POV.HDs New V.I.O Camera 1080p

[Andy Wilkinson]

Looks interesting. I'm thinking for industrial/factory/inside machines for corporate uses (rather than extreme sports) especially since the "head" looks small and the name implies it's rugged. I very much like the fact it's IP67 certified. I guess we'll know in 6 weeks if it's any good and worth $600.

Rugged POV.HD video system captures 1080p through anything, for a price -- Engadget

[Craig Terott]

nice size but ...no audio at all?

[Stuart Martindale]

I'm interested to see some more footage - having watched their demo footage I'm not convinced it's going to provide much improvement over the go pro. That said I would love to be proved wrong as my GoPro still hasn't really been giving me the results I would like.

Personally no audio makes a lot of sense to me. I can't think when I would use the audio from a helmet cam. Although I think I saw somewhere that you can link an external mic if you need one.

[Chris Medico]

According to the website there is audio. I know the SD version had audio. I've used them on projects before.

Directly from the detailed specs here - http://www.vio-pov.com/products-all/...tml#info_specs

AUDIO - Built In Mic
Audio Codec: AAC
Mic Type: Monaural Omni-directional Cable-mounted, -40dB sensitivity at 1kHz
Resolution: 16 Bit Half Duplex
Sampling Rate:16kHz
SNR: 80dB
Speaker: Monaural 8 ohm Mylar, 0.7W Max

[Mark OConnell]

I'll be watching this. Too bad it looks like the underwater capabilities are pretty limited.

[Dean Sensui]

The VIO camera might make a good "stick camera" to get shots of a fish being tagged or pulled up alongside a boat. The tiny monitor would allow the operator to properly frame a shot. Whereas the GoPro would be point-and-pray.

[Mark OConnell]

That's one way I use the GoPro now. It's definitely point and pray but the lens is so wide that it's hard to miss your subject. To be able to actually frame a shot would be great, but when they say it should be good to a depth of around 3 ft for around a half hour, it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

[Gabor Heeres]

I received my new VIO POV HD cam last week, I will mostly use it as onboard carcam and dropped a raw unedited test-footage on Youtube so you guys can see. It's my first POV cam so i can't really compare it to others but I like it. I chose this camera over other ones because it has optional 12V power supply, wideangle lens and an external display.

YouTube - VIO POV HD Carcam

[David Elkins]

Gabor, There looks to be some pretty serious "jelloing" going on and it does not look like you are moving too fast. I especially noticed it in the trees at 0:29 and again at 1:26. If mounted in a car is causing this I hate to see what happens when it is mounted on a bike tearing down a mountain or something similar. I was about to throw my money down on this camera, but I may just wait a bit to see some more real world testing. Anyone else out there have the HD and care to chime in with their experiences?

One more thing, can someone confirm that it is actually shooting 29.97/24.98? All of the specs state 30 fps and with the whole Canon 5D debacle I am always skeptical until I see those numbers.

[Dean Sensui]

I just got the camera last Friday and took it out on a boat to film fish being brought up to gaff on Saturday.

I did get a couple of shots but keep in mind that this camera was put into service very hastily. I didn't have the proper mounts and used cable ties to secure the head and controller to a painter pole.

Also, the NiMh batteries I was using were old. I didn't know they had problems until too late. The result was dropped frames. So this is not a fair example of what the PIO POV.HD camera system can really do.

Still, there are a few things I can report on:

Overall, the unit seems very ruggedly built. The controller feels solid and the camera head is nicely machined.

The camera comes with a clear plastic lens cap. It was lost immediately in the fire drill when a fish was being brought up to the boat. So now I just have a small microfiber towel wrapped over the head, held in place with a rubber band. It keeps the camera out of the sun and protects the lens from damage when it's sitting in the boat's cockpit (where all the action takes place).

The tiny LCD screen helps compose the shot. The guy leadering one of the fish thought it was a large wahoo when it was a small striped marlin. I could clearly see what it was, even in broad daylight. Even though I'm far-sighted and wasn't wearing reading glasses. I don't like not being able to see what I'm trying to shoot, especially when it could be the only chance to get that shot and the POV.HD's screen is a big part of my decision to get it.

There is no way to lock the color balance. The image was briefly reddish when all the camera saw was deep blue water but that was corrected in seconds once it saw something white, or at least that's what it appeared to be doing. Overall, however, the white balance seems to lock well enough in daylight.

There is exposure compensation available. I found out that for footage of fish being brought up to tag or gaff, the exposure compensation has to be set to -1. Otherwise the images come out overexposed. The "deep blue" sea is described that way for a reason. :-)

Even at the high-quality setting there are still compression artifacts when there is a lot of rapidly changing detail in the scene. These artifacts show up like tiny squarish shapes in objects like bubbles.

Image quality is not even close to what I get with my Sony EX1 or Canon HF21. But the housing for the HF21 is too big to stick over the side of a moving boat, and there's no way I would stick the EX1 into the water. Keep in mind the camera is a low-cost, rugged, self-contained unit that will have its limits. To get something this small and convenient with theatre-quality footage you'd have to spend several times as much.

Still, the image is pretty crisp from one edge to the other. I saw footage posted by V.I.O. that was soft in the edges, but that might have been shot with cameras that had "eaten it" in a crash sometime in their histories.

I only became aware today that the mic is mounted on the cable. It's not obvious when reading the manual. In fact, a word search doesn't turn it up in the PDF document. I discovered that reading a third-party website about it. I haven't tested it for quality or sensitivity yet. I was wondering what that square protrusion on the cable was all about. It's about 2 feet up the cable from the camera.

I don't know how the POV.HD compares to the GoPro Hero. But I suspect it's on-par with that.

Overall, I like it.

The POV.HD serves the purpose it was designed for. It will not replace a larger video camera for quality. And it's not going to compete with the GoPro Hero cam for that part of the market.

But if you need a compact camera that you can set up with a cable-mounted control and see what it's shooting, this is a nice solution. It'll get the job done with very little fuss.

Here is a sample of what was shot that day. Please be aware that these fish are caught to be turned into someone's dinner. So don't be freaked out by them being pulled up out of the water.

You'll notice that some of the shots are definitely overexposed. That was with the camera set at "0" for exposure compensation. I also got a couple with compensation set at "-1" and those came out better. The last shot is just footage with the camera at the waterline. Something you wouldn't want to do with a regular camera. Just a different POV. That was also shot with exposure compensation set at -1.

http://hawaiigoesfishing.com/videos/...sample_640.mov