Saturday, 15 January 2011

Contour HD 1080p Review


Link to manufacturer: Contour

Today we have the Contour HD 1080p by vHoldR. vHoldR makes a number of cameras such as this and the GPS version with which you can track your location. The Contour HD 1080p is a helmet cam which you can use to capture action sports such as skiing and mountain biking.
The camera comes in a sleek, stylish box.



Included is the camera itself, instructions, the battery, a USB cable, a flat surface mount, a goggle mount and a 2GB memory card comes pre-installed in the Contour.

It is becoming increasingly popular to include memory cards, which is fantastic; when you get your camera you can get it up and running straight away without having to order in yet another memory card. The memory card slot also means you have expandable options of up to 16GB.
As you’ll see from the contents unfortunately no mains adapter is included and so you have to charge the camera through your PC or laptop. Otherwise a pretty standard bundle with what you would expect. 



To access the camera’s internals you just slide off the back panel. Available here is the mini-USB port, the memory card, the battery and the switch to change between the resolutions (more on that later).

As you can see the camera is a very small unit and fairly light, weighing 123g (4oz) which is important if you are going to have it mounted on your head. The camera has a nice brushed aluminium finish with a fairly large logo on both sides. The camera has no LCD screen for playback or view-finding to keep a small form factor. To get around this the camera uses 2 lasers to help you get the angle of your shot correct. This is demonstrated in the video review. The camera itself is waterproof which is fairly essential for recording ski runs.
The camera has grooves for mounting on both sides so that you can wear it on either side of your head. There is a large, dimpled switch on top of the camera which starts and stops the recording. This camera is extremely simple to use even when wearing gloves, while mounted on a helmet.
Now on to the actual video recording. The Contour boasts a 135® wide angle lens, the H.264 codec and an internal microphone. As mentioned before the laser view-finding system is very effective and easy to use. The Contour HD can record in 4 different resolutions which are chosen using the switch underneath the back cover. These are:
1090p (1920x1080) 30fps
960p (1280x960) 30fps
720 (1280x720) 60fps or 30fps
WVGS (848x480) 60fps
Personally I have always liked 720p due to its balance between good image quality and fairly small file sizes. The 60fps 720 mode is perfect for capturing action shots which this camera is made for. However the ability for such a small unit to capture full HD 1080p video is very impressive. The camera does perform at its best when filming action shots. The microphone isn’t fantastic being a little quiet, but is clear and acceptable. A video quality test and sample is shown at the end of the YouTube review.

In conclusion I am very impressed with this camera. A good looking, compact unit that is capable of recording 1080p video. The video quality is unbelievable for something this size. For these reasons the Contour HD 1080p is truly deserving of my Silver Award!

Youtube Review:

1 comment:

  1. great blog n i visited again :)
    see this
    http://www.allitreview.com/

    ReplyDelete