Comments on: GoPro Wide Hero 5 Motorsports Camera Review

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:40:48 +0000

I think the audio is doomed to be muffled, simply because the mike is inside the case. I’ve used a couple of other, older helmet cams and in a high-vibration environment they get a peculiar “wavy” effect resulting from the scanning protocol of the imaging chip.

As far as the lithium batteries go, the website says:

“Battery life is improved to 3 hours of video record time when using Lithium batteries and 2 hours when using NiMH rechargeable batteries.”

So I think they’re referring to the single-use lithium batteries that you can get pretty much anywhere (though they’re pricey). My experience with these is that they don’t quit in extremely cold weather, but the voltage discharge curve (how much the voltage falls as the battery is worn out) is nearly flat…when the battery-low indicator starts showing anything other than “full”, they’re exhausted.

NiMH rechargeables are available nearly anywhere too, and can be gotten with very high capacity, though I haven’t used them for cold weather work much.

Thanks for the help!

By: CEO

CEO — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:46:15 +0000

I have not noticed a jittering wave problem with the GoPro, I just wish the audio was a bit better. What I want to do is try and muffle it a bit because I think the mic is picking up vibrations from the plastic housing. Maybe I can stick a piece of foam inside the casing…

By: CEO

CEO — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:43:50 +0000

The Vholdr looks like it takes good video, but I think the GoPro has much better video stabilization. Hopefully soon I will take the GoPro out on my mountain bike and take a few “nice sunny day in the woods videos”. The GoPro really seems to prefer a lot of sunlight.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:17:20 +0000

It looks like you don’t get the odd jittering waves that a lot of other small cams have if they’re vibrated or moved a lot — any problems so far?

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:08:40 +0000

I know that you checked out the VIO but was wondering if you had checked out any others. I’ve been looking at the VholdR contour hd, wondering if you had looked into it. From the sample video that I have seen it seems a lot better than a lot of other cameras.