ContourHD review

The ContourHD from vHold is the first HD helmet camera that was made available on the market, back in July.

The model being reviewed is the 720p (1280x720p), not the latest at full HD.

Specifications

The ContourHD offers 135 degrees of view, SD card (no external support is required), two lasers for alignment, rechargeable battery, one record button, small and fit almost everywhere.

The ContourHD is provided with a 2GB SD card. The battery lasts about 3hours.

The street price is about 260USD. Europeans will pay the same price..in Euro.

First impressions

The contour is well packed and provided with a helmet mount. It the first deception here; you need to stick the pad on the helmet. I had to buy the vent mount (30$) to be able to put the camera on.
The mount is very easy to use.

Lasers

I wonder why other manufacturers didn’t steal this idea! With the dual lasers, it’s so easy to tune the point of view. As the contour has no feedback screen, it’s really a must!

More than a year ago, I had bought an Archos helmet cam, with the Archos 5 to record and display the results. The adjustment process was painful, because I had to record, look at the result, record again, and so on until the point of view was correct.

The only problem I had while doing this while riding (not the best idea), was to find the red dots..

Record button

This is also a genius idea! When you have glows and/or are in action, you surely have better to do than spend 5 minutes trying to find the on/off button. Plus, the Contour gives a signal feedback, so you know if you’re starting or stopping recording. This is really, really helpful. With the Archos, many times I thought I was recording when I was not and vis versa.

Battery

I’ve only tested it in mild conditions and it lasts about two hours. Which is correct. Who’s going to watch a two hours video of a mountain biker getting lost in woods, anyway?

Quality

This was precisely the reason I resold the Archos. The quality was so bad I couldn’t tell whether I was diving 30feets under the ocean or mountain biking in a forest. You can have a look at the video I took a while back here.

The ContourHD offers the 1280px720p resolution, which is the max it can handle and is also the quality I used for my tests.

To make a long story short, the quality is very good for a camera of this price.

Test part I

In this test, I ride a difficult terrain, with a lot of stones, rapid change of light, open space and under wood conditions.

The Contour handles very fast the changing of light situations, and accustomed very well to low light.

The only problem in this test is the color balance. On low light it’s too cold and too warm in normal light. Maybe they pushed the extrema a bit too much.

Test part II

Except the color balance, two new aspects are shown here. The first is that part of the scenery that are in the corners are completely blown out.

The other thing is a purple line that appears randomly. I have no idea what it is. I have other videos when it appears, always on the side of the facing sun, though it doesn’t look at all like an optical effect. More like a sensor hiccup.

Maybe the cam is defect. If anyone noticed the same, please leave a comment.

Conclusion

A very good HD helmet camera! I would be curious to test the full HD version, though. It’s easy to handle, has good quality, correct battery life and fast recording.

My next test will be while skiing.

Don’t miss vHold videos community. Surely these guys know how to promote themselves for free!