Thursday, June 09, 2011

Oh Boy, Helmet Cam

My new helmet cam arrived yesterday. Quality Bicycle Products was dumping the Contour HD 1080p for a reduced price, so I went ahead and used some accumulated shop credit. I figure if nothing else I can use video from it on the bike safety TV show project that's crawling ever so slowly forward.

It turns out both my computers are too stupid to show HD video. Unless I figure out how to shoot something they can eat, I have just bought a really expensive laser pointer for the cats. That's okay. I love my cats. And the TV producer who is working on the safety show with me can probably use the good stuff. I just don't have a ton of time to work on everything I need to work on right now.

Once I get everything running right I hope to put up a few vids of favorite bits of local rides.

3 comments:

Janice in GA said...

I recently got a Go Pro Hero HD helmet cam. I can watch the videos on my tv if I connect the camera directly to the tv.

But that doesn't help with editing, does it?? My newer computer SHOULD handle it, but I haven't actually tried it yet. My old computer doesn't have the oomph (technical term) to handle the large files.

Steve A said...

Weight weenies sneer at helmet cams. I may not be a weight weenie, but I'm a wannnabe...

cafiend said...

I got a quick response from technical support at Contour with some things to try to make the camera and computers get along. I have not had a chance to follow up on them yet.

The camera seems to weigh almost nothing in my hand, but changes the balance of my helmet noticeably. I won't use it a lot, but it will come in handy for the bike safety TV project. I also thought about running it as a "dash cam" to record traffic situations on the commute. I don't know if a detailed video would make police any more prone to prosecute, but it would help them if they did. The problem is that you never know when something might happen. It's bound to be a day when I decided not to bother with the cam.

The cats do like the lasers.