BannedCR500Riders.com

Contour GPS VS Gopro Hero HD:

Lastnight we went for a ride, bro sporting the gopro and I had the Contour.
It was later, low light.

I bought the contour because of the GPS feature so I can review speed during playback. I liked the way you cant screw up the record button or change the setting by accident.

I've had the standard gopro Hero before, it was great but standard definition, Dad has the 1080p model.

I'm going to break it down on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best.

Gopro:
low light picture 2
wind noise 10
mounting options 10
picture quality 10
sound quality 10
Image stability 10

Contour:
low light picture 9
wind noise 2
mouning options 3
picture quality 4
sound quality 2
Image stability 2

I really was dissapointed with the contour. The company sent me a replacement door for the back to deal with the on/off button issue, it does work better by trimming their button so it doesnt contact the battery. It doesnt come in a protective case, the lens is out in the debris and if its muddy the switch will no doubt be full of uncleanable crap. removing the camera from its slot mount makes you question if you'll tear the mount loose of the helmet, its not that the camera is sitting tight in the mount either, the mounts themselves and the design of the t-slot means they rattle and move while "mounted". It does have a feature where pressing the power button while recording will turn on 2 aiming lazers so you can properly adjust where you are looking. THe contour will make a floating image if you have a contrast like i did of a yellow stubble field against a dark tree line. The field appears to float up and down of its acutal position against the background. The gopro does not have this issue.

Overall i give the contour a 2/10 rating, the gopro 9/10

The gopro works great as usual. Using the open rear door on the protective case means you can pickup more audio and there is no wind noise unless in a severe crosswind or looking backwards. The little button is tough to find with a glove on. It has excellent mounting options, the sound is excellent, there isnt a whole lot to say about it for negative featrues.


We tested both cameras at the 720 30fps setting.
altho we forgot to test them for the same length of time the results are like this...
gopro 15:51 minutes used 1.66gb
contour 18:48 minutes 1.59gb

The Contour uses the more expensive MicroSD-HC card, not really an issue but the standard size SD-HC cards the gopro uses are usually 1/2 the money.

I am going to buy the "RE-Play" brand HD camera. Its smaller again and looks to have good features. Pricing is similar for all 3 of these cameras.

I think the Go-Pro hd is the cream of the crop in my opinion. All the things Roosty said are true and also you can use the camera at about 100 feet underwater. i have dove a shipwrech at about 70 feet and it worked great. Also if you look at every TV show with there in car shots etc etc they are all go pro's. The mounting options on the go pro are endless as well

Thanks for the comparison report Roosty, I look forward to hearing about the Re-Play.

I have the Contour HD, similar to Roosty's GPS model.
I played with the sound settings on my computer and came up with a good compromise with the wind noise. It works pretty good now.
One issue I have is the lens is not sealed against dust.
I had a big dust cloud in mine and it takes a jewelers screwdriver to get those tiny screws out to clean it.
This could be solved with an O ring in my opinion.
I don't know about the other brands but it takes friggin forever to download a 15 minute video to my high end computer and a full day to upload the same video to Youtube if it isn't converted.

Maybe we can get a sub category for cams and software.
I know there would be some good stuff and a lot of learning going on.

didnt take me long to move a vid today, 3 minutes.
id like to know your sound settings.
im posting vids today, youtube name 500bigbore

Yeah, I'm subscribed and just watched it.
Your channel........
http://www.youtube.com/user/500bigbore

I'll hook up the cam and get the settings for you later today.

Here's a vid on my little tiddler 125, the wind noise is acceptable compared to what it had been.
I'm not going very fast so that may be a factor.

http://youtu.be/DNKsLmfcbcs

OK
mic sensitivity 40
I haven't touched the lighting settings but here they are.
contrast 56
sharpness 4
exposure -1

This is for a Contour 1080p HD
I use Contour 720p medium
or Action 720p medium.

I just got 2 more from your channel.
The WFO field is awsome!
The V3 shows the wind noise.
Try turning the mic sensitivity down to 40 or below.

Saturday EDIT........
Scratch that 40.
It's moderately windy here today and I fired up the 2001 CR250 and took a spin on it.
I'll have a short video of it as soon as YouTube loads it.
40 doesn't cut it.
I set it to 30 and will see what that does.

OK, 30 sux too, just tooling around it's ok.
I took the tape off the bottom to expose the mic hole.
It was VERY bad.
Then I taped up around the lens cap and along the slide and bottom.
Much better but wind is still an issue at speed, it could be better.
I think it's a problem coming from around the actual lense itself.
I'm real tempted to crack it open and see if I can put something on the mic to reduce the wind noise.
There's a ton of stuff on the web about the noise issue.
I wish those guys would address this issue instead of cranking out new models every six months.
Now I know why a lot of guys put music in their videos.
I've solved the all day upload stuff by limiting myself to short 3-4 minute vids.
Here's a video that shows the difference between noise at speed with the mic exposed and puttering through the woods.
http://youtu.be/MSwc1E14qzA
btw-I'm just toolin' around on a 1974 TY250.

I did a bit of riding sunday, camera fell off. mount broke off.
Contour can blow me.

Roostius_Maximus wrote:I did a bit of riding sunday, camera fell off. mount broke off.
Contour can blow me.

Did you lose it?

I found it, I'd hit a branch or a twig really while clutching along on a tight trail in low gear, i knew exactly where it was and stopped about 3ft behind it.

Do my videos suck?

Honest question.

MojoScojo wrote:Do my videos suck?

Honest question.

negatory

MojoScojo wrote:Do my videos suck?

Honest question.

No way. Why do you ask?

Did I luck out and get a good one then? Been very happy with my Contour. But then it's not the GPS unit either.

I knew out of the gate the mount that comes with it was gonna suck. So I got the low profile permanent stick on mounts.

I also left the sticker on the mic and left the sensitivity at 50.

As far as wind noise, it's worlds better than my previous camera and way better than all the GoPro vids I had seen before I bought it. Having heard about the door on the back of the GoPro now, I may have made a different decision, but I doubt it. I also rarely get over 20mph, so...

The fishbowling the GoPro's seemed to do was awful. I still compare to friends (other than Roosty, his are in fact better) and the quality on mine just seems way ahead.

I guess mileage varies widely on these things.

Here is a new one to throw into the mix.....a little pricey at $600 though
http://www.vio-pov.com/products-all/pov-hd.html

MojoScojo wrote:Did I luck out and get a good one then? Been very happy with my Contour. But then it's not the GPS unit either.

I knew out of the gate the mount that comes with it was gonna suck. So I got the low profile permanent stick on mounts.

I also left the sticker on the mic and left the sensitivity at 50.

As far as wind noise, it's worlds better than my previous camera and way better than all the GoPro vids I had seen before I bought it. Having heard about the door on the back of the GoPro now, I may have made a different decision, but I doubt it. I also rarely get over 20mph, so...

The fishbowling the GoPro's seemed to do was awful. I still compare to friends (other than Roosty, his are in fact better) and the quality on mine just seems way ahead.

I guess mileage varies widely on these things.

Your vids are mostly single track or tooling through the woods from what I've seen.
No wind noise there, like the vids I've done in the woods.
Getting to the woods and coming out is where the wind noise comes in to play.
I turned my mic down to 30 and you can barely hear me speak with the engine turned off. I don't really like it that way.
After taping mine up, I think the little bit of noise I get now is coming in through either the top switch or around the actual lense.
The only real fix seems to be a muffler of some sort inside the camera itself.
btw-I have a bunch of sticky mounts.
I bought the low profile sticky mount in the shape of the camera and I like it but I mounted it too far forward on my visor so I'm using the original mount in my recent vids.
Does anyone know where those 3M stickies can be had besides online?
My goggle strap system uses the same stickies.

What are you guys using for editing software?

Kuma wrote:What are you guys using for editing software?

I hear a lot of guys are using something from Sony.
I just gave up on cutting min, I upload it to youtube as is.
btw-I've done 2 today and one of them is still loading.
I decided to turn the mic up to 59 and test the wind after taping it up.
Problem with the first vid is, it's too dark for some reason.
I changed the setting to dusk for the second one, we'll see.

Kuma wrote:What are you guys using for editing software?

Windoze movie maker works fine - pretty simple to use

For the Contour vids, I use Quicktime Pro just to snip to length. Takes seconds instead of hours.

Me and the Boy did (2) 36 mile loops Saturday and I shot them both with the Contour in the waterproof case. The case for the Contour is a must in my opinion.Shot the whole day at full res. My Audio level was set a tad too low but other than that, just absolutely incredible video. I dont use the permanent mount, the goggle strap mount seems to be doing the job quite well with a velcro helper piece between the mount and the helmet. The GoPro has now been relagated to the shelf. The Contour gets my vote all the way.

I got the gopro, just started using it and am finding that the highest resolution (5r) doesn't have a good of picture as the lower ones (4r, 2r), what gives?

Kuma wrote:What are you guys using for editing software?

Roxio Creator pro...The 2011 version. Great stuff if your computer is quick enough to run it. My office computer has a real hard time with it but my Wifes i5 laptop runs it like your looking at Craigslist postings.

My contour charged and died, no response to charging or the PC

FUCK CONTOUR!!!

It still has the sticker on it, it's dammn near new!!!