I've been looking at the VIO POV HD cameras for a while. Lots of good reviews of them on YouTube (13Mordeth, Svengalie). They are easy to set up, rugged, and the image quality is excellent. The down side is the price...normally around £500. I've just bought one on eBay for around £350 including postage. It may be too good to be true, but the seller has really good feedback. Anyway the link to the camera I got is here:

V.I.O. POV. HD 1080P Helmet Cam Camera VIO POV NEW | eBay UK

They still have some available.

I will write back when the camera arrives to let you know how I find it!

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www.culturaladventurer.com

I have the VIO POV 1 and it's great. Been thinking about upgrading to the HD but the price is still ridiculously too high for me.

I'd be interested to see if you do have to pay anything extra on top when it gets to the UK and if so how much. Keep us posted.

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

Sven has done loads of reviews of cameras and taken lots of great footage with his POV1, mostly of him crashing/falling off his KTM though

I'd be interested what you think of it.

The camera arrived today...and I didn't need to pay any additional tax!! I've unpacked it but not used it yet. It's pretty much as I expected it to be from seeing others unpacking it online. The recorder is surprisingly light, I'd imagined that it would be heavier. The carrying case it comes in is really nice and gives a sense that it is a quality product. Overall I'm very happy with it so far, and I got it at a bargain basement price!

I'll post some clips once I've had a chance to have a quick play, which will probably be tomorrow evening.

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www.culturaladventurer.com

That's very good news. Did you give the seller any specific instructions?

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

Hi Guys - I have had my VIO POV HD for a couple of weeks now. It seems to be a very nice camera with great quality image. Focus is a little soft far away, but everything with in 25 meters is sharp and crisp.

My Problem with the unit is the battery time. I get not much more that 1-1,5 hours of operation time on 4 AA batteries. I have now bought the 12v connector, but is still need to add and remove the AA batteries depending on if I want to use the AA batteries or the 12v. This could have been done smarter.

I really like is besides this, but I really wish this was made differently.

Anders

Have you tried lithium batteries such as Energizer Ultimate ?

upgrade the firmware and it should be be good.

Just got an invoice through the post for the camera's import duty. £16.26 VAT + £10 admin charge. Not too bad I suppose, but has popped the cost of the camera up to £375...still worth it for what the camera is.

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www.culturaladventurer.com

Cheers for the update but that's odd... I thought all the VAT etc had to be paid up before you received the goods? Still better than the £500+ for UK prices though.

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www.AdventureVagabond.com Mongolia & Siberia 2012: Adventure Moto Madness

A quick update. I've had some time to play with the VIO so can give a bit of a review. The microphone on the camera is ok in normal situations, but not so good on a bike...too much noise. I got hold of a tie clip mic from Maplin for about £20 that I have attached to the inside of my helmet that seems to work pretty work pretty well.

The VIO eats batteries. I therefore got hold of the accessory that allows you to plug it into a cigarette lighter or directly to the battery. This appears to work really well, especially now I've also set up the recorder to attach to a RAM mount on my bike's handle bars.

Having wired it into the bike, and added a microphone, the system is a little 'wire heavy'. Some cameras have the recorder and lens combined, and therefore require no leads. My fully installed VIO takes a bit of time to set up because of the leads...that said you quickly forget it's there once you get going.

The quality of the video from the VIO is really impressive. Whilst this is good, it is not the reason to buy this camera over and above the competition because I've seen a number of cameras that can produce similar footage. For me it is the loop function that is brilliant and the selling point. Because it is constantly recording I don't have to worry about missing something that happens...consequently it also means that if something interesting happens, I can experience it, and only afterwards worry about the camera.

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www.culturaladventurer.com

Hi, thanks for the updates, it really helps when you try to decide on what to go for or what to expect from something when the info moves along with time.
I would like to buy a sport cam and I like this one because, apart from the nice features and HD capability, I could see what I record when the screen it is in front of me and maybe when I want to play back some video, all the controls are right in front but I am worried about having to many wires around, particularly if I need to stop for some reason and leave the bike away, I suppose I have to unplug/plug back all the equipment in order to keep going.
It would be interesting to see a picture or even a video of the way the whole set up looks like or how you do it.
I am hesitating between some hd cam like yours or a GoPro hd hero although the last one may look a bit "bulky" on top or side of a helmet.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KncXg_VOkj0

I finally went for a gopro hero2 motorsport edition, I haven't tried it on my bike/helmet yet but the quality looks very good, although when using the waterproof lid, you can't hear anything when recording, I tried with the other opened lid and it's ok. I may try to use the external microphone option with a different casing when riding and it is not raining (although now it's not really ideal in London, it may rain at any time).

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KncXg_VOkj0

Ironically enough, I find this thread via Google as I search for some battery pack accessory for the VIO.

I bought POV.HD in large part because I really like the 'loop' mode. The unit continuously records and if something interesting happens, one can press a button to save the last 1 minute and the subsequent 1 minute of the video. Great in principle but...

VIO eats batteries. I'm talking about high quality rechargeables. I wouldn't even bother using regular brand batteries. And when I tried to use cheap off-brand batteries I found in other countries, the VIO wouldn't even turn on. This device is a battery hog. I don't know why. It has a tiny LCD screen and recording to SD cards isn't that big of a power drain. (or is it?)

The secondary problem is that it is hard to tell if you are out of juice and the device is not working anymore.

I spent 4 months riding around India trying to use the VIO. Out of the top 20 things I wish I had on video, I have ZERO. The unit was always drained or something didn't save.

I do not want to hardwire the unit to the bike because it's additional PIA to plug and unplug stuff. Plus, if you do have an interesting get-off the connection will unplug and you will lose the footage. Or if you simply want to get off the bike and walk over to something as you record your footage...

As it stands, I think the VIO is a waste of money. You can get the same thing cheaper elsewhere. The features I paid a premium for in the VIO.HD don't work.

If someone figures out how to get an external battery back that will power the unit for full day of riding, please post up.

no matter how "high quality" your rechargeables are, they will never last as long as a good set of regular batteries. i have been using the vio HD for over a year and with energizer lithiums i can go a full riding day--about 5 hours on a set of batts. expensive? yeah. but riding aint cheap.