VholdR Wearable Camcorder
Once, a number of years ago, while racing at Daytona in a Can Am type car, I exited the International Horseshoe and blew by an annoyingly slow moving chicane back marker slug of poor excuse for a racer (at least, that's what went through my mind). As I attempted to manage the turn and the pass, I snuck a glimpse at the car to clearly identify it and the driver, and discovered that the car I was blowing off the track was driven by Bobby Rahal (actually, I think he was on his cell phone at the time). But man, even if he was ordering a pizza, I'd have loved to have had that pass documented!
For years, racing cars and riding motorcycles, I wished for and researched convenient and easy ways to video record my experiences. I heard instructors wish for the same, to record students for educational purposes. Racers wanted a means of creating marketing videos. For everything from keepsakes to business uses, it was the same need - a small, self-contained, durable, reliable, precise, high-quality, and affordable camera that could be easily mounted to helmet, handlebar, or other surfaces.
Oncycles is very excited to have found the answer (and I am sure Rahal would be glad we didn't find it sooner!) It's the VholdR wearable camcorder.
Check out the video.
This little baby is one magnificent piece of technology. VholdR (vee-holder) is the go-anywhere do-anything wearable camcorder that SHOOTS your life in motion. And through VholdR.com, you can SHARE it with an entire world of action life stylists just like you.
The VholdR is an all-in-one helmet or bike-mounted camera/recorder that provides 100 minutes of 640-by-480 resolution video per 2GB Micro SD. What you don't get is what you don't need - a viewing screen. Instead, you get lasers to help you level horizon and camera orientation!
VholdR mounts to nearly anything, from helmets to handlebars, roll cages to bull horns. It captures TV quality audio and video to a MicroSD card, and it's abuse proof. No tapes, no cables, no kidding. The front of the camera houses at least 3 major elements. Dual lasers activate on demand, sending out referencing beams indicating two pieces of information, where the camera is pointed, and if it is level.
The lens itself is a glass eye with a focal length covering the gamut, from arm’s length to infinity, which focuses visual information onto a CMOS image capture card at 640x480 resolution. Both the lens and the capture card rotate together 192 degrees within a pivoting hermetically sealed capsule. This means no matter how you mount the camera, VholdR sees a level world.
VholdR is made from brushed aluminum, baked fiberglass and rubber. It’s guts and nerves are silicon treated and insulated from the elements, keeping you in the game, no matter the mud, the dirt, the snow and the rain. Gravity is unwavering, and so is VholdR. Easy to use?
It doesn’t get easier than single button record operation. Even with gloves on, hitting the button is easy. Slide it forward and a beep indicates that VholdR is rolling. Slide it back and a beep indicates that it’s off.
Each flick of the switch creates a new file. Want ten seconds of something? No problem - on and off. Want five minutes? No problem, on . . . and off. What is even more amazing, perhaps, is that in tiny bullet-proof (well, it seems bullet-proof to us) package is a very sophisticated video system. The problem with motion video is a condition commonly known as "Smear"
As for video quality, VholdR changed the rules! Smear is the characteristic that kills action video. If a video processor can’t keep up with the action, the result is jagged lines and smeared images. Instead of relying on a software-based system, VholdR has created a hardware-based processor dedicated to one thing - video. This is the equivalent to hiring an employee to only turn on the lights - no answering phones, running for coffee, or stroking any egos.
The result? Smooth, sharp, and colorful TV quality AUDIO and VIDEO. Of course, where you put the camera dictates what kind of video you’ll get. VholdR’s mounting options are designed to give you the flexibility to capture video in ways even you probably can't predict.
VholdR planned for flat surfaces like helmets, boards, car hoods, windows, tabletops and more; vented surfaces like bike helmets, cages, backpacks and such; narrow gauge objects like handle bars, golf clubs, ski poles and hang glider frames; and of course large gauge framework such as windsurfing masts, bull horns, roll cages, dogs and pretty much whatever you can come up with.
So we say the problem has been solved, and the solution is beyond our expectations. So who cares? Well, if what you do is something lots of people try to do, but few can, and if you want to capture the taste and feel of the moment, and share it, you care!
The thing is, shooting and sharing “video in motion” is not easy. It means YOU and the scene are in motion at the same time. Your hands are not free. Your attention is not available to the work of videography. You are concentrating on what’s happening. You’re unable to worry “if you got that shot.” You do not have the time or patience to be importing, editing, and organizing, before uploading your favorite vacation clips to YouTube.
Twenty20, the producers of VholdR, are a Seattle company filled with people passionate about action sports and sharing video. They are very serious about simplifying action video to three easy steps: wear or mount, shoot, and share. Their mission: Action Video Made Easy.
Here's what they have to say, "…come along for the ride. We promise to deliver a fantastic user experience, customer service, and a huge window directly into who we are and what we stand for. Share your videos with us and lets tell every “traditional camcorder” and video community that we no longer stand for plastic toys and grainy video. We want video in motion and we want VholdR quality."
Some late great GP driver said in the film "Grand Prix" that racers, by definition, cannot possess imagination. If they did, they would not race. It seems to us the VholdR camcorder disproves this theory. Everyone who puts his or her hands on one of these seems to explode with new ideas. You start filming yourself racing, when it dawns on you to document the really trick mod you're doing on your bike, and sneak a few candids in the house of, well, whatever, then following the leader around the race track recording the lines, and maybe this is the last good reason necessary to do that first bungee jump or dive from an airplane.
If everything was done this well, I suspect there would be no wars, and global and universal wealth, health, and happiness. Well, maybe not, but quality of life would definitely ratchet up a notch. I know I won't be caught out again. Watch out Rahal, I'll be ready next time!
We love this product, and include it in our best of mobile electronics for 2009.
