OK, our ‘Team Ginge’ GoPro is dead. Utter piece of crap if anyone is thinking of getting one. A week in Verbier, a few days here and there but overally less than 20 hours use and its kaput.

So, I’m after a replacement. Want it to be as cheap as possible, be easily mounted to a helmet or bike. Been looking at those dirt cheap sub £20 things on eBay etc and like the look of their compactness and the fact they’d be dead easy to zip tie to anything. Just not sure of the quality. Better to pay a bit more and get a genuine Muvee? Or anything else?

Cheers
Dave

PS – examples of stuff shot on cheapo cameras would be nice 😉

This was filmed on a cheapo £20 camera and brought here. Well impressed for the price!

think these ones are pretty good.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Outdoor-Waterproof-Sports-Action-Video-Camera-DV-Helmet-/130501240027?pt=UK_CamerasPhoto_DigitalCameras_DigitalCameras_JN&hash=item1e627ae4db

there was a thread on here recently with stuff of a guy commuting to work and a car nearly pulling out on him…think it was this it was shot on, and it was good.

how did it die davey?

Seems to be some problem with the power button. Fresh (lithium) batteries, new SD card. Sometimes works but won’t turn off. 99% of the time just won’t turn on.

GoPro to be fair have suggested a few things but nothing thats not already on their website. Its out of warranty though so no chance of getting it looked at…

Those cheapo muvee clones are great for the price. They arent durable though. I got one for the mtb and 2 for my cart racing nephews as chrimo pressies. 2 of the three have died but were bodgeable repairable with silicon selant- mainly the lens shakes itself off the motherboard. Given they are so tiny repairs requie a real steady hand.

Also they’re poor – really poor – in low light.

A poor quality bar mounted video: Warning – unedited mincing – dont watch for the entertainment!

fancy selling it cheap – im moving to morzine on thursday and love to have something like that to tinker with?

Honestly, its knackered. I’ve had it apart and its dead. Very dead. And its owned between 4 of us and there bits of mounts etc spread between 4 houses I think!

couldashouldawoulda – looks ok. Might up my budget a bit. Quick browse on eBay shows a load of those Oregon ones for £30 etc and I’m sure I’ve read decent reviews of those…

Always fancied the VHoldr, but was just a bit too expensive. I think the newer ones have GPS built in. Must suck the batteries though.

Another vote for the cheapo CarCam ones from 7dayshop;

http://www.7dayshop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=777_1&products_id=110352

Cheap as chips and only about £10 more than the included 8gb micro sd card. (even cheaper with 4gb card or cheaper still with no memory card).
Dezb of this parish uses one of these to record his hairy commuting escapades and the quality per pound seems OK.
A quick search of his history shows a few of his vids.
One downside though is they record in 5 minute blocks of video files on a continous loop so you loose a few seconds of action each time it saves data and resets.

Any advance on one of the cheap £20 ones? I want something thats going to work in the trees as well so that kinda rules this one out, although it ticks all the other boxes…

I have 2 Veho Muvee units, you can have one of those for £20 plus postage, comes with all accessories and straps and mounts and whatnot.
although a little off topic, I filmed this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVrKsqZrm30 – with it. 8)

I’ll have a look when I get home mate 😉

Here’s a sample of the 7dayshop jobbie I use. It’s perfect for road footage where movement is a bit smoother, so I’ve uploaded a little off road clip for you to check out
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQX2_NYgm8[/video]

Youtube definitely reduces the quality with their compression.

(It’s bar mounted (with the supplied mount) and I haven’t bothered changing the audio (yet) 🙂 )

Bit of road one (turn the vol down)
[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7s_CnTViNo[/video]

Duh, I just noticed you can change the viewing quality on the bottom right. 😳

I bought a Pelicase for my Lumix compact (can’t remember which one) and hacked it with hot screwdriver, glue gun and drill and now the case has an optical quality window for the lens, an external shutter button and can be strapped to a chest harness. Movies to be uploaded soon. If it works ok, I’m going to build MK2 with a full HD video compact camera and maybe a screw-on fisheye adapter etc

DBW – I’ve got one of the 7dayshop jobbies if you want to borrow and have a play?