The Good: The ATC5K has a 1.5 colour screen for lining up shots and reviewing footage, the buttons are easier to use, it has a wireless remote control and it is still as tough as ever!
The Bad: The remote control works with IR and not with radio frequency, and the menu is not very intuitive.
The Action Cameras Bottom Line: We clearly noticed the higher quality in the picture and were impressed with the photo images. The screen is a first for these all-in-one cameras and we love it. The remote is also a terrific innovation that we found to be quite handy. Overall, it is the best value for money action camera yet.
The helmet cam cameras have been evolving over the past four years as each new version released tries to top all the previous cams. As we at Action Cameras have released each and every version over the years, we have been waiting for a major jump in technology to signify the next generation of helmet cam – and now its here, the Oregon Scientific ATC5K Action Camera.
The ATC5K comes with a built-in 1.5” colour screen which is a first with all-in-one helmet cams. The screen allows you to use the ATC5K the same way as your normal digital camera; you can review your videos straight away and also helps you to align the cam so you are shooting exactly what you want to. Not only are you able to review your videos on the screen, you can also line up, shoot and view photos, yes the ATC5K can also take VGA digital photos.
Another innovation that the ATC5K boasts and that no other all-in-one helmet cam has is a wireless remote control which allows you to take photos and start & stop recording. The remote is very useful once the ATC5K is mounted on your helmet, on your motorbike or in any other position where it might have previously been difficult to activate the recording. You can now simply use the remote to activate the camera.
The one downside of the remote is that it works with infra-red and not radio frequency which basically means that you need to point the remote directly at the I.R receiver which is positioned on the front of the camera above the lens. When we first started using the camera we found that the end of every video clip would have on of our hands caught in the picture pointing the remote at the I.R receiver. But with a little bit of practice we learnt how to do this without getting in the way of the picture. So this issue can be worked around by just familiarising yourself with using the remote.
The only other aspect that we believe could be improved is the menu settings; it could be more intuitive. However, again we just needed a bit of time to get used to it and then it was alright.
The mounts for the camera are very adaptable to many different surfaces and allows you to mount the ATC5K almost anywhere. The mounts that are included are:
? A Webcam Stand,
? Helmet mount,
? Handlebar mount,
? Velcro straps,
? Silicon rubber head strap, &
The package also includes the 2x AA alkaline batteries, wireless I.R remote, a carry bag, plus AV and USB cables.
So once you receive your camera you will have everything included in the package that you need except a memory card, while the ATC5K has a built-in memory of 32Mb this won’t get you too far and so we suggest getting an additional SD card. The cameras memory can be expanded up to 4Gb memory (SD and SDHC Cards) and this will get you 2hrs of continuous recording time at the highest resolution of 640 x 480. You can choose to drop the resolution down to 320 x 240 to get longer recoding time on a single card.
The ATC5K runs off 2 AA batteries. Regular alkaline batteries will give you 1hr of battery life if you have the screen on, if you would like to extend this to 2hrs then you can turn the screen off to save battery life.
All in all Oregon Scientific has done a terrific job by bringing out this new helmet cam that has all these new features. Any shortfall of the user friendliness is overshadowed by the brilliant functionality of the ATC5K and these issues will fade away as you learn to use the camera after playing around with it for a bit.
We are proud to be launching the ATC5K now and we look forward getting to use it for the remainder of summer and can’t wait to take it up to the ski slopes in the winter.
If you love your sports, want to record it with a decent piece of kit and don’t want to break your bank then the ATC5K is a must get for you!
If there's one thing extreme sports practitioners like doing, it's showing off. Whether that stretches to the extent of the likes of Tony Hawk and Mat Hoffman, or simply means recording your weekendly adventures and posting them up on YouTube doesn't really matter. What's important is having proof that you are as skilled as you claim to be - it's one thing to claim to have pulled off The 900, but only the most trusting of friends will buy the story unverified.
Camcorders like the Panasonic SDR-SW20 go some way to addressing this audience, but fall short at a couple of hurdles. For a start, waterproof and rugged though many of these devices are, they're not really designed for attachment to, say, a helmet or a set of handlebars.
Luckily there are camcorders out there better suited for such a task. The Oregon Scientific ATC5K is one such device, offering not only the ability to roll with the punches, but also coming with a slew of attachment options which should make it a great addition to the inventory of anyone looking to record their "eXtreme" sporting activities.
Specs wise the ATC5K compares reasonably favourably with the competition at its £149.99 MSRP. Video can be recorded at either 640 x 320 or 320 x 240 (with sound) which is good enough for video upload services like YouTube, Vimeo and their ilk. Admittedly it doesn't compete with the quality of 720p camcorders such as the Toshiba Camileo Pro HD, but they're not going to survive an encounter with a low-hanging branch. Indeed, there is a sizeable gap between the front of the camcorder's outer shell and its lens to help protect it from such collisions.
Because of its rugged construction, using the Oregon Scientific ATC5K is a more complicated process than it might otherwise be. The buttons are a bit clunky to use and the configuration options are basic to say the least. Pressing the menu button for a few seconds brings up your settings, while shorter presses cycle through the various options although annoyingly rather than constantly cycling through, when it reaches the end, it then exits out of the menu completely.
The ATC5K sports 1.5in LCD at the back is just about good enough to tell whether a recorded video is worth keeping or not, but as I just mentioned, it's pretty hard to get as far into the menu as deleting a duff file without losing patience and throwing the ATC5K at a wall. At least it will survive the abuse, though.
One area where Oregon Scientific can't be criticised is the number of attachment options supplied in the package. There's a round clamp for handlebar attachment, a rubber strap for wrapping around a helmet, or anything else for that matter, a Velcro strap for doing the same and a mount for using the camcorder as a desk-mounted webcam (via USB).
There is also a remote control in the box which works by infra red and sports an extensive two buttons, one for toggling recording and another for taking still shots. Unlike the camera itself, which is waterproof up to a depth of 10ft, the remote is simply splash resistant - although its usefulness is pretty limited anyway so that's no real problem.
In our limited testing, all of these attachment methods worked as they should, although fixing the camcorder to the handlebar mount was definitely the best way to get cycling footage. The helmet mount, though it worked, resulted in really poor video footage due to a combination of the constant movement and relatively low frame rate. Attached to something solid, such as a dinghy's mast should give better results.
The ATC5K comes with 32MB of inbuilt memory, which is pretty much pointless as the camcorder records to uncompressed AVI affording about 50 seconds of recording at the highest resolution. Fortunately there is an SDHC card slot - so, a 4GB card will enable a more usable maximum of two hours of video to be stored.
Another reason that anyone using the ATC5K will want to use SD cards is that although USB file transfer is supported, the camcorder uses USB 1 which is mind-bogglingly slow with any decent length of video. Once on a computer these files are more easily managed, and a quick run through Windows Movie Maker is highly recommended unless you have a really fast upload speed, assuming you have any intention of sharing said files on the Internet.
The quality of video form the ATC5K isn't exactly great, but is comparable with similar cameras. That's an especially poignant point as YouTube and Vimeo will both butcher the quality of your video anyway, as evidenced by the footage above. For those not interested in Internet video, the ATC5K also has a combined S-Video and RCA audio output, for showing off your footage on a TV.
While the video recorded by the ATC5K is just about acceptable, the audio it saves frankly isn't. At the best of times it's poor, but as soon as the camcorder is used in the way it's meant to be - that is, attached to something moving - it quickly deteriorates into a mess of noise.
Overall though, for its intended purpose the ATC5K delivers what I'll call 'good enough' results for a pretty reasonable price. You'll have to really want the ruggedness to sacrifice video quality over similarly priced options and if that's the case there isn't really an alternative, so you know what to do.
Verdict
Like many rugged products, you either need a camera like the ATC5K or you don't. And if you are looking to record your exploits while mountain biking, sailing, sky diving or hang gliding, it will do a reasonable, though not outstanding job. Proper bullet cameras will cost you way more than one of these, so in that respect the ATC5K is something of a bargain. But even so, if Oregon Scientific had just improved the image quality slightly, and integrated a decent microphone, this could have been a great bit of kit for hardcore, outdoor types.
Oregon Scientific Camera
Oregon Scientific ATC2K Waterproof Action Cam
wBW Quick Look by Rick K. for webBikeWorld.com
More: wBW Reviews Home | VholdR Helmet Camcorder Review | HERO Helmet Cam Review | Owner Comments (Below)
Summary: Surprisingly good video when the conditions are right. Uses two readily available AA batteries and SD memory. Tiny LCD screen is very useful and displays elapsed time during recording, recording time left and other menu options. Kit comes with several mounting devices, but you'll probably have to rig up your own for motorcycle video. Price is relatively low.
Background
I wrestled the Oregon Scientific helmet cam out of its wrapped-for-the-apocalypse blister pack in the living room one cloudy Saturday afternoon about a month ago. After sliding in a couple of AA batteries and an SD card, I was up and running in no time.
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A couple of minutes of fooling-around video of the dogs and the cat proved to be a bitter disappointment. The results were awful. I threw the camera back in the box and forgot about it.
As I was on my way out the door for a ride the other day, just for kicks I grabbed the camera and stuck it on the GT1000's clutch reservoir with some duct tape in a 20-second mounting job. I figured I better give it at least one ride before I trashed the entire project.
Lo and behold, the results were amazing! Well, comparatively speaking, anyway. The video looked pretty darn good and way better than I expected after the poor results from the living room trial.
So I grabbed my Fuji F31d digicam, which has a pretty decent built-in video capability, and quickly rigged it up on the right side of the Ducati's handlebars using a RAM 1/4"-20 camera mount. I stuck the Oregon Scientific camera back on the clutch reservoir cover on the left-hand side of the bike and fired 'er up again.
The comparison between these two cameras is very interesting, and both videos are posted below. I notice no difference between the two; in fact, I had to go back a couple of times to make sure I hadn't mixed up the .avi files.
Caveats
Note that there is a lot of vibration apparent in these videos, only because I didn't take the time to create a secure mounting, and, let's face it, the handlebar of a Ducati GT1000 is not, shall we say, the smoothest location in the world and is probably one of the worst places on a motorcycle to mount a camera. Also, this type of fast movement is the worst-case scenario for just about any digital videocam -- especially a cheap unit.
Note also that the videos below have first been processed in Adobe Premier Elements 4.02, then they went through YouTube's Flash compression. So keep in mind that the quality out of the camera is very, very much better than what you see here.
Also, for some reason, YouTube didn't like the sound file attached to either video. We've been saving the .avi files directly from Premier Elements 4.02 and then converting them using the DivX converter lately, which seems to do an OK job dealing with YouTube's brutal compression algorithm.
But DivX did not like these jittery handlebar videos, so I saved them instead as .wmv files out of Premier Elements. YouTube doesn't seem to like the Premier Elements .wmv sound coder, and it deleted the sound, so who knows. You're not missing anything; the sound is pretty bad anyway because of the wind passing over the microphone.
Final caveat: The weather has been overcast for some time, and the smooth light that filters through the high cloud layer yields perfect conditions for photography. Although I have tried the videocam in low-light conditions as noted above, I did not have the opportunity to try it in high contrast conditions, like bright mid-day sun.
I'd suspect that, like most cameras up to and including some pretty expensive digital photography cameras, the Oregon Scientific camera will not do very well in conditions of high contrast and will probably blow out the highlights, at the very least.
The important things to note: 1) Both of these videos look much, much better when played directly on the computer than they do on YouTube; and 2) Each file was processed exactly the same, so we're comparing apples to apples. Take a look and see if you can notice any differences. I can't.
UPDATE: I created two 10-second clips to illustrate the original quality of the video from the Oregon Scientific camera, because the YouTube compression algorithm seems to degrade the quality of the embedded YouTube video (below) quite drastically and is not a fair illustration of the quality of the video from this camera.
The raw .avi file from the Oregon Scientific camera was processed with Adobe Premiere Elements 4.02, then saved at 100% quality and 100% bit rate in the Apple QuickTime (Apple MPEG-4 codec) and Windows Media (Windows Media 9 Advanced codec) translating processor.
Both of these files are very close to the original .avi quality taken directly from the Oregon Scientific camera, but are much smaller at a total of approximately 10MB (1MB per second), about a 75% reduction in size from the original 10-second .avi file, which was about 40MB.
NOTE: Please be judicious with viewing of these files and view only once, as they will consume a large quantity of bandwidth! Here's the Windows Media Player version (.wmv format). Here's the Apple QuickTime version (.mov format).
Fuji F31d YouTube Compressed Video
(NOTE: Handlebar mount causes the vibration).
Oregon Scientific YouTube Compressed Video
(NOTE: Handlebar mount causes the vibration).
The Oregon Scientific ATC2K Waterproof Action Cam
The Oregon Scientific camera, or helmet cam, has been available for some time, as far as I can tell. I hadn't paid much attention to the thing, and even considered it a toy, until we ran our review of the VholdR Helmet Cam. That review generated enough interest from webBikeWorld visitors to motivate us to do follow-up review of the HERO Helmet Cam, which also doubles as a digital photo camera.
So the Oregon Scientific camera was the next logical step and, as you have probably surmised, I didn't expect much from it, but I now think that for the money, it's currently the best solution of the three. This ATC2K waterproof camera lists for $119.00 directly from Oregon Scientific, and it can be found for 99 bucks or so.
It's built in a robust plastic housing and the screw-on cover in the back includes two big O-rings to keep out the moisture. Inside are the two AA batteries (not included) and the SD card, which is much more readily available and commonly used in digital cameras -- I didn't have to buy yet another memory card, like the too-tiny microSD card used in the VholdR.
Contents of Oregon Scientific Camera Kit: Clockwise - Camera (top right); RCA cable
for TV viewing; owner's manual; USB 1.1 cable; tray with straps, rubber spacers and
silicone grease; bicycle handlebar mount.
Rear View: SD card; USB port (upper left) and TV port.
Oregon Scientific Camera: Rear view, open, batteries and 2GB SD memory card.
In fact, the Oregon Scientific camera isn't much bigger than the VholdR, so how much room was saved in the VholdR by using its proprietary rechargeable battery and microSD card?
The SD card and AA batteries can be found in the local Big-Box-Mart, and extra AA's can go along for the ride, unlike the VholdR's rechargeable, which must be plugged into a computer's USB port or USB hub or their recharging station when it becomes available.
So on the road or on tour, throw a couple of AA's in the Oregon Scientific and keep on rolling. The owner's manual, which is clear and concise, suggests that alkaline or lithium batteries, NiCads or rechargeable batteries can also be used.
The Oregon Scientific camera comes with some mounting options, like the flat base shown in the photo above, which has slots for either of the two straps supplied with the kit; one rubber and one Velcro. The flat base slides off and they also throw in a cheesy handlebar clamp that is probably designed for a bicycle.
The problem with all of these portable video cameras, as far as I can tell, is that the mounting options aren't very good and not really designed for a motorcycle. So, you'll have to improvise, like my duct taped clutch reservoir solution.
The camera is easy to use. It has three buttons on top: on/off; video on/off; and menu options. Once the batteries and memory are in place, press and hold the on/off button until the camera beeps and the LCD display turns on.
Having the LCD display come to life is actually a better indicator that the camera is "on", because I can't hear the beep when I'm wearing a helmet and ear plugs, much less when the bike is running. The VholdR has only a dim light to tell you that it's ready to go.
Once the Oregon Scientific camera is on, simply press and hold the middle button, which turns the video camera on and off, and you're ready to go.
The third button changes some of the menu options, like video quality (high at 640x480; medium at 320x240 and low at 160x120); keep it on high.
The sound recording can also be turned on or off, a nice feature not available on the VholdR. You can also use the menu to delete the last video or all video on the SD card, another good feature.
The date and time is set through the menu, which should be done initially so that the video files will have the correct date and the video speed can be set for either 30 frames per second or 15 FPS. Nice.
I left all the menu options as is and set only the date and time. It's best to record video at the highest possible quality, because it will get degraded every time it's processed and especially if it's uploaded to YouTube.
After the camera is turned on, a number is displayed on the LCD screen. This is an estimate of how many minutes of recording time are left on the SD card. I'm using a 2GB SD card, which is the maximum size recommended by Oregon Scientific, and this gives me approximately 60 minutes of video at the highest VGA, 640x480, 30FPS resolution. The camera will accept cards as small as 8MB, according to the owner's manual.
Each on/off button press automatically creates a new video file, and the files are saved in a folder named "100COACH" on the SD card. Oregon Scientific provides both a USB cable and television input, but I usually pull out the memory cards on my digicams and videocams and pop 'em right into the USB multi-memory card reader so I can pull them directly off the memory and into Photoshop or Photoshop Elements to process the photos and Premier Elements or Sony Vegas for processing the video.
Oregon Scientific says the ATC2K camera is not shockproof, but it is claimed waterproof to 3 meters. They even threw a small bucket of silicone grease in the package to grease up the O-rings to help keep them waterproof. I use the grease also on the sliding mounts, because the plastic gets kind of grabby if it's dry. And they even offer an optional "blanket" to wrap around the camera for really cold weather use.
Some of the details of the camera include:
- Sensor resolution 640x480 VGA
- CMOS sensor
- Built-in 32MB memory
- Focus: fixed range, 1.5 meters to infinity
- Movie images saved in .avi format (Motion JPEG [MJPEG] codec)
- Audio saved as Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) Audio, 16,000Hz 128 kb/s (1 channel)
- USB 1.1 only
- Automatic shut off after 30 minutes
- Dimensions: 40mm diameter, 110mm long
Let's see: that's about it. The camera is easy to use -- easier, I think, than the VholdR, because the menu choices seem simpler and the LCD screen provides at least some feedback so you know what's going on. It's very hard to tell if the VholdR is recording when you're on the bike, but the LCD display on the Oregon Scientific camera gives visual feedback by displaying the elapsed time for the recording when the video function is running.
The camera rotates in its base and there are little marks molded in to the plastic on both the camera and the plastic surround at 90-degree intervals. One of the hardest things about using these cameras on a motorcycle is getting them lined up so the resulting video is level and so the camera is pointed where it should be.
This is why even though they're called "helmet cams", I almost never mount one on a helmet. A helmet is probably the worst place to mount one of these, for both safety reasons and because your head is bouncing up and down, moving around and getting tossed by the turbulence. Mount it on the bike and at least you'll end up with a somewhat steady video.
Conclusion
The Oregon Scientific ATC2K camera takes decent quality video in the right conditions. The price is right and the features make this camera easier to use than others I've tried. It's size and shape and waterproof housing make it easier to use on a motorcycle, although you'll probably have to improvise to get any of these inexpensive videocams mounted securely on a motorcycle.
NOTE: I also took some video for a tour of the camera itself; if I get some extra time, I'll edit it and post it to this review.
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