I have been looking for a high definition point of view “mini-cam” to cover action sports. My buddy Aaron, sent me a link to a new product made by Twenty20 that appears to fill a void to help cover action from the athletes point of view. And it is very inexpensive bit of gear!

I had been following my mate from the UK, Den Lennie at Tapeless Made Easy and he recently tested out a Sony HD mini-cam. You can find his video blog here. The new Sony HXR-MC1 records 1080i in AVCHD format on memory stick duo cards. This camera even has a little LCD screen to view the video and the recorded files. Nice, but it costs $2700! It is a high end Sony product, but do you really need to spend that for a “crash” camera? You can find it at B&H Video here.

Now there is a cheap alternative for extreme action sports fans. And the guys who try to capture all the sick action.

I found some interesting information on how this camera came about and the guys who created it.

The story about the Twenty20 company began in 2003, when two undergrads from the University of Washington, Marc Barros and Jason Green, put together a simple helmet camera to record their skiing adventures. They won third place in a U of Washington business model competition and took the award money to rent a place to start making the Twenty20 Helmet Camera full time.

They went through a bunch of camera designs since 2003 and they are finally offering an affordable, wearable and decent quality HD mini-cam POV camera. And best of all, the camera only costs $279.99!

I have not used this camera yet, and it is not due to ship until the end of July, but I am planning on contacting Twenty20 to see if I can try out a demo. I want to use it on a project that I will be working on with a bunch of talented mountain bikers from New England later this summer. The video will chronicle the riders as they rip down a remote and non-lift assisted single track line in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I will be shooting the entire video with the Canon 5dmk2 Digital SLR and I want to mix in ContourHD camera content throughout the short MTB documentary.

Another interesting twist to this camera is the fact that the website where it can be found, http://www.vholdr.com, offers a video showcase of POV action films. The Twenty20 company obviously wanted “community” to be part of their business model. I am looking forward to watching how this idea takes off and I feel that these guys are on the right track.

A few things to mention about this camera, that I have found by researching it. First of all, it is tiny! Look at the picture above to get the measurements. This camera will not weigh you down and when mounted to a helmet or bike frame, the athlete will not even know it is there.

The ContourHD does not have a viewfinder. You simply must point the thing and hope the framing is correct. Not really a big deal, since this exclusion makes for a cheaper price tag and one less thing to get busted during that inevitable, ugly crash.

This camera also only records HD at 720p not 1080. But… you can record in 60fps at standard def, so it is possible to record high speed at a lower resolution. Nice option, for a cheap POV.

The camera records onto inexpensive microSD memory cards and even includes a 2gb card that gives you about an hour of HD and 2 hrs of SD video.

The HD lens is nice and wide, at 135 degrees with no zoom and the body is water resistant made of aluminum and fiberglass. I will need to get my hands on this camera to verify a good build, but again, for the price this thing is disposable.

The ContourHD is powered by a removable and replaceable Li-ion battery and you can record up to 2hrs in SD mode. I am not sure how long you can record in HD with the battery, it is not stated on the website. You charge the camera to full in about 3hrs using USB to computer like an iPod. You can buy an optional a/c plug in battery charger as well.

The camera comes with “Easy Edit” software and works with the PC and the Mac. You use the USB 2 cable to download the h.264 .mov files to the computer. Like the Canon 5dmk2, you will probably want to convert these files to ProRes 422 before you edit with the current version of Final Cut Pro. Editing native h.264 files are very clunky and like to beat up FCP!

In the box you get the camera, the 2gb microSD card, a goggle mount, a flat surface mount, a rechargeable battery and the USB cable. Again, all this for $279.99. That is pretty reasonable for the quality that this little versatile camera can put out. You can find this camera (currently pre-order only) at B&H Video by clicking here.

You can also see a bunch of other videos on the vholdr website by clicking here.

I hope to get my hands on one of these cameras very soon. When I do, I will post another blog with video to show you how the world’s first wearable high definition camera stacks up.