Not familiar with that one... $180 is pricey nowadays... lots of options...
The replayxd looks very good...(on and off buttons with vibration feedback... nice feature )
Wide angle helps smooth the ride, but too wide makes curves look straight.  That's my biggest gripe with go-pro...
Also.. read here...
http://suzukisavage.com/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1324188254

TIP.. do a you-tube search for the cam model you're interested in, and see what people have done with it...
Compare to go-pro and others on you-tube...







Looking forward to some viddie's.. ...

Serowbot, I've been researching your cheap 808 camera and ran across the MAC-10 on WalMart.com. If anything is left of income tax refund I'm looking seriously to buy. I really appreciate your advice on the little camera, but I think the Mac-10 would be a little easier to aim. For $80 it better be.  

Boofer wrote on 03/07/12 at 19:17:42:

Again, I'm not familiar with that specific cam, but... Walmart lists a spec of 63 degrees viewing angle... that is very barely wide angle.  So, I wouldn't recommend it for bike use.  It will make very jiggly video.
The go-pro is 170' and the replayXd looks to be 160' or so...
Don't worry about resolution, because they're all pretty great nowadays... view angle is the important spec for shooting on a bike...

I think 170' is a bit too wide, and would prefer something in the 120'to 140' range... but below 90 degrees is going to be too hard to make smooth...
The wider the angle, the smoother the moving video will look,.. but, objects will look further away, and curves will look straighter, forward speeds will look slower...  
(pros beat this problem by using a 35 to 45mm lens but using a very elaborate steadycam mounting system to smooth the view)........
We can't afford those thousands of dollars, so we must compromise by balancing the jiggle with the wideness of the angle...

I actually get the best compromise with my Fuji still camera set to video...  it's hard to mount up, but shoots excellent... I'm guessing the angle is in the 90' range...
If you already have a decent still cam that does video, give it a try first and see what you wish was different.
It may do perfectly well. or it may tell you more about what you might want...

These two videos were shot entirely with my Fuji 150 still cam... it shoots 640 x 480 at best quality and has a 24mm equivalent lens (thats fairly wide angle for a point and shoot still camera... 63' will be equal to about a 35mm lens).... (smaller millimetre lens = wider view angles)
17mm to 22mm equivalent, or 110' to 150' view angle is near perfect...(I haven;t found any in that range,... look for close.)...


this was hand held... with the camera in my left hand, I was moving it around to get different views...


this was mounted solid on the front fender of a friends bike as he followed behind me... (the jiggle you see is from the 90' view angle. It would be much less at 120 degrees)( 63 degrees would be much more jiggle)...

I started with a cheap $25-$35 eBay special tube type cam. Was kinda fun for a while, but very limited on the interface with the computer, so a hassle to use.

Last fall I picked up a ContourHD from Amazon for like $90 and couldn't be more pleased with it.   I haven't had a chance to mount it to my MC helmet yet because of the weather, but my daughter has used it a few times when she went snowboarding. Even with the quality settings set about midway the video is amazing and the computer interface is 10X better than the eBay special I got.

Helmet Cams are kinda fun to play around with, but the biggest drawback I see is you get these really long videos that you have to cut up to find/display the interesting parts to share. Takes alot of time, but the results can be entertaining.  

LostArtist wrote on 03/08/12 at 07:46:46:


Guess we know who to send our videos to to create a savage ride mashup  

The drift looks great spec-wise. I was concerned with the contour not having a viewfinder/lcd, not knowing if i was getting it in the right position or not, but with the wide angle lens and the laser-level it worked out very well. I did have my  girlfriend mount it on my helmet while i was wearing my helmet though. would have been harder getting a good mounting position just on my lonesome.

The drift is... yeah, ugly. or at least bigger than I would want. the contourROAM is small(er). You can look up the specs online, but off the top of my head i'd say it is (very roughly) <1.5" thick, < 5" long, <2.5" high, which makes it feasible to put it in a front pocket for spell, though it wouldn't be comfortable there for very long.

actual dimensions (in mm) 100x55x34 mm (roughly 4"x2"x1.3").

I think my favorite thing about the contour is the dead-simple buttons. It has a "massive" slider button for the start/stop recording which makes it very easy to use in a pinch. I can turn it on/off very quickly with thick gloves on while it is on my helmet (no look on/off!).

I like the laser sight idea... I think I'll buy a dollar store laser and add it to my mount.  That sounds very handy for set-up...


Dont look up at any airplanes..

Problee just a night time thing, but.




You may be arrested or worse

You may be arrested
Laser users are frequently arrested for aiming at airplanes or helicopters. It is surprisingly easy to find you. And as authorities take laser incidents more seriously, they are putting more effort into finding perpetrators: