ATC 2K Helmet Cam: First-Tests Review

On Friday evening I used and assembled the helmet cam for the first time. The thing that I'm most interested in with this camera is how well it actually attaches to a helmet. Is it going to be practical on the hill? Will it be steady enough for usable video? This is the main subject of this early review.

I do however have some other observations. I won't go into much detail, but I will list them here at the top:

• The video quality is actually ok, as good as I'd hoped
• The sound quality is aweful, almost a waste of time
• Connection to the pc and transfer of files is very easy
• It's not difficult to start and stop recording while the camera remains helmet-mounted

Here are the contents of the ATC-2K package:

The batteries (2 AA), SD card and connections are all at the back, which has a well sealed cover.

Mounting the camera on a helmet

Stability:
A rubber strap is used to wrap around the helmet. The strap is held in place by a plastic buckle, which also acts as the female part of the camera-to-strap connection. It's a slot and click connection.

The strap itself seems good; once in place it's pretty damn tight and doesn't appear to be going anywhere. The major problem with the design is the way that the strap is fed through the buckle. It leaves a gap.

Once attached, the weight of the camera causes it to sag, which in turn causes it to wobble once in motion. As part of the package there are a few rubber strips with sticky backs. I'm certain that these are intended to be used a padding for this gap - to help prevent the wobble.

The padding actually works pretty well. I tried 3 video tests: one with no padding, one with a single rubber strip and one with two pieces of rubber. The difference was cleary visible. The optimum seemed to be a single strip, and it cut out a lot of the wobble.

Side mount vs. top mount:
As per some of the pictures I've seen, it's possible to mount the camera on either the top or the side of a helmet. To facilitate this, the connector that is attached to the camera can be rotated. This means you can set the camera to be level wherever it is mounted.

I chose to side mount the camera for two reasons. 1st, I can't see how the rubber strap will wrap around a helmet to achieve a top mount. 2nd, I think I'll look more of a dork with it in that position.

There are two issues that I've encountered with having it side-mounted. 1st, you can actaully feel the weight of the camera. It's slight, but it's there non the less. 2nd, it really gets in the way of your googles. I'm going to have to wear the goggle strap under my helmet.

Aligning the camera:
I didn't find aligning the camera to be that difficult. After the first attempt of setting it up, I walked around the room looking at specific objects and then watched the video back to see if the camera was looking in the same area. After a few slight adjustments I've made a reference line on the helmet, and it seems pretty reliable.

Robustness:
These comments may be a little premature, but I can't help thinking that a half decent slam is going to smash the whole thing. The camera unit itself seems very solid, but there are quite a few plastic pieces in the whole connection jigsaw, and that seems like a weak link.

What's more, when the camera is disconnected it still has part of the plastic connection wrapped around it. I'd hoped to carry the camera in my pocket as an ultra portable alternative to my video camera, at times when I don't want to carry something larger. Now I'm just worried that I might damage the plastic connector...

Summary:
At this stage, I'm still fairly encouraged. The design of the helmet mount could be better, but it might just work out to be ok. Time will tell. On the plus side, the quality is good enough for what I want and the operation of the camera is dead simple. On the down side, I don't like that plastic connector being wrapped around the camera all the time; it's in the way. I might be able to get it off, but it looks to be a right fiddle.

I'd like to try the helmet cam on my skateboard before I go to Fernie - and see how the footage comes out...

Helmet Cam, Round Two

Well I've ordered the Oregon ATC-2K helmet cam. I've got some reservations, but I'm confident it's gonna fulfill at least some of my needs. The whole package was pretty reasonable too.

I bought the camera itself from purely gadgets. It was £75 plus £5 delivery. It may not be the cheapest price around but I'm sure it's close.

I also ordered a couple of 2GB SD cards. The manual recommends a couple of SanDisk models; I opted for the SanDisk Ultra II SD 2GB, rather than the standard card, just in case it makes a difference, as was hinted at in that review I read. I'd like to say I knew more about this kind of thing, but I don't, so I figured I just spend a few extra quid to be on the safe side...

I picked up the SD cards from play.com, £11 each with free delivery, making a grand total of £102. That's not bad!

I'm sure I've read it somewhere, but I can't remember what the expected battery life is. I'm gonna get some lithium AAs from somewhere as they're supposed to be better in cold conditions, but it would be handy to know how long they're expected to last. The two, 2GB cards gives me around 2 hours of footage, so I hope to be able to cover that with one set of batteries...?

I'm pretty interested to see how it turns out! Here's an update on the list:

• Pants
• Backpack
• Transceiver (& probe)
• Helmet cam

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Helmet Cam?

I'd quite like to try out a helmet cam next year in Fernie. I've seen some footage around the web that looks pretty good, and then there's some of the examples from snowboarding films.

My current video camera doesn't have video-in, however, which eliminates nearly all of the options on the market. As far as I can see, it certainly eliminates the chance of getting half-decent video quality.

At first I decided to just drop the idea, due to the camera's incompatibility. But since then I've seen a couple of self-contained helmet cams that might be worth considering.

I've found two options. actioncameras.co.uk has a decent summary, with the only suitable models being Oregon's ATC-2K and the Tony Hawk Wireless Helmet Camera.

Of course the quality on these devices isn't great, but you'd expect that given the size and the price. The self-containment does have several advantages, the main one in my eyes being that I don't need to carry the larger, more delicate camera all of the time...

I hate riding with my camera in my backpack. I don't mine riding with it while I'm using it, and of course, if I'm riding while one of my friends is using it then all the better :) A small helmet cam could be carried in a pocket, giving the option to get some video at any time, without having the backpack with you.

I've pretty much ruled out the Tony Hawk camera as the resolution is too low at 320x240. It's only 640x480 when attached to a pc, what's the point in that!?

That leaves the ATC-2K. There's a good review of the camera on Helmet Cam Central, which includes some links to sample footage: one being the raw footage and the other a YouTube sample.

There's another good review of the ATC-2K on Nollie, which looks at some of the usability issues, including the act of attaching it to a helmet!

So what am I thinking?

• The camera is cheap, as are additional SD cards for storage
• Self-containment is a big plus. Being solid state it's also pretty robust. These benefits to me are worth the trade off in quality
• I'm concerned about how well it attaches to the helmet
• I'm concerned about regular batteries working in cold conditions
• I'm concerned that the choice of memory card might effect the quality

So will it end up being a waste of money, or a really handy device to carry on the hill to use either in the hand or attached to my lid?

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