Vholdr camcorders

[ericande]

Many people have asked us about the latest the video equipment PNWRiders Racing has been sporting at the last few WMRRA rounds so I thought I'd post up a little review of the camcorders and talk a bit about the company.

First, the camera itself. The awesome thing about this camera is that it's totally self-contained, rather than a bullet cam attached by a video cable to a seperate recorder somewhere else. It is slightly bigger than a bullet cam to house a battery and memory card but I still haven't had an issue placing the cam anywhere I want. It comes with a basic mount (I haven't had a need for another yet) but the company is coming out with a vented helmet mount, a handlebar mount and others soon. The whole package is very tough with an all metal body. The front lens element rotates to make lining up the horizon very easy.





Operation is also simple and easy to learn. It is a bit different than a typical bullet cam (there is only two controls) so it takes a few minutes to understand the controls. Once you get that down, a large switch is all you need to start and stop the video recording. Each time you start and stop it, it creates a new file on the memory card, all you have to do is drag and drop the files onto your computer to edit them. I use 2gb memory cards (microSD) that record about 2 hours of video. The main downside of the the self-contained units is battery life (two hours is the most I've gotten out of a charge) but new batteries are under $10 so it's easy to buy a few extra.

The videos themselves are pretty good quality. The output is 640x480 and the quality is on par with hard drive based bullet cams (I've seen some bullet cams that record to mini DV that look better but at the expense of having to carry around a full camcorder.) With a little bump in contrast and saturation in editing I've been very pleased with the results.

Perhaps the best part of the camcorders is the durability. They've survived two crashes at the race track and the best test so far, one flew off my motorcycle at approximately 120mph on a street ride. It bounced over 1/4 mile down the road, the memory card and battery getting flung out in the process, but worked perfectly after that.

These cameras are awesome and anyone looking to capture some motorcycle footage (or skiing, climbing, hiking...whatever...) would love it, especially if you don't want to carry a camcorder on you (racers!)

Check out vholdr.com for more info on the camcorders, see videos and check out the company (a local Seattle group.)

If you want to purchase one, BHPhotoVideo.com (I've bought a ton of stuff from them) is a good place to go. They have them for $309 right now, here's a link: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...arch&Q=*&bhs=t

If you want to see some videos, here's a link to my page with plenty of them on there: http://vholdr.com/users/slow-eric

Any questions, just ask. You can also find us at the track if you want to see one in person.

[cee-jay]

Nice video's--clarity of these little guys is impressive.

[Steve]

So do you run two completely seperate cameras? One on front, one on back?

[ericande]

Originally Posted by Steve

So do you run two completely seperate cameras? One on front, one on back?

yah, except the Seattle 100.... when I ran 4

[Steve]

Well, I just went ahead and ordered one. This is #4 I think.

[k2ak]

These are great cameras! We've crashed several of them and they just keep working. Eric lost one at over 100MPH and it still works. Devon McDonough used one as a frame slider in a crash and it still works. I soaked one in a rain race, dried it out, and it still works! These cameras rock! Best learning tool out there for sure!

[Steve]

Originally Posted by k2ak

These cameras rock! Best learning tool out there for sure!

Yeah, no kidding. I have been missing mine since my crash in June. I just wonder if the helmet cam set up will withstand the wind at 150mph down the straight.

[Visolara]

I dont mean to jack this thread, but I cant seem to post a new one, I get an error that I need to enter more then 5 characters to post even tho I wrote a book for a race report.

Any idea's?

And yes, these camera's are awesome!!

[tophyr]

Originally Posted by Steve

Yeah, no kidding. I have been missing mine since my crash in June. I just wonder if the helmet cam set up will withstand the wind at 150mph down the straight.

Eric and I run ours on the side of the fairing, fully exposed to the wind, with no problems at all. We've found that if we don't add some tape to hold the camera down tightly that it will vibrate and make the video jump around, but I think that's more due to mounting it onto a flimsy fiberglass section.