So far so good with the helmet cam. We have been playing with its high frequency stabilization technology. This is pretty effective at taking the jelly and jam out of the motor shakes. Which is a good sign, it is effective at taking out suspension bob when riding a bike, but low frequency motion it can only do so much with. If you move the camera 3" it can't take the shake out of that. You would not really expect it to.
At night, or in low-light conditions it gives a pretty good picture until it is hard to see. Once you break that threshold it is too dim as well. It does have a pretty good sensor, it can pick up even small changes in brightness well and does well with edges.
At the moment, I have yet to get virtual dub to open a quicktime movie. None of the plugins that have been found work. Although I am loathe to say it, it may be better to just go the Quicktime Pro route. Legendary fail of customer support is always a reason why Mr. Jobs' overpriced fanboi kit rarely graces my workspace. It may be a necessary evil this time. Especially, if it can automatically export all of the movie's frames in one drop.
I am not done testing the camera, but so far I recommend it. For the money, it is very usable, rugged and has a functional output that is good for tv viewing. Reliving past exploits are always a great way to kill time while you lie to yourself about how good you were.
Buzz Labs' unmanned vehicle blog and cool DIY remote controlled stuff blog. For techies by techies, maybe also some interesting tidbits about small business and international business.
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Showing posts with label contour hd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contour hd. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Countour HD Helmet Cam
We are looking into using the Contour HD helmet cam as the data source for some GIS experiments. After a detailed review of available products, we found the Contour. It is a well-received and rugged helmet cam aimed at mountain biking and snowboarding. Out of the box, it is a well built camera with an interesting rubberized back cover that gives access to the battery and the memory card in one flip of the thumb.
I will see about posting the movies that were shot with the camera. The output is a QuickTime movie, that we will feed to virtual dub. Virtualdub will strip the frames out of the movie so that we can analyze frames to look for patterns in the vegetation. The goal is to make a semi-automated habitat estimator and/or plant specie histogram.
As my batteries run low at dinner, I promise more interesting things to come.
I will see about posting the movies that were shot with the camera. The output is a QuickTime movie, that we will feed to virtual dub. Virtualdub will strip the frames out of the movie so that we can analyze frames to look for patterns in the vegetation. The goal is to make a semi-automated habitat estimator and/or plant specie histogram.
As my batteries run low at dinner, I promise more interesting things to come.
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