Topic: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

www.vholdr.com

This thing is a small little sucker capable of 720p (and the new one coming out in Nov is capable of 1080p), small enough to be strapped as a helmet cam, yet looks like it delivers a decent picture.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this...  For the pricepoint (~$300-$400 with accessories), it seems like a cheap way to get a camera into the cab.  (And it'll make a cool helmet cam come ski season!)

The Geo Gnome guys have used it, and seemed to like it.  Anyone else?

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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

We used one as a 'drivercam' and I am well pleased with the results. It's not broadcast quality, but it works great and the user interface is really easy to, uh, use.

Volvo PV544 (RIP) - now with Chevy 3.9 power!
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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Problem I have with helmet-type cams is the complete lack of manual controls. With a compact HD flash camcorder, you have an actual menu and (albeit limited) exposure, focus, and much more record time.

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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

I was not too happy with their customer service... I wrote them asking all sorts of tech questions, basically asking for a unit to purchase that could record for 24 hours using a 12v feed and using a 32MB card.
The email I got back just said that they don't support the 32mb card.

We race in 24 hour endurance events. The rules in these races is that
we can't change our camera memory chips in the hot pits. The problem
we have it that we are good enough that we don't have to go to the
paddock during the events. That kills our time of recording.
We are looking for a camera that can support the upcoming 32GB Micro
SDHC chips that can record at least 24 hours worth of video, while
being able to be powered by the cars 12v system.
Can your cameras do this?

We are looking at a 3 to 5 camera system mounted on the cars.

Thank you for your time.
---
Bill Strong
Racing Strong Motorsports

Hey Bill,

Thank you for writing into support and for your interest in the ContourHD.
At this point in time the camera will only support a maximum of a 16GB micro
SD card.  If you have any additional questions please let us know.

Thank you!

--
Brandon Napier
VholdR
Wear it. Shoot it. Share it.

E: brandon@vholdr.com
W: www.vholdr.com
P: 206.792.5226

He was friendly and all, but if I had a customer contacting me asking for specific info I would most likely offer up some good answers, or even contact R&D and see what we can do in future products, especially to a guy looking at investing in 6 cameras.

Bill Strong
Racing Strong Motorsports
Like us on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/RacingStrong

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

It would be nice if the hot-pit driver change rules allowed a tiny bit more. Swap camera card/tape, swap drink bottle, swap in fresh radio.  I'm not saying you should be able to check tire pressures, torque lug bolts, look under the hood, or change a head gasket on pit road. Maybe require that this stuff is done from the wall-side of the car on pit road?

Of course, it would be nice if I won the lottery, too.

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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

EvergreenDan wrote:

It would be nice if the hot-pit driver change rules allowed a tiny bit more. Swap camera card/tape, swap drink bottle, swap in fresh radio.  I'm not saying you should be able to check tire pressures, torque lug bolts, look under the hood, or change a head gasket on pit road. Maybe require that this stuff is done from the wall-side of the car on pit road?

Of course, it would be nice if I won the lottery, too.

You cant swap drinking bottles/bladders in the hot pits?

Sons of STIG
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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Riktor wrote:
EvergreenDan wrote:

It would be nice if the hot-pit driver change rules allowed a tiny bit more. Swap camera card/tape, swap drink bottle, swap in fresh radio.  I'm not saying you should be able to check tire pressures, torque lug bolts, look under the hood, or change a head gasket on pit road. Maybe require that this stuff is done from the wall-side of the car on pit road?

Of course, it would be nice if I won the lottery, too.

You cant swap drinking bottles/bladders in the hot pits?

Nope.  Gas ONLY.  It's a 2 hour penalty if you're caught doing more than gas.

I'm the doctor who is a wife. Which makes the grease hard to explain to my patients... www.tetanusneon.com.

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Wow, I didn't know about that rule. 

Well, these cams will record roughly 30min/GB, so a 16GB card should last for 8 hours.  For Thunderhill, that should be close to enough.

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Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

doctawife wrote:
Riktor wrote:

You cant swap drinking bottles/bladders in the hot pits?

Nope.  Gas ONLY.  It's a 2 hour penalty if you're caught doing more than gas.

Bear in mind that the hot pit rules vary widely from track to track and aren't set in stone until the morning of the race. The NL race is a good example. Prior to the race, the rumor/scuttlebutt about fueling was that there would be no hot pits, no fueling in the paddock, and fueling would be allowed only in the designated gravel area between the paddock and the entrance from the paddock to pit lane. 2 fuelers only (1 fueler, one fire guy), no driver in car. Nothing else to be done at fueling area during fuel but could could swap drivers after.

At the drivers/team meeting the morning of the race, Jay announced that there would be hot pits after all (presumably because of the high chance of clusterfvck in the gravel area). Rules were that there were to be a max of 3 guys over the wall at any given time, each team had to supply its own fire bottle, no work could be done on the car in the hot pit other than fueling, no driver in car during fueling, and driver change could be done in the hot pit ONLY if there was fuel being added to the car. This seemed to work well.

At Houston last spring, I don't remember there being the same restrictions on number of people over the wall, but then again we were limited on fire suits that race so it wouldn't have really mattered. But I do know that many teams were doing full pit stop type engine checking during the pit stops without penalty (oil check and addition, especially). I don't recall any mandatory penalties for doing other pit stop work on cars in that race.

The main point being, you won't really know what's allowed or not allowed in the hot pits at any given race until right before the race. You may not be allowed to do anything in the hot pits, you may be allowed to do anything short of a motor swap. Unless and until Jay or Nick come on the forum and say that it will/won't be allowed, everything on this forum is just scuttlebutt. That's just my $0.02 worth. Cheers.

Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67

Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Mulry wrote:
doctawife wrote:
Riktor wrote:

You cant swap drinking bottles/bladders in the hot pits?

Nope.  Gas ONLY.  It's a 2 hour penalty if you're caught doing more than gas.

At Houston last spring, I don't remember there being the same restrictions on number of people over the wall, but then again we were limited on fire suits that race so it wouldn't have really mattered. But I do know that many teams were doing full pit stop type engine checking during the pit stops without penalty (oil check and addition, especially). I don't recall any mandatory penalties for doing other pit stop work on cars in that race.

The main point being, you won't really know what's allowed or not allowed in the hot pits at any given race until right before the race. You may not be allowed to do anything in the hot pits, you may be allowed to do anything short of a motor swap. Unless and until Jay or Nick come on the forum and say that it will/won't be allowed, everything on this forum is just scuttlebutt. That's just my $0.02 worth. Cheers.

At the driver's meeting at the Houston race, Jay did state that the hot pits were for gas only - no oil, no tire checking, etc.  Some teams, however, decided to judiciously ignore the rule.  Fortunately for them, no one seemed to care too much.

Generally speaking, you're right.  The pit rules aren't set until the day of the race.  Don't expect to do much other than gas in the hot pits, tho - you'll only set yourself up for disappointment.

I'm the doctor who is a wife. Which makes the grease hard to explain to my patients... www.tetanusneon.com.

11 (edited by Serj 2009-10-13 01:02 PM)

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Honestly we spent a long time working on video solutions to reduce paddock time, and the best we came up with was a D8 cam in VCR mode with a Gargantuan battery taking a feed in from a bullet cam. not exactly HD but sound and video came out excellent. takes forever to pull from tape though and we'd have to swap'em every 90minutes if we wanted the whole thing.


Edited to prevent Off-topic-ness smile

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

We should take this hot pit threadjack someplace else probably...

Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67

Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

D'oh!  Sorry.

We're lame - no video powers.  So I have nothing on topic to contribte.

I'll run away now.

I'm the doctor who is a wife. Which makes the grease hard to explain to my patients... www.tetanusneon.com.

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Mulry wrote:

We should take this hot pit threadjack someplace else probably...

Probably... 

But I really appreciate the thread bump for your conversation, even if it has nothing to do with the OP.

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15 (edited by Contraband 2009-10-13 07:24 PM)

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

craznoe wrote:

Wow, I didn't know about that rule. 

Well, these cams will record roughly 30min/GB, so a 16GB card should last for 8 hours.  For Thunderhill, that should be close to enough.

I've got a Canon FS100 and a 16GB card that will do about 10.5hrs at 3Mbps, the lowest quality setting (which is nothing to complain about). Originally I was looking at the GoPro camera, and while I like the fact that it's tiny and light and can be mounted anywhere (unlike the gigantic old Sony TRV340 Digital8 camera I have) I was disappointed by fact that it wouldn't take SDHC cards - which effectively maxes out memory to 2GB and ~56min. I could deal with 2 hours since I'd just buy a few cards and swap cards at driver changes, but with the Canon I plan on just giving it a constant power source with an inverter or something and leaving it recording the entire time. It's not HD but I'm still really impressed with the quality. smile My one gripe is that the viewing angle is not nearly wide enough for what I'd like, and that there's no filter threads to put on a wide angle converter. Luckily somebody's found out that by buying a 37mm sunpak UV filter (which has threads on it), supergluing it to the camera, and buying a .5x sunpak wide angle converter you can kind of fake it. Plus the UV filter protects the lens; I don't trust the flimsy little plastic lens cover.

I also just recently bought some cheap $45 eBay 420 line, 1/3" Sony CCD CCTV bullet cam, and a 2.1mm lens (which is claimed to have a 150° view angle compared to the 3.6mm and 90° view angle of the included one) for $15. I'll post a thread either in this forum or Lemons tech showing what it can do and if I like it.

More than you can afford, pal. Daihatsu.
AFAP TH '09 - 95th
ASAP TH '10 - 34th - 1st Class C "Ugly"

16 (edited by ronman 2009-10-13 07:29 PM)

Re: ContourHD - Thoughts, opinions on use for car cam?

Please do!
I really want to get our car wired for some serious video for next year's races.

I've got a Samsung  SC-HMX20C 1080p SDHC camera and it's got the same problem as your FS100 (which is the camera I actually went to the store to buy, but they were out of them and gave me the twice-as-much-money Sammy for the same price!) in that the lens is nowhere near wide enough. It does have a threaded lens barrel, but it's a funky size, like 49mm or something, so the only wide-angle adapter available is like $100. Gotta do what I gotta do, though, I suppose...

Official photographer/Team Police Brutality|Speedycop & the Gang
Lackey-mechanic-whatever/NSF Racing
Sycophant/Judge Phil, Jay Lamm, Kim Harmon
Galaxie Driver/not Parnelli Jones