Here it is, action sport stars, some real POV footage taken with the VholdR ContourHD instead of the garbage office tour I took earlier in the week. Turn down the volume on your speakers! I’ve included the video that’s currently live on VholdR’s site and YouTube for the full HD video.
- Equipment: My feet and a Carver skateboard.
- Terrain: East side of Manhattan
If you’ve seen or played with the original VholdR then you’ve basically touched the ContourHD. The shell appears to be the same except for a few tweaks under the hood, like the new wide-angle lens, support for microSDHC (up to 16GB) and HD (720p) video recording capability.
Overall, the video quality is pretty good. I mounted the camera to the nose of my board using the adhesive pad that came in the packaging and to my astonishment it worked just fine. I was worried that it might fall off during my road test, but it’s stuck on there like a champ. Audio quality is par for the course. It doesn’t really pick up a lot of ambient noises, which is good, but if you’re trying to pick up audio from a buddy or something it might not register as well. Check around the 3:10 minute mark because the traffic should be a lot louder than it is in the video. Devin thinks there’s a lot of skew, but I’m pretty sure it’s because the cam is mounted to the bottom of a wobbly skateboard. Other videos taken with the ContourHD can be seen here.
Controls are simple, again. Press the on/off switch until the device beeps and the lights flicker on. Lens orientation can be adjusted based on how you mount the ContourHD by simply turning the lens dial. When you’re ready to record just slide the switch and an audible beep will sound off and lights will go red. And away you go!
VholdR promises eight hours of HD footage off the rechargeable battery, but for me to record eight hours of HD footage on a skateboard in NYC would take a long time. I’ll get back to you on that.
The ContourHD retails for $300, but it can be had for $280 with a $50 gift card from Amazon right now. It looks like they only have 3 of these left at $280, so you might want to act quick.