Alternative to Go-Pro?
 

I always troll around the 'net looking for weird lights and other stuff that might benefit my commuter bike and ran across this:

http://www.misdefenseproducts.com/Sp...B-p-22026.html

Seems like it might be a cheepo but useable alternative to a Go-Pro?

Sorry if this stuff has been posted before :beer:

I use this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 . It's cheap enough, so I bought two.

I put one in front and one at the back of the bike. So far, it works great. The video quality is not HD, but good enough.
My only complaint is, the clip's retainer pin won't stay put. I solved that by applying Gorilla glue.



Might buy this after the Holidays.
http://www.amazon.com/Looxcie-LX2-We...ywords=looxcie

http://rideye.com
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-for-your-bike


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Rideye Has Your Back

Riding a bike will always be the best way to commute and explore. But every time we strap on our helmets, we accept that cycling is a dangerous activity.
If you ride where there are cars, incidents are an unfortunate certainty. Rideye protects you from false claims and shows what happened when you can't.







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Rideye Remembers Everything


Rideye records continuously and saves the last 2.5 hours of video (10 hours for Rideye HC). In the event of an incident, a single press of the button stops recording and saves the file. If you can't do it yourself, Rideye's BlackBox sensor will do it for you when it detects a crash. With an ultra wide-angle lens and HD video quality, every detail is captured.










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Precisely Engineered


Rideye is unlike anything you've ever seen, and its design reflects that. We start with precision machined aircraft-grade aluminum and hard-anodize it for a brilliant, durable finish. The Lexan inlays are laser cut to a precise, water resistant fit, and sealed with an Armadillo scratch-resistant coating. Every part is manufactured without compromise.
Rideye looks beautiful on your bike. And it's built to last.





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Charge It Once A Month

Rideye uses state of the art lithium cells and efficient power management to achieve an impressive battery life of 24 hours.
Even if your daily commute is an hour long, Rideye will finish the month with charge to spare.










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http://static.squarespace.com/static...%20in%20LA.jpg

More, here:
http://rideye.com
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...-for-your-bike

I found it cheaper at Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/Sunglasses-Mob...ef=pd_sim_p_51

Wow! Way cheaper!

Thanks everybody, great stuff!!!

:beer:

Good enough to read license plates?

I've got that one also but I can't recommend it because of several problems. First image quality: no antishake and transitions from shadow to light ruin the video for seconds. Second the control interface. The button is too tiny to operate by feel, and you have to use two different buttons with the right timing to get it on and recording. Meanwhile the on/record light is absolutely impossible to see unless you're in a blacked out closet.

Finally, even after training myself to operate it blind without benefit of touch, after about a month it developed the problem of shutting itself off within a minute of operation. I hate to warn people off of a device this cool and cheap, but that's my experience. There's probably nothing inexpensive that works as well as a go-pro.

It really depends on what you want it for. If you are looking at taking high quality videos of all of your activities to post on YouTube, the GoPro is usually considered the best. But it is expensive, only the white version is inexpensive but it is really dumbed down. If all you want is a handlebar mounted cam to monitor activities, get something much cheaper. The SJ1000 takes decent video and is under $100 and comes with all kinds of mounts and a waterproof dive case. I'm going to buy that one myself. My big fear with buying one of the cameras, even the cheap one, is that I'll use it a few times and quickly get bored with it. I'm not going to sit at a computer for hours on end to edit the clips either. They'll just start collecting.

A Cinematography class should be a requirement for any video camera purchase. Spare your family and friends the endless videos.

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I've doing some research on this and in addition to not liking the shape* of the GoPro, and not being ready to cough up that much dough, what I've decided I'm going to get is one of the RD32II cameras. At about $140 the price seems okay, and the quality and features seem about right for what I want it for.


* Usually I don't make a big deal about "aero" but the GoPro is the exact opposite of it, and the idea of having it on top of my helmet along with my helmet light just seems ridiculous. That's one of the things I appreciate about the RD32II, instead of being apparently as wide and tall as possible, it is long-ish and should mount well to the side of a helmet.

Yes. But I only ride in daytime.

So the Lawsuit Disputes requiring video evidence from traffic accidents , commuting, is that Rampant?

You wear a camera for doctor's and hospital visits?, might have to lawyer up and file suit,
against those many Insurance company claims denials..

When visiting the hospital or doctors' offices, the staff there may move quickly at times, but not at 20 to 40 mph speed differentials and outweigh you by several thousand pounds. Add in the fact that a video tends to eliminate a number of "You said, they said" circumstances.

This guy would've been screwed if the traffic cam hadn't just caught his accident. Helmet cam footage would've helped immensely.

What about the new Garmin Virb?

http://sites.garmin.com/virb/

I use the SJ1000 and the Mobeus camera. Both are good and cheap alternatives to the Go Pro.

http://store.contour.com/ae/us/page/home


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJVNOBE4L0s

This is a test video that I shot, just to check mounting positions and the mount. Held up, films in HD.

Contour Out Of Business….
Still, a good cam system.

Crap, news to me. Check ebay I guess!

I've owned a GoPro Hero3 white, a Contour Roam, a Sony Actioncam, several generic chinese cameras including a pair of RD32IIs. My favorite of them all though is the new one I just got:

http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2013/11...nd-so-far.html

For $132 shipped, it is fairly small, mounts to helmets and bars in a much less stupid way than GoPros, comes with a bunch of mounts, a waterproof case, a waterproof RF remote control, takes standard Nokia cell phone batteries that cost about $3 and last > 2 hours, has single slide switch "on and start recording" and "stop and off" control when in the waterproof case, it's full 1080p and has really pretty respectable low light performance - probably not as good as the Hero3 black, but that's $400.

monoprice
 

what about the camera from MONOprice?

i have not used it but looks pretty good value

Good review. I just wished they offered a slimmer model without the screen built into the side of it. I'd like to mount a camera on my helmet and would like to keep the weight and size down as much as possible.

It's already the slimmest camera of all those I owned. Taking the screen out wouldn't reduce the width more than about a millimeter - that's how far out the screen pushes past the width of the lens. The height and depth wouldn't change either - they're limited by the size of the battery. I'm not willing to buy any more cameras without replaceable batteries, because the battery ALWAYS fails before the camera does and I want to be able to just buy a new battery. For generic cameras with a low market share, using a cell phone battery is fantastic because they'll be available for many years even if the manufacturer goes out of business.

I don't think the weight is a problem - it's also about the lightest camera I've owned. They'd probably drop 20 grams or so by removing the screen. I personally love the screen being there. I've owned cameras with and without, and I definitely like having a screen. The settings screens of GoPros is better than nothing but it's kind of miserable to use compared to a proper screen with navigation buttons.

OK, great info! I said "slimmer" but I worded that poorly, what I meant was how tall it is, if it wouldn't be any smaller in any dimension (except a mm or so) then I think you've found the best one

Thanks again for all the great info!