When I first saw the new GoPro helmet camera it was during a Supercross broadcast. Yamaha pilot Josh Hill sort of made its debut and got the race win to boot. I did a little searching on the Internet and found out more about this new innovative product. Now there is finally a compact, self-contained helmet cam on the market that is affordable enough to reach the masses. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on one.
I received the Motorsports Hero, with that came the camera, batteries, a waterproof case and plenty of different mounts to mount this thing just about anywhere on a car, truck or bike. I also was sent the Helmet Hero Expansion Kit, which contained everything needed to hook the unit up to just about any helmet. It also came with another waterproof case.
Everything was packaged well. The instructions were pretty self-explanatory. The camera is pretty basic but you do really need to go through the instructions to get the operation down pat. After I sifted through everything, it became apparent that I needed to make a run to the store to get a memory card. The Hero runs on a SD type memory card, which is readily available and pretty affordable as well. I picked up a 2 GB card for around twenty bucks. That amount of memory will give you around fifty-six minutes of video according to the instruction manual. The camera can also be set up to take still photographs. It has a cool setting that will take a still shot every five seconds, they say that you can get up to fourteen hundred shots in this mode.
I decided to give the Hero its first workout in my backyard. I wore the camera and followed my six-year-old son around as he rode on our backyard pit bike track. We got inside and hooked the camera up to our TV to see what we got. I viewed the video on a 27” TV and was very impressed with the quality of the video. The sound was a little low but I had the camera set on the “LO” sound setting; changing it to “HI” fixed the problem.
Next day I took it to a local riding area to put it through its paces. I attached to my helmet using one of the mounts from the kit. It used double stick tape to fasten the mount to the helmet. No need to worry about it falling off though, the mount is plenty strong. I shot quite a bit of video and had a few other guys riding there try it out with a strap on helmet mount that also came in the kit. The camera performed flawlessly throughout the day.
I got home and started viewing the footage. It turned out that I had the camera pointed down a little too far and shot a lot of video of the ground. That is the only negative that I can come up with for the Hero. It doesn’t have a way to view what you shot on the camera. I understand that due to its compact size that a monitor is impossible, but it would make things a little easier to get sorted out. I solved this problem by taking my laptop with me the next time out. I was able to view the footage right after taking it and making any necessary adjustments to the mounting angle.
All in all for the retail price of $179.99 for the Motorsports Hero version, you can’t go wrong with the Hero. You get a self contained video setup and can get some really cool video of you and your buddies showing off. The Helmet Hero version retails for $169.99 and may be all you need if you just plan on mounting the camera to your lid. Log on to www.goprocamera.com to order and to find out more.
