I recently purchased the ATC2K camera from Oregon Scientific. This is a completely self contained camera and recorder that's just about twice as large as a "normal" bullet camera. Because it's a camera AND recorder there's no need for a seperate recording unit. This is the smallest camera/recorder combination I've found. I won't be putting in to actual use until March 15/16th at Laguna Seca but so far this thing is damn impressive. The interface for camera is spartan which is understandable for it's size and need for ruggedness. Less buttons and screens means less stuff to break. It has a small LCD screen that's smaller than most digital watches, and three buttons - Power on/off, Record, and Menu. I experienced a little difficulty setting up the camera because I found the LCD screen a little hard to read. I haven't fully read the manual yet but there doesn't appear to be a backlight and the icons used are very smal and rather hard to see unless you have good lighting. That means you won't want to use this camera at night. A backlight would be very useful, hopefully I'll find one as I explore further. On the plus side, the camera beeps reassuringly loudly when any of the three buttons are pushed. Since the power and menu buttons require that they be held for two seconds before beeping, you'll know immediately if you're pressing the record button or not. Getting the camera to record is fairly easy. Just put in batteries, press and hold the power button until it beeps, then press the camera button. Voila! It's recording. It uses regular SD(Secure Digital) cards to record uncompressed video to in AVI format. SD cards are about twice as expensive per hour of 640x480 30fps video when compared to Digital8 or mini-DV but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. 2GB SD cards can be found on pricewatch.com for about $19. The camera records in 640x480, 320x240, and 160x120 all at 15 or 30 frames per second. With a 2GB card it will record 1 hour of video at 640x480 at 30fps. That highest setting is acceptable for DVD use. If you intended only to put your video on YouTube, you'd be better off using the 320x240 at 30fps and get 2 hours of video out of a 2GB card. Included with the camera are all sorts of different mounting mechanisms for bicycles and bicycle helmets. Also included are cables to connect to the PC and to anything that accepts a composite video input. Very nice for such an inexpensive camera. I have two concerns though - the video and the sound quality. The demo video on their webside shows beautiful video and has great sound. The brief recordings I've done in my house are extremely grainy and the sound of my voice sounds like it's overloading the microphone. See the attached, unedited 19mb AVI file. Warning, this is 36 seconds of your life you'll never get back. So the camera seems be everything I'd want EXCEPT FOR THE VIDEO! You can find out more here: ATC2K Waterproof ActionCamera from Oregon Scientific |