This is a review of an Oregon Scientific helmet camera, ATC 2000.
I bought it off ebay and it cost me a grand total of 140 CAD, which included:
Helemet camera
AV output cords
USB Cord
Various mounting straps and bases
2 GB SD card
This is not a bullet camera, it is a self contained unit. There is no cord to a separate storage device or anything like that, no receiver. All the videos are stored on the SD card. It doesn't look nearly as nice as some of the more pricey ones out there, and, though I'm not an expert on other helmet cams, the video quality probably isn't as good. However, it didn't cost $900.
Info:
You would probably only want to record on the highest resolution and framerate, which yields videos comparable to a lot of other airsoft gun/helemt cam videos I've seen on the net. With a 2GB card you get 1 hr and 1 min of footage at 30 frames per second and 640x480 resolution (the highest).
It's waterproof up to 3 m, shock resistant, and operates at a variety of temperatures. There is an auto 10 minute shutoff when the camera is not being used, which saves your 2 AA batteries. You can connect an AV cord to the camera for PLAYBACK PURPOSES ONLY. This means you could watch old videos on your TV from your camera, even record them to VHS if you wanted to, but you could not record NEW videos to VHS. I thought this fact important, because I was hoping to double this camera as a security camera. Plop it outside with an extra long AV cord running to a TV and recording VCR somewhere. Won't work.
You can also connect the camera to your computer via USB cable.
The sound is the worst thing about this camera. It could be in part due to my mounting set up, but there is a ton of mic rumble. If the camera is held in the hand, audio is fine. Quiet, but fine.
You can find some sample videos on e-bay, but if you want one in an airsoft application, this is the first and only "in use" video that I've taken with this camera, mounted on my Mp5.
YouTube - Outback III - Airsoft
(note: youtube shrank my video so the quality is about half of what it really is)
Conclusion:
Great value for the money. Honestly, you can't go wrong. The only thing that bugs me is the mic rattle, which, as I said, I think has a lot to do with my mounting set up. As for looks, if you found a way to mount it to a rail, it would look like any other piece of optics. Video quality is pretty decent, and an hour of recording time may not sound like much, but it's plenty. The 4 minute video I made was from footage over 24 hours. You only really turn it on when you need it. Anyway, like I said, if you don't have the money to fork out for something high end, 140 bucks does it just fine.
Alex