Originally Posted by
smasha
for helmet mount, i'd be inclined to recommend the Contour.
for low light, i'd recommend the Gopro.
the Contour is more of a "no brainer" in use, but the Gopro can be "set and forget" to use a one-button record mode.
both do great video in daylight. depending on the resolution you'll get 127° or 170° FoV with the Gopro and 110° or 135° FoV with the Contour. at night, the Contour is pretty much useless, the Gopro is not as bad.
audio tends to be total crap on the Gopro, perhaps because they always seem to be inside a waterproof case. audio on the Contour can be alright, but when you get moving and turn the camera sideways it can turn into a blast of wind-noise.
i run HEROs on the bike and a Contour on the helmet. if the HEROs weren't so damn chunky and ugly i probably wouldn't have a Contour. i'm not one to care about looks... but a helmet-mounted Gopro is too much, even for me.
+1. You can improve the audio on the GoPro by purchasing the
skeleton housing. Keep in mind, the camera is NOT waterproof with this housing.
Even with the skeleton back, the audio is still overly compressed. The Contour has nice clean audio. Both cameras use the same bitrate and sampling rate (128 kbps 48kHz), so the GoPro must use an inferior audio codec.
The Contour is like a cell phone camera at night. The only things that show up are lights. This is due to a tiny lens. I use a regular digital camera at night. Much better!