ATC-1000 Helmet Cam
I've always wanted to see how a helmet cam video of my dirt bike rides would look, especially on some of the more brutal races I've run in SIDRA. I've also thought that it would be great to have some downhill footage of mountain biking at Moab. But they have always been very expensive, heavy and cumbersome to really make it worthwhile to take on most of my rides. ...Until now, at least.

Someone pointed me to a product made by Oregon Scientific, that is a sub-$100 bullet cam, fully integrated, solid state, and self contained (no wires or battery pack or mini-DV camera needed), the ATC-1000. While it has 32MB of onboard memory, it also allows you to expand that to 1GB with extra SD memory cards (too bad it doesn't work with anything larger than 1GB). It also supports 640x480 video resolution (as well as 320x240, and 160x120), but all only at 15fps, which is VERY poor for any moving/action shots. It has mono sound pickup and a cable you can plug into it to download to computer or play back on a standard RCA video line (cam-corder or TV).

It is just too bad that they don't support >1GB SD cards and 30fps in 720x480 resolution. Even if it cost 2x that price, I would gladly pay it for something that worked and was small/self contained like this. I looked all over for some other provider that might have something, but nothing is available. There is a good review on this page, along with some sample videos. Most of those look pretty bad, and there is nasty lens flare/compression artifacts, bad sound mic, and god-aweful slow, but I managed to find one on closeout at Best Buy Online for $69.99. So, I decided to take a shot and get one. Hopefully it works well enough for some good still shots and action video of our ride in Moab this November.

Here is a great web page of a guy that just bolts his Sony mini-DV camcorder to the side of his head. There is a great video of Porcupine Rim there (even this higher resolution and 24fps content is a bit disorienting).

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- posted by Jeff @ 7:52 PM | 3 comments

 
Joss Whedon's Firefly Series
Been looking for some new shows to watch. Came across Joss Whedon's Firefly (also the author of Buffy: Vampire Slayer and Dark Angel, as well as the new Wonder Woman movie, niether of which I ever watched) series with a lot of high marks, and so I decided to check out a couple of the shows. Ended up buying the full series and the full motion picture, Serenity, off Amazon, after previewing a couple episodes from Limewire downloads. Each of the nine regular cast members make up a pretty complex character mix and they are not your typical Hollywood personalities (all good or all bad). They all have their own dark histories and are more down to Earth about what motivates them (not some lofty always high ground moral goal). I think my favorite, so far, is Jayne Cobb, played by Adam Baldwin. He is just so stupid and idiotic...

Only about half way through so far, but Objects in Space is one of the best 45 minutes of TV that I've seen for a while. I really like the excentric character that Richard Brooks (Law & Order) plays, Jubal Early.

And now, there is talk of a Second Season in a very unique delivery method (PPV, computer download, or monthly DVD), including HD. Very cool. Of couse, there are all sorts of fan sites.

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- posted by Jeff @ 4:34 PM | 4 comments

 
Hacked PSP
Well, I finally risked running the firmware downgrader (to 1.50) on my Sony PSP tonight (you have to have a 2.50 or 2.60 firmware unit with the proper PCB, and you have to have an older copy of GTA UMD). It was a bit scary, given the early signs of lots of people "bricking" their units, but they have most of that all worked out now. Once you are back to 1.50 firmware, you can run all sorts of kernel access mode homebrew games, emulators, and applications (including a universal remote for home entertainment systems!). Once this is done, you still need to be able to run 2.71 firmware to be able to play newer games, so they have a "DevHook" that you can run under 1.50, to bootstrap 2.71 firmware (which also has internet browser, RSS feeds, and PCTV).

Even though I don't condone piracy of these UMD's, there are ways to copy the UMD, compress it and store it on the memory stick, and then play them under this 1.50 firmware. This would be nicer than dragging around all the disks, and should be faster and use less battery. I need to see how big the compressed programs are.
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- posted by Jeff @ 10:08 PM | 1 comments