helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

HI

I have got a sony helmet cam, but am now looking at the arcos 605 mp4. Anyone used it/seen footage off it, or can advice on quality of picture :D Its quite a lot of cash, I am not a techno geek, but if I am going to use this type of gear I want it to be quality

Thank you :D

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I can only advise you not to do what I've done.

I bought one of the more expensive dog cams:

1 x DogCam Pro 520 camera.
1 x 8 x AA Battery Holder.
1 x Fixed Mount.
1 x Stereo mic splitter
1 x 12v A/V Microphone.
1 x protective lens cap.
3 x suction mounts

cost £145 not incl p&p

To record I bought a JXD 638 http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...MEWN:IT&ih=004
as it was solid state (no hard drive to jar around in my pocket). It records in 640x480 so it won't give an optimum output for my camera (752 x 582) but it should be good enough to record bike footage.

I got th jxd yesterday and fitted it to the dog cam. The instructions with the dog cam had photos of what colour cable to attach where. The cables that actually came with the dog cam bear no relation to the colours in the photos.

I eventually get it working (without the microphone as it was on less load of wire to try to figure out). I recorded 10 minutes of footage. And I'm "disappointed* to say the least.

Tne picture quality is more grainy than brighton beach. It judders and has a slow refresh rate. You can just about make out what you're viewing. The JXD's battery life appear to be about 5 seconds.

It records in either asf or avi format. copying them over to my pc I need a codec to view them & even then I could only get audio.

I've tried to convert from asf to mpeg & I only get an audio recording (So NOTHING for 10 minutes).

So I can only view a grainy slow image on my jxd. I don't know if the problem lies with the bullet cam or the jxd (which doesn't come with instructions).

So £220 for a bag of shyte. I'm at my desk now with wires everywhere & downloading various codecs to watch a grainy image on my pc.

I'm a little bit unhappy.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Just got an ATC 2000 from one of the guys (Thanks Ben), all in one bullet cam, for the price it's brillient, runs on 2 x AA batteries (about 4 hours) and a 2 gb SD card, totally shock & waterprooof, very robustly build, simple to fit and remove from bike, fits into your pocket with ease.

Has three resolusions and two frame rates, on best (640 x 480/ 30 fps) , gives just over the hour or so, one down (320 x 240) about three and a half hours.

For the money it's ideal.

Cheers Mark.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

TC, I'll bring my unit to the next Border Patrol meet that I hear you're going to make it to - that way you can check it out.

Some points about the systems mentionned so far:

The ATC2000 is a very good all in one unit, which records to SD cards (so doesn't suffer from vibration much). However, the recording format itself is quite looseless (can be bad quality - but largely depends on light conditions and vibrations on the bike). That said, it's an all in one with no wires to work out. Battery life can apparently be pretty short if you're recording in one of the higher quality settings.

The bullet cam setup that Kinvig has is the same as mine, only I bought the model lower bullet cam, and a couple of models higher recorder. I love it. It does me just fine, but it is more expensive than I remember seeing the ATC2000.

In my setup, I have a couple of mounts (a suction mount with angular head so I can put it anywhere on the bike, and a sucker mount that wraps around the camera - it has to point parallel to the surface you mount it on). The first mount is great for on the bike, and I picked it up from Maplin for £15. The second mount is great for helmet work (side of lid, top of lid, wherever you like - I've even thought about below the headlights but I'm still a little wary of the suspension travelling too much).

The arcos units, IIRC, use a hard drive. Whilst you can record more, in greater quality on them, they suffer from vibrations (it can wreck the hard drive inside it with too much vibes - steady now!). They're also very expensive for what they are.

IMO, what you want to be looking for, is a decent quality camera (concentrate on the focal length of the camera - mines a little short - variable would be great). Generically any SONY CCD based camera would be fine (the bullet cams mentionned above and the ATC2000 are based on the Sony chip). That sorted, it'll record in any size you want, so then you want to worry about storage. That brings in the type of storage - IMO, solid state is better than magnetic. For decent viewing, you want something that will record in at least 640x480 IMO, with at least 25fps (otherwise it'll be jumpy). If it'll output to AVI files great, but they will be pretty big. MP4 is also ok, but that can depend on the actual codec used to make the MP4 file, so you could be taking a bit of a gamble there.

Another option to look at, is the setup that Quiff has/had. He had a ram mount (google them) on his mirror, and a common household digital camera stuck on it. The digi-cam recorded video, and it was a pretty decent quality from what I've seen of it.

Also, BluePete has a pretty decent setup, but I'm not sure what he has.

Confused? :D

HTH.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Baph - you got a link to your digital recorder?

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Nope, but it's the JXD 921 IIRC. I think Blue_SV650S went for either the 7xx series or the 8xx series (one down from me anyway) and he's happy with his too (or was last I talked to him).

It's a fair wedge of money to spend on the wrong model when they're all so alike.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

So far no one has mentioned the Smudge cam!

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...909_133337.jpg

Gives excellent results and a hell of a good work out to neck and shoulders!

Seriously though I think bluepetes system works well

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t...Mel_0001-1.jpg

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I've got the RAM Mount on the mirror too Esther, i can't use me camera on it now though cos i cross threaded the thread on me camera lol, so i have to cable tie it down :lol:

Sidepoint to having it on the mirror, i think it has done summit to the actual mirror or where the mirror screws in with the extra weight because it seems like the mirror moves about a lot, Quiff you ever had that?

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Quiff's mirror broke off from being crushed by the RAM mount.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

ahh right so best to get it off then :lol:

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

thanks for all the advice. Will list what I go for, and review it, wish me luck!!

Smudge ...... you are quality !

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

One that Rictus has (ATC 2000) is up for auction >>> HERE <<<

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I need to reappraise my review of the JXD638.

I recorded onto it yesterday using:

Completely fresh batteries for the bullet cam
an Ultra SD 2 gig card
Daylight

I used the lowest recording setting (240 * whatever) and actually the quality is pretty good!

The only problems I've got are:

1. Fitting the camera to the bike so that it's pointing the right way up was a bit of a faff.
2. Despite recording on the lowest setting 11.5 mins of footage comes to 416mb in avi format!!!!!

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

If yours is from dogcamsport, you'll find that the red writing is convienently on the left side of the camera. Put that to the left, and the camera is right way up (pretty much - a minor adjustment with the system running might be needed, but you can do that before hitting record).

I found that on the 1Gb internal memory, highest setting, I get around 1h25. I have yet to try it on an SD card, as I don't have a high speed 4Gb+ card yet. Mine was recording in AVI too. AVI is a funny old format, small clips seem to be rediculously large in storage space used, but longer clips aren't that bad.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Hmm that does sound a little large, the ATC 2000 also outputs in avi format, for that time I'd expect a couple of hundred mb even a 640 x 480 (although I've found Google video down grades it anyway) anything better than 320 x 240 is wasted.

as to mounting, well I don't have that problem a single clip does it all.

Oh and ir you throw it through movie maker it drops down to 20 odd mb in wmv format.


Here's about the worst it gets, night on 320 x 640

Cheers Mark.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Great films there Mark. I take it the daylight ride was a trip out for some smokes?

Love the MCN SV day one as well, not a pointy in sight, Suzuki hadn't made the SV ugly at that point!! :lol:

Which track was that? I could make out a Jumbo, was it where they now film Top Gear?

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I was looking at getting a helmet cam, what about this one?

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Hi all , I use the 2 kam switcher action ready package from 4kam (?269) and so far have been happy with most of the results , I get 4 hours of recording time approx on both battery life and from a 2gb sd card (extra purchase) . I hard wired a 12v regulator for the cameras and bought a mic from maplin that is 12v as 4kam's mic uses button cells.
The results so far are ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Koehqd72ZMo

Downside is that their switch unit is huge so cannot be used on the go .
Easy to use and set up.

Just thought another option would be nice

Cheers Grant

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

Bruntingthorpe Airfield.




that's what I have, see above.

Cheers Mark.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

And thats pretty bad :scratch::smt102

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

That looks like a cracking piece of road, oooooooooooooooo you lucky bugger!
Nice footage, need to get my cam mounted lower on the bike, you just get a much better sense of the experiance.
Cracking vid fella.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I have a (well 2) JXD638s.

Why are you using the lowest quality? IIRC it only has a 320*240 and a 640*480 setting ... I always use on 640 ..

Have you managed to sort the codecs yet? For both the AVI and the ASF recording formats.

Re: helmet cam/mp4/arcos 605....advice
 

I just got a DogCam for Christmas. Not sure which model it is but I need to find a suitble recording device for it now!