Anyone got a contour hd and what do you think of it?

Yep, I like it, good for the money at current prices. The 1080p mode is a bit useless, it goes all wobbly over rough stuff, but it also does 720p @ 60fps which is much better over rocky descents, and still provides decent high-res footage. Here’s some stuff I’ve shot with mine (it’s all a bit compressed so doesn’t do the camera full justice, but it should still give you an idea of what it can do).

mintimperial what class of memory card are you using in your contour?

Erm. No idea. Can’t find the blasted thing…

I use Class 4 cards in mine and not had any issues.

Video footage is good but audio is poor. Wind noise is the issue but I think all have pretty lousy audio.

Aha. It was hiding under some junk in the garage. It’s a 16GB SanDisk job and it says MicroSD HC on it, and there’s also something that might be a “C4” or a 4 in a circle so I guess class 4. I think it came in a bundle with the camera, that or it was on offer at the same shop.

Wind noise is the issue but I think all have pretty lousy audio.

Yes, there is that, the audio is useless as soon as you get over about 5mph…

This video was shot with a Contour Roam set at 1080p. You should get the same result from a Contour HD

[video]http://vimeo.com/42484808[/video]

The reason i ask about the class of your memory card is that you can reduce the juddery nature of the film as higher classes of cards deal with higher data rate much better. By higher data rate i mean 1080p at higher frame rates.

Here is what the numbers mean

To help you find the right speed, SD/SDHC cards are broken down into four classes: Class 2, Class 4, Class 6 and Class 10. Class 2 cards offer a minimum sustained data rate of 2 megabytes per second (MBps), Class 4 of 4MBps and Class 6 of 6MBps and Class 10 of 10MBps

The 1080p at a high frame rates is a known issue with alot of the sports video cams.

Aaaah, of course. Silly thing is I know about this sort of thing, but only as it applies to DSLRs with CF cards. Duh. Better grab myself a decent SD card then. Cheers! 🙂

I would argue that the footage from my contour is better using a class 10 card than my go pro, but the versatility of the gopro mounts (chest mount especially) means I end up using the gopro for filming MTB most of the time.

Cheers guys, I’m going to give the contour ago.

i have one that i ve used for trials riding plenty of film on my blog.. http://contour.com/stories/pre65blogspot-francis-barnett-trials i have the contour for sale on ebay as well!!

Total shell, ordered one an hour ago! This must be why my wife hates me waking up at 5am (me being bored and buying things)!!

distance selling regs allow you to return the item within 7 days for a full refund..

For the price, you won’t be dissapointed!

Get yourself a Contour Flex Mount, which means you can mount it around any tube on your bike, it is a versatile mount.

Rusty Mac – Member

The reason i ask about the class of your memory card is that you can reduce the juddery nature of the film as higher classes of cards deal with higher data rate much better. By higher data rate i mean 1080p at higher frame rates.

Personally I don’t think the memory card has anything to do with it. The wobbly look is actually “rolling shutter effect” (explained here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter) which is more noticeable in the 1080p mode because it’s at 30fps, so a shutter speed of 1/30sec. In 720p mode shooting at 60fps you have a shutter speed of 1/60sec.

In my experience memory cards can either handle the data rate or not. If it can’t write the data fast enough it just doesn’t the write the data past the point when the buffer fills up, and it just stops recording. It doesn’t degrade the data so that it can write it faster.

If I have misunderstood what was meant by wobbly footage then fair enough.

SD card info. Written for GoPro use but will be just the same for others

Which SD Memory Card For My GoPro?

Hmmm actually, I may have over simplified (or just be wrong or maybe partially wrong 🙂 ) what I said up there. I thought that the GoPro, for instance, used an iris to control exposure but turns out it uses shutter speed. So in low light conditions (where a faster shutter speed is required) the rolling shutter effect is less noticeable. I would guess the contour works in a similar manner but trying to find more info at the moment.

I say over simplified as if you were using a DSLR where you have control over all the settings then its generally considered that you use a shutter speed of roughly double your frame rate. So 30fps would be 1/60th and 60fps would be 1/125th. I’m guessing there might be something like this going on in these sports cams as well, and then a further modification to shutter speed for exposure?

Still don’t think its memory card related though, I would have thought that the data corruption or loss that unsponsored mentions in his article would give picture break up, like when you can’t tune your digital TV properly a opposed to wobble.

hmmm confused myself over something there about the shutter speed in low light. This is an example of not engaging brain before typing. 😳