Update 9-16-2010 This is no longer their top of the line cam - the new one is based on this camera but includes a GPS and tags your images with location. You'll need their viewer to see the map movement as the video plays.
Update: 7-2010
Tonights episode of Dirty Jobs showed this camera strapped to a head strap for the host, Mike Rowe, who was 408 feet above the cement floor decending & window cleaning in Hawaii. Troy chickened out on the first 100 feet so alot of the contour HD footage made it into the show. By the 300 foot balcony they got troy on the ropes but his hair got snagged in the safely line and had to get his second "shearing" on Dirty Jobs - it was also filmed on contour HD cams 300' above hawaii. The quality was as good as the cable company could deliver in their 6:1 re-compression of HD. A full HD viewfinderless camera has value when you must get the shot.
using a sandisk 16GB microSD card and the maximum detail [1080P] + best quality I could get 3 hr, 6 minutes of video recorded with battery leftover. If you use the lower resolution setting the battery may be the limiting factor - I have not tried that yet.
I bought this to produce a bluray disc of a police helicopter team, using a gyro stabilized canon professional camera in back and wanting a 2nd angle up front. This comes with an adhesive patch that sticks to the side of the pilot's helmet to give a 135 degree wide field of view. The integrated rails on both sides permit the ultimate flexibility in mounting the camera, and second options for this cam are car mounts, etc.
The quality is GREAT. The lens is the downfall - there is some pincushion effect due to the inexpensive lens and wide angle. I'll deal with it for the price and the shots you can get with it, plus I can trim out the distortion in post editing.
One note - the output is .mov which is fine for macs, but for pc's you will need to transcode if you run premiere pro cs4 from adobe as it does not import .mov natively. Perhaps that is a good time to clip the edges where the bent picture is most noticable.
Another factor to like is the simplicity. With gloved hands you slide the top forward to record and back to stop, with a beep to start and and double beep to stop - it's very hard to mess up except for your horizon, which is why there are detents and lasers.
Detents and lasers?
Yes, - there are detents in the event you mount it on the right and left hand side of a helmet or rotate it in a mount. The 2 lasers can be turned on to tell you what is level with resepect to the imager. This is helpful when you rotate it but you must manually keep track of the bottom of the screen (below the laser points ) as you rotate it, otherwise your output will be upside down.
For the price, you simply can not beat it. Buy a 16 GB sandisk micro-sd card to go with it Sandisk 16GB Microsd Card Note that they have a low packaging option which the card is inside a plastic carrier and inside an ESD bag but no box or other trash with it that goes in the landfill - smart packaging.
One of the other great applications for this is taking HD video where you otherwise would NOT take your $3K camera - the beach - the water park - etc. You won't get the absolute best quality but you will get 1080 p hd that is playable on macs or pcs in native players!
Another great use is for children. It's easy to use, inexpensive, and highdef. For the kids who are beyond the toy grade cameras but not ready for a professional unit, this fills the gap. Adults will love its simplicity. On or Off - no fancy buttons to press, and everything complex is set while attached to the computer.
Finally there is my use - have a 2nd angle view for use with NLE systems. You can now do a/b video fades by time syncing the output from this camera with your primary cam. Be sure to expose something that will sync the two that gets recorded on both at the start of shootng.
I'm only deducting a star becuase of the pincushion effect of the lens. I realize for this price you are not getting an HD lens, and I realize that HD will show any defects, but a few more dollars in the lens would have made this 5 stars - it is oh so close. Be sure to pick up extra memory and batteries if you plan to use it at maximum definition because it makes some big files fast. ContourHD Camera
I bought this camera primarily to be used for motorsports (autocross, track days, time attack, etc.) but took it on my recent ski trip to Breckenridge, Colorado. I'll update the review once motorsport season comes around.
With the GoPro HD and ContourHD 1080p coming out around he same time for the same price point I did a lot of research on both. I was already biased against the GoPro having owned the original Hero Cam Wide.
Mounting
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The quick sliding of the GoPro is pretty simple, but the parts that you have to screw and unscrew are difficult. The screws were hard to tighten and it's too easy to lose the screw and/or nut. I also managed to break one of the mounts by dropping it - a bit too easy to break in my opinion. Getting the correct angle by stringing the screw mounts together was a challenge as well.
I like the ContourHD mount a lot more. It just slides on and off and locks into place. While skiing, I was able to slide it off and hand it to my friend so he could take video of me. Using the included goggle mount, the video was pretty steady as long as my ski goggles were on snug. Never worried about it sliding off.
If I were to have gone with the GoPro, I would have to get a ski helmet. It would not be as easy to switch and I feel it looks and feels obtrusive if sticking out to the side, top, or front. The ContourHD, when goggle mounted, sits slimly along my head - not far out so that it feels like an antler. And since the goggle mount sits flush, I always know that what I am looking at (or at least slightly to the left or right) will be what is filmed. This would not be true of a camera that is chest-strap mounted or sticking farther out to the side.
Pointing the camera up/down was difficult at first but became easy to work with.
Viewing angle
I found the GoPro to be too wide. I love having a wide angle lens for point of view sports video, but the GoPro Hero Cam Wide just seemed so wide that it would be distorted (to reiterate, I have not tried the GoPro HD). The ContourHD was wide enough to have a large field of vision, but not so wide that things looked distorted. I've also tried the Kodak Zi8 camera which I feel has a great viewing angle for youtube type videos but not great for POV sports videos.
Video quality
I was really impressed with the quality. Everything was really smooth with no artifacts. Any higher video quality and I don't think they could have kept this price point. It does have a rolling shutter, so I would occasionally get the jello effect if constantly over uneven snow. But I believe this is true of most cameras in this segment. The only cameras that won't do this, as far as I know, are some point and shoot cameras or camcorders which usually don't offer the same helmet cam functionality.
The colors and lighting seemed okay. Hard to tell as I was skiing and everything is white, but nothing seemed "off". I went night skiing in Keystone Colorado and the video didn't turn out that great there. I doubt any camera would be different though given the poor lighting conditions.
Audio quality
Not great. All I heard on my skiing videos was wind noise. I don't see any other way around this though and I don't think the competition does either. I'm just going to add music. When I'm still and talking though, the audio comes out clear.
Operation
The thing I like the most is how simple it is to use. Hold down the power button to turn it on/off and slide the switch forward to record. The display on my GoPro wasn't useful and I was never really sure it was recording. When helmet-mounted, you can still feel the switch on the ContourHD is moved forward. Also, when it's on, the slider reveals a big red sticker that says "REC" in big letters. With the GoPro, you have to look at the tiny display - which can be really difficult to do when the camera is strapped to your head and you have all your gear on. And while the slider switch on the ContourHD can be difficult to turn on with heavy winter gloves on, it is near impossible to press the GoPro's tiny buttons.
I also really liked the beeping system. 1 beep lets you know when the camera is turned on or recording. 2 beeps lets you know when the camera is off or stopped recording. This is really useful when helmet mounted since you can't see the camera and it's usually close to your ear. This beep system helped as well when my battery died or the camera automatically shut off due to inactivity. I forgot to turn it off once and I heard 2 beeps while on the chair lift. Even though I skipped this in the manual, I knew that it turned off by itself.
The camera allows you to switch between 2 modes. I chose 1080p @ 30fps and 720p @ 60fps. It would be nice to switch between all modes without having to preset them in the computer, but realistically, I usually won't need more than 1 mode in a given day.
The on off button is small, and since I'm constantly worried about running out of battery, I always turn off the camera when not recording. Maybe they could just make this one button (anytime it's on, it's recording and anytime it's off, it's not recording)? It also takes some time holding it down to turn on/off. 1 or 2 seconds less would be adequate.
There is no display on the camera or a viewfinder. Again, displays aren't really as useful as tactile buttons when mounted to your head. Other POV cameras don't have a display either for simplicity. Camcorders, flip cameras, and the Kodak Zi8 have displays but they aren't meant for the same type of things the ContourHD is. The lasers to orient viewing angle are a great compromise. And I like that you can rotate the lens. I can see this being useful if you need to mount the camera sideways or upside down.
Construction
The ContourHD feels very sturdy (anodized aluminum). It's water-resistant(not waterproof) and still worked even when I fell in the snow. The GoPro does have the added benefit of the waterproof case - not only in terms of water damage but impact damage as well. I'd hate to drop my ContourHD on concrete or scratch the lens with a flying rock. If this is an issue for you, consider the new, somewhat pricey, waterproof case. For my uses though, this is not a deal breaker.
The mounting mechanism seems sturdy as well and the plastic mounts feel high quality. Again, I was able to break a GoPro mount.
The ContourHD isn't shaped like a traditional camera like the GoPro is and I feel this is more condusive to helmet mounting and POV sports videos.
The record switch provides good resistance, but I accidentally opened the back cover of the camera when I switched it on. The camera was still safe though.
The Hi/Lo switch, On/Off switch, battery door cover, and microSD slot are all behind the back cover. The back cover is easy to open and is tethered. The tab holding the battery in seems flimsy, but really isn't.
The camera is light enough that it wasn't too noticeable when goggle-strap mounted.
Battery
The included battery lasts a fair amount of time, but depending on what you do, consider picking up a second battery. I didn't time the battery usage, but I left the house with a fully charged battery and was able to finish an almost full day of skiing without it loosing charge. Keep in mind that I would turn off the camera when not in use. Also consider the cold temperature in which I was using it (25 - 35 degrees).
Personaly, I prefer proprietary batteries to AA's and such because they seem to last longer and are easily rechargeable in the camera. I had problems with the GoPro Hero Cam Wide's batteries. The camera seemed to turn off after a while if it didn't have the right battery. The GoPro HD has a proprietary battery now.
The camera does a good job of turning itself off when it is not in use. I forgot to turn it off and after several minutes of not recording, it turned itself off and gave me 2 beeps to let me know it did so. The camera also gave me several beeps when it turned off due to the battery being drained. I was able to switch to my back up battery with little interuption to what I was doing.
Memory
I bought a 16GB microSD card so that I can take many hours of high quality video. I would have prefered regular SD since I already have several of those cards, but I'm sure this contributes to the ContourHD's small size.
Computer interface
I didn't use this too much. I like to transfer my video's on my own. On trips, I just back up the video's on my netbook which doesn't really have the processing power to edit such high quality videos. The interface seems nice though and I was able to switch settings easily with my netbook. I would have preferred to switch some of the settings on the camera without a computer, but I think this would overcomplicate it.
Overall
I'm really happy with my purchase. It made skiing with my buddies a bit more fun. I would ski with the goggle mount and we would stick together. If I saw a jump or terrain park coming up, I would watch my friends and get the action on video - just by looking at them! I've taken video of them before with my point-and-shoot camera but that's harder to do when not mounted.
First person view without anyone else around is good for my own memories, but not really exciting enough to share. Small jumps don't really look like jumps. I don't do the terrain park but I'd imagine grinding rails or big jumps would look amazing in first person.
The quality is great. All my friends were impressed. I really didn't worry about operating it or having enough memory or battery. I was worried about shaky video at first or dropping it in the snow, but after my 1st (of 4) days skiing with it, I stopped worrying. I had a fall on my second day and not only did the camera survive, but it made for a pretty funny POV video.
I'm really looking forward to using this for motorsports. It should be easy to switch angles on my car (front view, wheel view, rear view, etc.) given the simplicity of the mounts. And I won't ever have to worry if it recorded like I did with my GoPro or other cameras I used with a traditional on/off button. - Helmet Cam - Hd Camcorder - Extreme Sports - Contourhd'
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