better. I think that article will be run soon

my thoughts:

-will anyone use 1080p? takes a beast of a computer to edit and as far i know no websites stream 1080p yet, straight to blu-ray edits i guess.
-60FPS @ 720p would be nice and is the very tempting part for me, old contourHd is 30fps which is 720p by definition i guess.
-its still Electronic Rolling Shutter, read: jello-vision on a mountain bike, but for road/sky diving/skiing (pow) it wont be too bad, especially if you use the 60fps settings.
-they are using the same lens system as the countourHD. Which means, most likely the effective imager array is the same size. Which means its collecting the same amount of light per square mm but instead of 1280x720pixels it will be 1920x1080pixels, which means you could theoretically get more 'clear' pictures at certain physical distances from the lens, but you would get more noise at lowlight (smaller pixels tend to be more leaky/noise).

Yah - my computer - which isn't a bad computer but just not a Mac i suppose bogged right down with 1080p. I'll go out and try the 720p @ 60 fps to see how that works. I imagine that will be much better. I think it will as my computer copes with 720p @ 30fps just fine. I'll try to get better screen shots. Here's some screen grabs of photos I got but dumbass me I didn't get the same scene with the different settings so it really isn't that comparable.


Here's the ContourHD with a frame grab @ 720p - downsized to 800px wide



Here's the 1080p ContourHD downsized to 800px wide

Unpossible: i use my contour HD for mountain biking and just random POV stuff for film projects. I havent had the pleasure of using the POV, but i noticed, even when i have my goggles tightened to the point were my head hurts, the countour mount can actually slide down my helmet a little, sometimes slide off completely (onto where my ear would be). they do have a glue/sticky mount, but i like my helmet too much.

Even the flat mount is disappointing. There;s still play between the camera and the mounting rails.

Look forward to your review, Lee.

Can you check one thing after you do shoot some footage? Whether the 720 @ 60 FPS is really 60 FPS?

The reason I ask is that with some new digital cameras that claim 60 FPS in their vid mode, the sensor is not actually capturing 60 frames, the camera is just duplicating each of the 30 frames. More a marketing gimmick than actually useful.

I just realized that my ghetto video editor (AVS4You - simple but doesn't have lots of dazzle features) doesn't let me render to 60 fps. So I can see the 60fps in raw video but can't really do anything with it without rendering down to 30fps. I'll have to figure something out. Maybe just upload the raw video

[kidwoo]

I just realized that my ghetto video editor (AVS4You - simple but doesn't have lots of dazzle features) doesn't let me render to 60 fps. So I can see the 60fps in raw video but can't really do anything with it without rendering down to 30fps. I'll have to figure something out. Maybe just upload the raw video

Check out virtual dub. It's a free app that can manipulate a lot of things smaller editing suites can't.

[unpossible]

Lee, thanks for the update on the mount situation.

[LeeLau]

i wrote an article on using the $8 VIO mount - posted on pointofviewcameras.com. A lot better option - much less shake

[ame="http://www.vimeo.com/7278989"]PointofViewCameras.com test of VIO mount for the Vholdr ContourHD. - helmet side mount on Vimeo[/ame]

[unpossible]

Well the 1080p model finally showed up at bc.com and my 20% off code was still working so I ordered one up. Should be here later this week.

[SB]

They are not shipping from Gopro until this Friday to retailers. Anyone that preordered gets first ship depending on how long the line is.

[unpossible]

Camera arrived yesterday. Had a little bit of time to play with it, here are my first impressions:

1080p video looks a little blurry to me. The lighting conditions weren't that good, so I am hoping that was it. 720p60fps on the other hand looked pretty damn good, probably what setting I am going to be going with.

There is a config file on the memory stick that has some tweak-able settings for contrast, brightness, resolution, etc. I haven't played with any of the downloadable software for it yet but I am still trying to find documentation on these settings and their values some where. Maybe VholdR has some settings suggestions for snow use.

The goggle mount is OK, it flops a bit when I jump or move my head rapidly, however, I think I can workaround that by using some velcro between the goggle mounts foam pad and my helmet. Am I supposed to be able to 'easily' rotate it in the mount itself, I see the notches I just can't seem to get it to click anywhere.

Twisting the lens was very difficult at first, I thought I was gonna break it just trying to get it to rotate 90 degrees.

Mic does not seem near as good as the VIO POV1.

Would have liked some sort of tripod / suction cup mount to have come standard, the two included mounts somewhat limit my initial mounting options.

More to come as I have more time to play with it...

[SB]

You got yours already, sweet. New toys!

Can you post up some of your vids? Always nice to see some real world stuff.

[unpossible]

Are we talking about the same camera? I'm talking about the ContourHD 1080p. Only reason I ask is you mentioned the GoPro in your previous post.

[unpossible]

Lee, just saw the video you posted to Vimeo. Is it me or does the ContourHD seem a little out of focus and dark compared to the GoPro. I noticed the same thing here when playing with mine, the focus issue at-least (though 720p60fps seemed more crisp).

Have you tweaked any of the settings in the config file on the SD card yet (does their app allow to more easily edit that stuff)? I really need to email VholdR to get some descriptions on these settings.

[LeeLau]

I feel like the ContourHD is a stop too dark - this was the standard ContourHD which shoots 720. Corrected the exposure by applying +10 gamma correction in the Blackcomb video. I'm getting a ContourHD1080 and will up the brightness to check it out. Focus seems fine though.

[SB]

Are we talking about the same camera? I'm talking about the ContourHD 1080p. Only reason I ask is you mentioned the GoPro in your previous post.

Your right, my bad. Hows that Contour working out?