Gear Review

VholdR ContourHD 1080p

1. smashed highlights
2. shutter roll
3. get it anyway
4. 4.6oz w/battery

If you're wondering whether or not to get a VHoldR ContourHD helmet cam, I say go ahead and get one. If, on the other hand, you are wondering which ContourHD cam to get—the 720p or 1080p model—well, that question is a bit more complicated.

Let me begin by assigning you a little homework: please read my original VHoldR ContourHD 720p Review. Got it? Good. Much of what applies to the 720p ContourHD applies also to the 1080p model. They are almost identical cameras. Okay, next and most importantly, watch this video I shot skiing Telluride top-to-bottom using the ContourHD 1080p cam—and be sure to view it full-screen, in HD, for the full effect (slower connections will need to let it buffer first).

To understand why I'm so excited about VHoldR's ContourHD cams, you need only watch a few seconds of that Telluride video.

Nothing compares to the immersiveness of helmet camera footage, and in the HD realm, there is currently nothing available that matches the ContourHD's combination of price, features, and size.

Both 720p and 1080p models are about the size of an ultra-compact point-and-shoot digital camera, and both weigh less than five ounces, making them seemingly-perfect tools for outdoor videographers both pro and amateur.

Note the qualifier there. In putting together that shot of Telluride, I spent a full week battling the quirks and limitations of the ContourHD 1080p. The camera delivered daily frustrations, forcing me to junk shot after shot. It is possible to get stunning results with the ContourHD, but you're going to have to work for it. And in the end, I chose to use the camera's 720p mode. The 1080p mode caused too many problems.

First Impressions:

When my 1080p VHoldR arrived, I immediately grabbed my old 720p ContourHD, held them side by side, and shot footage walking in and out of my apartment on a sunny day. My initial reaction? I was delighted by the 1080's improved resolution (1920x1080 progressive pixels versus 1280x720). The 1080 seemed to capture richer, more accurate colors, and its higher bitrate made for a sharper, more realistic picture. The lens seemed sharper as well, with visibly less distortion than its predecessor. In short: the only slightly more expensive 1080 ContourHD looked like a home run.

Additional improvements include user control over the camera's internal settings. The new cam allows you to manually set exposure, contrast, bitrate, sharpness, and microphone sensitivity—albeit only at home, while the camera is connected to your computer. Note that (1) a firmware update allows 720p cam owners to gain this same enhanced functionality and (2) these adjustments, as I learned in Telluride, don't always do what you expect.

Mounting Issues:

Issues old and new soon revealed themselves on my first in-the-field shakedown with the new 1080p ContourHD. I'll begin with an issue that afflicts both cameras: Mounting woes. To use the ContourHD helmet camcorders, you've got to attach them to your head in some manner, and in this regard VHoldR's creativity falls a bit short.

To get the shot you want, you need to correctly aim the camera in three dimensions: pan, tilt, and rotation. Get any one of these wrong, and you'll have off-axis footage, or a shot of your feet, or a wildly-angled horizon—or some combination of all three. Since the ContourHD has no LCD screen to monitor video in the field, VHoldR has added twin lasers to assist you in aiming the camera. As with the 720p cam, the lasers are of marginal usefulness: hard to see in daylight, and not accurate enough anyhow (due in part to parallax error) to ensure the shot is true.

Not only is it difficult to figure out where the camera needs to be pointed (test, test, test!), when you do, it is frustratingly difficult to mount the camera in the correct position—reliably—on your helmet. Each of VHoldR's mounts comes with its own limitation of adjustability and subsequent trials. This in fact has given rise to a flourishing mini-economy of aftermarket mount accessories for the ContourHD, though no one as yet has found a foolproof solution. To date, I find the company's optional "vented helmet mount" strapped atop your helmet the best solution—though it too is hardly ideal.

Viewing Angle, Camera Shake, & Shutter Roll:

The 1080p cam improves lens sharpness and distortion over its predecessor via a clever trick that isn't immediately obvious: in 1080 mode, it reduces the angle of view from the 720p's 135° to 110°. Cropping from the center of a cheap lens gives you a better picture because a lens' worst performance (ie, sharpness, distortion) will always be toward the edges.

In fact, corner sharpness is terrible with the 720p VHoldR. Just freeze the picture and look at the edges. Uck! But the 1080 cam's crop solution is not without consequences. First, to me the 135° view really hits a sweet spot for POV footage: it psychologically matches the view of a two-eyed human, neither too wide nor too narrow. 110° seems just a tad pinched in comparison.

More importantly, the narrower picture accentuates camera movement, which becomes a deadly flaw when paired with the 1080p's higher resolution, which itself worsens the effect of camera shake. The sum of these two choices is a much jerkier picture—so much so that for many sports, POV footage may become unusable.

And as if that weren't enough to muck things up, the 1080p cam shows noticeable shutter roll whenever you hit a bump or whip your head. This happens because the camera's sensor is "slow" to record the entire frame. Rather than capturing the entire frame simultaneously, the sensor scans in a "sweep" across the frame. If there is little motion in the frame, no problem. But if either the camera or the subject is moving, the sensor records different parts of the scene at different times, resulting in very obvious distortion.

To see this effect for yourself, watch my ContourHD 1080p Shutter Roll example. Again, for the full effect, be sure to watch the clip in HD, expanded to full-screen. Interestingly, I don't notice much if any shutter roll when the camera is in 720p mode, and I don't see noticeable roll in footage from my old 720p ContourHD either. This problem appears unique to the 1080p model in 1080 mode.

You should know that there are sophisticated software tools which can correct shutter roll in post to some extent. Obviously, this involves purchasing expensive video editing suites. My solution was to avoid the issue entirely and simply shoot moving footage in 720p mode (you can switch modes in the field), with the added benefit of a more favorable angle of view and less apparent camera shake.

Exposure & Color:

Exposure was the bane of my original ContourHD helmet cam. I had high hopes that the new 1080p model would cure its predecessor's ills, especially given the camera's new, user-settable exposure and contrast settings. In this hope I was disappointed. I realized, after being forced to junk an otherwise-perfect top-to-bottom shot skiing Telluride, that the ContourHD cameras in either version have serious and strange issues when it comes to exposure.

Or maybe 'exposure' isn't even the correct word to describe the problem. Look again at my Telluride video: notice how the snow often looks completely white, with no detail whatsoever. Normally we would call these 'clipped' highlights, meaning the light was too bright for the sensor (ie, the image is overexposed).

But here's the odd bit: in my Vegas Pro software, I can measure the brightness of the snow in that shot, and it's not pure white! The camera's sensor actually has quite a bit of headroom above these pseudo-white values. And yet, no amount of adjustment of either the camera's exposure or contrast settings seems to help. Shoot on snow or anything similar, and featureless highlights are what you get. It's as if the camera is applying some sort of mandatory tone curve that smashes all the detail in the upper-bright range together. Weird.

To exposure problems add the ContourHD's odd fondness for the color purple. Look again at the shutter roll sample to see just how purple things can get. If you thought the color was a little off there, you're exactly right. Purple tint appears with a vengeance whenever shadows and snow appear together in the frame. More seriously, the camera will continuously shift the white balance when the scene moves rapidly in and out of shadow, making it very tedious to correct the color in post, as you're always chasing a moving target.

If you want to see this effect in action, it is quite visible toward the end of the Telluride skiing video, as I'm traveling in and out of shadow down the catwalk below Milk Run. Unless you do frame-by-frame editing with professional software, this problem can only be fixed on VHoldR's end. I've sent them a note requesting a firmware update to let us manually set the white balance so that it won't constantly shift. Hopefully they'll get that going.

Bottom Line:

In my grumpier moments, I sometimes think no video camera has ever produced as much junk footage as my VHoldR ContourHD: white-hot exposures. Purple snow. Crooked horizons. Blurry corners. And then I watch that Telluride Video again, or my footage of San Antonio Ridge, or Telegraph Peak, or Mount Whitney's East Face, and I realize that the only reason I've got these shots is because of this impressive and impressively frustrating little helmet cam.

And those shots are precious to me. Much as I love still photography, video adds a dimension to this site that static frames alone can't match. Perhaps you agree. The ContourHD cams can and will produce some of the most pitiful crap you've ever seen. But, with time and obsessive testing and tinkering, you might just get some unforgettable clips of your own (a very powerful computer and pro editing software doesn't hurt either).

As for the 1080p versus 720p question, I still don't have an easy answer for you. As is, I find the 1080 cam essentially unusable in 1080p mode when it comes to moving subjects. And you can always shoot still subjects with a traditional (and far higher-quality) HD handycam. On the other hand, perhaps the 1080p is more future-proof. If VHoldR releases updates that enhance its usability, especially in 1080 mode, you might be left out with the 720-only cam.

Given the modest difference in price between the two cameras, the safe choice is probably to go with the 1080 version. That way, also, you know you won't be getting one of the first-generation 720p models, requiring a manual firmware update. Whichever camera you get, be prepared for the frustrations I've mentioned, especially if you want professional results. But the bottom line is, I got my shot with my ContourHD 1080p cam. And you can get yours, too.

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