Helmet Cam

[racerone3]

anyone tried the ATC 3K helmet cam? i was thinking of getting one before the buzco ride and wanted to know if anyone has had any experience with them... good or bad
thanks guys

[Roger S]

I have one and another member has one. In short, I don't recommend it for an acceptable head cam. It won't keep up a smooth frame rate at 640x480 in a busy scene. I've dropped to 320x240 and then upsized to 640 before sending it to youtube, which was ok. But not for full screen viewing on a pc or tv. It has some cool features.. small, impact resistant, waterproof to 10ft?. One was launched on a model rocket, fell off and dropped a few hundred feet, still worked. Want to use mine to lay it on the edge of the mudhole at ground level. If it gets dirty, rinse it in a puddle. Poor sound, but is waterproof.

Helmet Camera Central - Reviews,Shopping,Forums,Live Chat is a good place to look.

Member Jerry Nuss has a few head cams amd posted a few sample vids.. you can get his name out of the Member List and search his posts.

[Rock Doctor]

I have 3 Helmet cams, but not the ATC 3K.
I have 2 Samsung SCX's (210L and 300L), I like both of them, but have had problems with them handling the abuse I give them.
Also, after reading all the reviews I could find, I got myself a VIO POV1 (wide angle). Very nice, seems very sturdy, simple to use and has a feature that I really like. It will record in "loops" (1 min, 3 min, 5 min, ect). You can leave it on without filling your memory card, but when something happens that you want to save, you just tell it to save that loop.
I got mine from "Helmet Cam Central"

RD

[racerone3]

well, i decided to try it out. ordered wednesday night and it came today. i couldn't get any of the mounts to secure real well to my helmet, so i just pop-rivited one of them on. first argo test will be tomorrow and i'll try to post the raw footage. i also put one of the other mounts that came with it on my mountain bike... that should make for some fun footage!

[mudbug3]

Rock Doctor ,


I had seriously thought about buying the new POV.1 , wide angle , helmet camera , because of the great point of veiw action shots that you can take with it , but ,after using my Flip Ultra , video camera to post over 28 Utube video,s , its hard to give it up because my Utube videos, turn out so well . I,m looking forward though to seeing some great Argo action shots with your new wide angle , POV.1 .

[racerone3]

first test run

here is the first test run with the ATC3K helmet cam. i may try mounting it to the machine... makes you a little dizzy when i go to looking around!

[racerone3]

software

now that i have a camera, another question... what do you guys in the know recomend for video editing software? preferably the free kind!

[Roger S]

I use VirtualDub with my atc2k. Deinterlacing the .AVI will make it look a lot better when youtube converts it. Can also do other things, slo mo, brightness/contrast, color, re size. After you edit, you can add a wave file of your choice to go with the video. Your 3K is a wider view than a 2K..

[racerone3]

thanks roger, but now to show my stupid side... what do you mean by "deinterlacing" sorry, but i know nothing about video. just signed up for youtube last night and that was my first video

[Roger S]

Conventional tv doesn't refresh the whole picture when it changes "frames". It only shows even or odd horizontal lines at one time. Changes 60 times a second (60 htz, what electricity is). That's called an interlaced display.

Computers and HD tv signals update the whole picture at one time, and this kind of display is called Progressive.

Deinterlacing is the combining of the odd and even frames to make a solid picture for a progressive display device.

A progressive dvd player deinterlaces video, a PC software dvd player does too.

Your atc3k and until recently most camcorders, recorded in interlaced/tv standard mode. Plug the atc3k into a tv for playback, and all is normal. But the interlaced .avi transferred to your hard drive will have to be dinterlaced by a software player, or by you changing the file using VirtualDub etc to make it progressive.

When you send youtube interlaced video, it converts poorly. Makes a very blocky, blurry conversion.

[racerone3]

thanks for the education rodger. now, how do i deinterlace a video? i downloaded videodub but haven't had time to play with it much

[Roger S]

You will have "to play with it". I had it for 5 years before I used it..

Open it and read the Help/Contents tab.

In a sentence or two, you want to open a vid in the program, edit, and or apply filters(deinterlace, ect)

Video/ Filters/ Add

And you'll have to save what you edited. Look under video/compression and see what's in your options. I d/loaded a divx 5.1 codec and that's what I send youtube.

Best thing to do is make a 5 second video and experiment with it. Doesn't take long to process and save a short file.

[Rock Doctor]

Rock Doctor ,


I had seriously thought about buying the new POV.1 , wide angle , helmet camera , because of the great point of veiw action shots that you can take with it , but ,after using my Flip Ultra , video camera to post over 28 Utube video,s , its hard to give it up because my Utube videos, turn out so well . I,m looking forward though to seeing some great Argo action shots with your new wide angle , POV.1 .

I will see what I can do
I think I will be looking into the "Deinterlacing" thing that Roger s mentioned, as well. Sounds interesting.

RD