Hi i'm looking for advice on a helmet cam, for racing, so it must the holy grail = be light , inexpensive and good quality. Any advice is welcome.

I spent about 2 months researching this very topic.

In the end, the most bang for buck I could find, in the smallest size and lightest weight was an Archos 405 with DVR Travel Adapter + Helmet Cam.

Is about the same width as a jersey pocket and weighs 220g




Edit: Here's a little sample from mine up my nearest climb. This recorded at highest video quality & medium audio quality and is the raw avi off the sd card. Works out about 1Gb of video per hour. Battery lasts about 1.5hrs, so I just got the 2Gb Archos which does me fine.


AVI Video Sample (~8MB)

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Adalta Cycling Club

hockinsk, that's perfect,how much and where can I get 1?

You can get the Archos 405 2Gb for about £60-£70, the helmet camera is another £60-£70 & the DVR Travel adapter can be found for about £30. If you want more than 1.5 to 2 hours of video, then either you'll need to a get an SD Card (8Gb+ cards work apparantly) or there is one with a 30Gb hardrive. Problem with the 30Gb version is it uses a disc hard drive and so can fail due to vibration, knocks and crashes etc, but at least you can just record everything internally.

There are battery extenders available too which which can give you another hours recording.

As for places to buy, google shopping is your friend. Just sort by price ascending and pick the lowest : )

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=arch ... &start=120

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Adalta Cycling Club

Cheers,thats bang on.

your vid made me feel dizzy
my vieuw is changing but me screen and desk is not
however i like it to film some mtb action or city allycat racing

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Join the light side

a light bike does make you go faster unless you are slow

I've seen a few MTB'ers using the Archos 405. I think they like the remote control you clip to your jersey which allows you to stop start recording so you only end up recording the more interesting parts of your ride.

What is allycat racing btw?

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Adalta Cycling Club

Alleycat (or spelled allycat) racing is, traditionally, a race held by and for messengers. Lately, these races have been open to anyone, however, because of the popularity of messengers in the urban cycling scene and because of lot of people want to emulate them - and then, eventually realizing how little messengers get paid and all the associates issues... drugs, lack of stability, most lacking a lot of intelligence...and so on. Anyway, the races:

Alleycat races typically take place at night or during rush-hour at the end of the work day. These are one-stage races often with an open course. Participants are asked to cover a certain territory of the city and either pick-up manifest slips, packages or sign-in at certain locations that are spread out across an area. Either these locations are directly mentioned or given in 'clues'. That's basically it: the fastest person to cover all of these locations and make all the deliveries/pickups/sign-in wins. This often means going down alleys, running traffic signals, going opposite one-way traffic, riding on sidewalks, down stairs, etc:. Anything goes.

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Exp001

I have a pretty good headcam (had it for a few years) and it is much better quality than the Archos setup, with 560 lines vs 420 lines of resolution for the Archos.

The only problem was that it had to be used with a MiniDV camcorder... so a camelback etc was necessary. Does take fantastic video though.

Currently, I am looking for a bike friendly system that is small. There are quite a few "all-in-one" cameras (recording device and the camera is just one unit) so you don't have to fuss with wires. The downside is that the image quality is very poor, and they generally can't record for long given memory sizes and battery life.

However, just this month or so, I saw that VHoldr (makers of an all in one system, that looked ok, still weak on picture quality) came out with a HD version! The picture quality is pretty nice, and you can store hours and hours on one memory chip. I think the battery life is limited to a few hours, but I'm thinking of getting a few extra. Still haven't pulled the trigger yet, but I don't see anything more convenient with as good of picture quality.
Its 116 grams for the entire setup.
It's priced a $299 so it is fairly affordable compared to others:
Info: http://www.vholdr.com
Stores: http://www.gosale.com/4968608/vholdr-contourhd-wearable

You can also look at GoPro Hero as another option, but it's bulky and sort of cumbersome.

I almost went for the original vholdr 2 years ago when it was still only 640x480 (480 lines) like the Archos. With the lipstick cameras, they do at least just wedge inside the gaps in your helmet and are mostly invisible, so you will get away using them in road races. I doubt they would let you use the vholdr in the UK roadraces which is what I wanted to use it for. Saying that though, the higher res of the new vholdr looks really good. Amazing how far the vholdr has come in 3 years already.

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Adalta Cycling Club

Like most cameras, they have helmet mounts (side and top I believe). The Archos setup would have to be the same I would imagine. If local race organizations don't let you use it, there are lots of frame/handlebar mounts which could be interesting given the size of the Vholdr and the fact that you don't need wires.

The lipstick cameras often come with suction cups for auto mounting or elastic headband / velcro holder for helmet mounting. I actually fit the camera 'in' my helmet air vent though. Obviously depends what helmet you use if it fits or not and points at the correct angle. Just about squeezes into a Lazer Genesis ok though luckily!

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Adalta Cycling Club

Based in no small part on recent interaction with motorists, but also on my desire to record some once-in-a-lifetime rides I'll be doing, I am thinking of purchasing a helmet cam. There are tons of them out there. I'm looking for as simple a unit as possible, therefore fully integrated with a flash-type drive and no need for an exterior camcorder. Does anyone have any experience with helmet cams and can anyone offer recommendations based on experience? Thanks guys.

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TED ESSENFELD
Schoorl, Noord-Holland, Nederland
Bike Pics
English Custom Steel Internal di2
Litespeed Ghisallo

Archos 405 and Archos Lipstick Helmet Cam. Bit expensive, but very good quality video, flexible, the 405 fits nicely in jersey and the helmet cam doesn't look like you've got a film crew bolted onto your head. I've used mine as evidence a couple of times with Police.

Weight is about 220g for everything.

Here's a short 8.65mb avi video from mine

More chat about helmet cams here:
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=57895&start=0&hilit=archos

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Adalta Cycling Club

Go Pro is pretty nice. I've got one.

It can shoot straight up video, or take a picture every 2 or 5 seconds. Uses SD cards. Its also waterproof and comes in a replaceable housing. If you drop the camera and it tumbles down the hill, the housing will get damaged but the camera won't. Just get a new housing unit

I would get the New HD version, as it has rechargable battery packs, handles bigger SDHC cards, or photo options (photo every 2, 5, 10, 30, 60 seconds).

I'm sure when recording a long trip, there are some parts you really don't need full video (i've got SD cards of video waiting to be edited, most of its just road or trail and nothing going on). Save some battery and file space and shoot photos at intervals. But when you want to shoot full video, its simple to switch over.