ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

im using it in afghanistan its a great piece of equipment i love being able to go back and look at what i could of done different in my combat situations. and i have even used it around the base to show my family what my living conditions are like

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

I was deciding between this and GoPro and after a month of use I must say I am happy with the choice. The shape is very ergonomical, easy to carry around, and shoot from your hand or clip using the accessory. Very good in lowlight, the colours, sharpness are great. Setting cannot be changed directly but I actually never needed to change any of the settings after the initial setup. Works great in any light conditions and underwater too, just don't dive to deep.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Bought two of these for props on a TV show and they were a smash hit!

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Excellent picture, compact, good design, it is very easy to make movies and picture albums, the on- off switch is great, there is no messing around looking for it.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

I've only had it week or so. But been making strides in learning about it.

I bought the ControuROAM which is the less expensive, simpler to operate model. It came with a lot of extra items. A really nice transparent carry case, a usb cable, a soft rubber len cover, a slightly curved permenant mount that rotates horizontally.

It has a regular Tripod mount threaded hole in the bottom of the "T" mount under the main barrel of the camera.

It also has an omnidirectional microphone under the chin. the chin of the camera also has a red stripe light that indicates when its recording.

The face of the camera lens has a single laser beam which activates when you press the button on the back and scans like a Cylon from Battelstar Galactica to produce a horizontal level beam. This is so the lens with the camera can be rotated 270 degrees to level the line of capture with the line of action. There are 90 degree marks on the front barrel of the camera.

The top of the camera has a slide switch which moves fore and aft. When turned on it reveals a red bulls eye target symbol that lights up to indicate its recording.

Behind the bull eye, exposed even when the slider switch is in the off position are two multi colored lighted battery and sd card symbols.

Green means discharging, or everything is okay. A red battery symbol means its charging.

The back door of the camera was the hardest thing to figure out. There is a small vertical lever underneath the big pushbutton. The pushbutton activates the laser beam for leveling. The veritcal lever locks and unlocks the camera door, most of the time its really not necessary to lock it as the door keeps itself closed, but if it is locked you need to be sure to unlock it so you can open the rear door.

There is a white "dot" that you can see next to the lever when it is in the "locked" position, and disappears when the lever is thrown and the door is in the "unlocked" mode.

To open the door its rather unintuitive, but you grab both sides of the big round hatch and pull upwards, it offsets and clicks and then will lay down backwards away from the camera housing, it is spring loaded to hold the door open once its released.

The back door has a waterproof seal to keep dirt and moisture out, its rated for about a meter under water.. but I have no plans to test it.

This camera by the way includes a non-replaceable built-in rechargable battery. Which is suppose to last from 2-3 hours. Then take about 4 hours to recharge.

It is possible to run the camera from a custom Car Charger meant to simultaneously power and charge the camera at the same time. Its intended for capturing car trips or something like that.

A normal USB cable however is not supposed to have the wiring to simultaneously charge and record. As soon as you plug in the cable its suppose to charge and not record.. however, I'm not sure that this is correct. Its a matter of some discussion on the manufacturers community forums. One guy built a custom cable to power it off a battery pack. I've found if the camera is already recording when the USB power pack it attached by USB it keeps on recording.. and it does and the bettery indicator comes on as if it is charging.. so it might be a procedural thing.

The back of the camera also has a small micro SDHC slot for up to a 32 GB memory card. And a micro USB connector port for power and recoding downloads. The camera does not come with a memory card due to some problems with bundling memory cards in foreign countries. And there is no built in storage for movie captures.. so you need to buy a memory card to get started separately.

The camera defaults to capturing in 720p video in H.264 .mov file fomat, Quicktime on the Mac or PC reads it natively and has no problem with it.

The camera also has other modes of capture, including 1080p and delayed snap shot mode, like 1,2,4 seconds ect.. up to 60 sec I believe.

I've connected the camera up to my iPad2 and the Apple Connector Kit with the USB connector for the iPad2 and Imported video direct from the camera off the memory card and into the Photos application, and then those show up in the iMovie app I purchased from the Apple App Store. So that's cool.

I'm exploring combining a VIO chest harness (available here at BH video) with the google mount for the ContourROAM to see if I can get a shoulder mount "parrot" camera arrangement, sort of like Captain Jack Sparrow or the Alien in Predator. Posting my progress on the ContourROAM forums if your interested.

As for editing the videos, Contour makes a software program called Storyteller available and hosts a website for posting your videos, or you can post them to Youtube. Connecting the camera to a PC doens't require a driver, it just shows up as a memory stick, even labeled with the name of your memory card in the camera. Or you can take the memroy card out and pop another in like film and download/upload later.

Every version of Windows has had a version of Movie Maker and that can be used to edit the video and add visual and audio effects, narration or sound and publish.

Every version of OS X has had a version of iMovie and that can be used to edit the video and add visual and audio effects, narration or sound and shared.

The iPad2 (not iPad1) has the iMovie app and it can pretty much do the same, or create movie projects which can be sync'd to OS X later and further tweaked. Same app works on iPhone.

The Android has the Video Editor app on some Samsung phones and its very much like all these other apps for the Windows or OS X platforms. Movie maker is suppose to become available on Ice Cream Sandwich if you get a phone that has that.. Android is a little behind in the video department.. although Samsung does a good job of furthering it along.

As for power, I also purchased an i.Sound 16,000 mA battery and I'll review that elsewhere on BH video later.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

This little camera is a great addition to just about any shoot situation, especially live. Coupled with the wide selection of mounts and tripods, you can get POV shots with no worries. Configures in about 45 seconds and will record for 4 hours! I got two right now, but plan to add at least 2 more, they are just too handy to get those impossible angles.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

I bought this camera to mount on my hat to video my dog when hunting. However, I've used it for my grandson's birthday party and many other activities. It really works great. The clarity of filmed objects is amazing,and the ease of filming is a plus. For the price and intended purpose, this is a great little camera.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

its just a great, handy tool!

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Very easy to use. great battery life. Fits in your pocket, bathing suit. decent audio. great HD video quality. Is actually water proof as advertised.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

It's Water Proof and Shock Resistant which is perfect to survive the shipping alone.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

This is the POV camera I wanted, it is excellent.
So simple to use, charge the battery, insert your Micro SD card, slide the record switch forward and you are making movies, its that simple!

I have not found a down side yet, I recorded a fair amount of my trip to New York with this little camera, so so easy!

I have also mounted it to an old push bike helmet and have started recording my RC glider flights.
The colour is excellent and full 1080HD video quality.

This truly is a great little, easy to use camera, and the download software works!

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Excellent little camera. Very easy to use. Picture quality isn't quite as good as the GoPro, but the configuration is easier to work with. We've used it on several projects already, and clients have been thrilled.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Cliped in on the side of the boat and took of. Got nailed a couple of times with water. Footage looks great and still works. Will be buying more.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

This was the best purchase i ever made! it's incredible and flexible to use with almost anything i could imagine and it has a great cost benefit.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

I did a lot of research before I got this camera and glad I did! It's really well made. The video quality is Awesome! The mounts secure it well in whatever way you choose, so you don't have to worry about it coming loose. Uploading is a one step process and I was surprised how fast! Get one! You won't regret it!

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

The first review is just not true....the camera can be configured on your computer just not in the field.
Very simple to operate, makes good looking videos. The audio is not very good unless you are really close. For the price ease of use I think the ContourRoam going to be hard to beat.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

Contour makes great claims for its line of POV cameras. One of the features that caught my attention was the ability to configure the camera's characteristics. So I bought the ContourROAM.

When it arrived, I found out that the ContourROAM is the only camera in Contour's lineup that can't be configured. Their website claims that their cameras can be configured through software, but they fail to specify the ROAM can't.

The recorded audio is way too low to be considered usable. At arm's length you'd have to be shouting to get decent levels. Normal conversation is heavily muted.

The access door in the back of the ContourROAM is a simple slide-and-flip to open. I wouldn't expect it to provide any real protection from water intrusion as suggested by Contour's claims. Also, the higher models, the ContourGPS and the Contour+, are less water resistant than the ROAM, according to Contour's own information. Not something you'd want to strap to your helmet as you kayak down the river.

The mount isn't very sturdy and doesn't lock very securely. And there were reports of the Contour mounts breaking during normal use.

When I reviewed test footage, I noticed that if a bright light source was just off-axis, there would be a black vertical streak in the footage from the Contour.

Contour has a user forum online and I went through many of the posts. There were lots of complaints including the ones I noted above, as well as various reports of unreliability.

As a sports camera that is supposed to be used under tough conditions, none of the Contour cameras give me any confidence. There are other cameras that provide similar or better performance in compact packages, and at prices equal to or less than the cameras from Contour.

After a brief evaluation it was apparent this camera fell well short of expectations. So I returned it and got something else.

Comments about ContourROAM Hands-Free HD Camcorder:

While it is waterproof to 1m, I suggest the waterproof case! Otherwise this camera is going to be amazing this winter! The movie app provided by contour is a little buggy!