Oregon Scientific ATC 2000 Helmet/Gun Cam
OptimusPrime
17 Jul 2008
Isn't it always a great viewing pleasure to see your skirmish actions in first person? If you see all those videos of airsoft games in first person uploaded at Youtube.com, it makes you want to say “Hey! It could shoot that way too.” Off you go to the nearest electronic store to find some cameras that you can use. You see helmet cams alright, but you need to buy a separate video recorder for those to work. Now, checking your pocket or wallet, or even your credit card, you have forgotten that you already spent most of your heard earned money for a lot of stuff, including that latest electric blow back AEG made by a manufacturer in Asia. You have just a little bit over US$100 to spare, which is sad because you need another US$400 to buy that video recorder. Poor you, you better wait for the next pay day just to reach a US$500 budget for this.
Don't you worry, since we've found something for you and it costs you a little bit over US$100 and you get a complete camera and recording set that you can mount on your AEG, your helmet, or even your bike. Already reviewed by Gadgets TV, the All Terrain Camera 2000 (ATC 2000) made by Oregon Scientific is available. This helmet camera is very durable that you can take in any skirmish, rain or shine, as it is also waterproof. If you doubt our claims, then go to Youtube.com and search for “ATC 2000” and just view those user-submitted videos. We're sure you'll be convinced by those.
Here are some the specifications of this product:
At 200g with batteries, this is light enough for you to be weighed down. Remember that this is a compact camera that includes the recorder in one container. The design of the camera is sleek enough, though it is much bigger than the bullet cams, but the latter do not have the recording unit in their own shells and you'll need to buy a more expensive video recorder to use these.
When you purchase this camera, it comes with mounting accessories such as velcro pad, rubber pad, strips, and bike handle mount. You can use the rubber pad or the velcro pad to secure the camera to your helmet or to the foregrip of your AEG. This is very much a great accessory to carry along with you, whether you snowboard, snorkel, skydive, or even better, play airsoft! You can record your skirmish actions on video and upload it to your preferred video sharing website and share it with your friends, family, and skirmish mates.
Improving on the ATC 1000, Oregon Scientific made this new version that is capable of capturing that quick reflex shot of yours at 30 fps (frames per second, not to be confused with feet per second). It is said that it can go down 10 feet deep under water, making this waterproof enough with its watertight container that protects the internals from water seeping inside.
This doesn't come with a SD Card, and it is expandable up to 2GB. The on-board memory is not enough as it is only 32MB and with AVI as its video format, you'll use this up immediately even before you finish reading this paragraph. It is recommended that you buy the Sand Disk 2GB Secure card and reformat this card to FAT32 (or just FAT if you do not have that FAT32 option) rather than NTFS in order for the card to record properly and it would not record when using the NTFS format. If you intend to upload the videos to Youtube.com, you can reduce the video size to 320 x 240 as Youtube.com automatically reduces all video files to 320 x 240. The good news for this video size is that you can record over an hour's worth of video (1 hour and 30 minutes at 640 x 480, 30fps, and 2GB SD card).
Another improvement made by Oregon Scientific is that, as compared to the ATC 1000 which uses three AAA batteries, the ATC 2000 uses two AA batteries. It is recommended that for cold weather use, you should use lithium batteries for optimal use.
The camera has a small LCD and 3 buttons with which you can view the minutes recorded and operate the on/off, menu, and record buttons:
The battery, SD Card slot, RCA connection and USB port areas are located at the rear of the camera, which is the bulkier part of the camera that you can access by unscrewing the cap counterclockwise. You'll need to open the battery compartment by pushing down the bottom flap and there you can insert two double A batteries.
On the video output. I have to say that for its price and compactness as a helmet/gun cam and recording unit at the same time is good enough. However, for extreme sports where there is a lot of movement, such as jumping, abrupt shifts, vibration when mounted, rough roads, or uneven terrain, this camera lacks image stabilization to ensure some smoothing out as it records at 30fps. The video is jerky enough, much more than the Blair Witch Project video. Thus, when viewing the videos, you'll notice this difference and when compared to a higher quality video camera, it'll be much much obvious. Even for its video format of AVI, which is an uncompressed video format, some cheaper MPEG-4 compact cameras (not helmet cams though) coming out of China can do better (which will be subject to a future review) can produce better output than this.
While the camera performs fairly in better lighting conditions such as a bright sunny day, it fails miserably in low light conditions, something for Oregon Scientific engineers to improve on if they plan on releasing a new version of the ATC. They need to improve the CCD sensors that are more sensitive and be able to draw properly from light sources even at lower light conditions. The screenshots below show how the camera captures video in low-light conditions, it actually darkens more the frame rather than reflect the actual light conditions when this video was taken.
The actual light conditions in the photos are far much brighter than is shown in the video player. Movement is much more hazy and some great action scenes were missed here, much to our disappointment after the game. In better weather conditions, you can use this camera for great action shots. Just leave it in your go-bag when it starts to darken. Some camera phones actually do better videos than this in darker conditions.
More on the bad news, sound capture is awful. The wind noise is just horrible and audio is actually muffled. In a skirmish with clacking AEGs, pyros exploding, and people shouting, all it ever recorded was the wind noise and the sounds you actually want recorded are nothing but just “whispers”. In one scene, it was just eerily quiet, but I was quite sure there were lots of shouting and firing, but the camera failed to capture these. The only thing that you can do to compensate for the poor audio capture is just add loud background music when editing the video and pray that viewers at Youtube.com won't notice that you didn't capture any audio in the scenes you want to share.
Flanker Tanker also has the same gun cam which he mounted on his Tokyo Marui Thompson. He posted a video titled “Test of my new Gun Cam at Urban Assault Airsoft” at YouTube.com. View this and you will understand better what we mean. When he was fired his AEG, the sound that came out was closer to radio static being muted with a radio squelch button. He also added loud background music to minimise the annoying noise as expected.
While the quality of the ATC is much better than the Tony Hawk Helmet Cam, the latter is cheaper by almost US$70. We suggest that you consider using the ATC 2000 camera as a gun or helmet camera under sunny weather, just don't expect to get great audio.
In a nutshell:
Mounting the camera on a rifle
You can use the strap provided to mount the cam as this does not come with rail mounts. Ensure that it is strapped tightly to your AEG to minimise some wobbling of your camera and also that it won't fall off. You can also wrap the camera with black electrical tape to an existing rail mount to make it more stable on the rifle.
Pacific Concepts (www.advancedtaccam.com) has a modified product that uses the same camera, provided it with a RIS mount and a barrel mount that you can buy separately. Calling it the Advanced Tactical Camera (ATC), they're retailing this at US$279.00, over US$100 more than the ATC 2000.
Don't you worry, since we've found something for you and it costs you a little bit over US$100 and you get a complete camera and recording set that you can mount on your AEG, your helmet, or even your bike. Already reviewed by Gadgets TV, the All Terrain Camera 2000 (ATC 2000) made by Oregon Scientific is available. This helmet camera is very durable that you can take in any skirmish, rain or shine, as it is also waterproof. If you doubt our claims, then go to Youtube.com and search for “ATC 2000” and just view those user-submitted videos. We're sure you'll be convinced by those.
Here are some the specifications of this product:
- Captures video clips with sound
- Three selectable resolutions: 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120 pixels
- Video clip file format: AVI - 640x480, 320x240 and 160x120 pixels
- Two frame rates (15fps and 30 fps) for all three resolutions
- With built-in memory (32Mb) and SD card slot for memory expansion (Up to 2Gb)
- Waterproof
- Low-battery management
- Firmware upgradeable
At 200g with batteries, this is light enough for you to be weighed down. Remember that this is a compact camera that includes the recorder in one container. The design of the camera is sleek enough, though it is much bigger than the bullet cams, but the latter do not have the recording unit in their own shells and you'll need to buy a more expensive video recorder to use these.
When you purchase this camera, it comes with mounting accessories such as velcro pad, rubber pad, strips, and bike handle mount. You can use the rubber pad or the velcro pad to secure the camera to your helmet or to the foregrip of your AEG. This is very much a great accessory to carry along with you, whether you snowboard, snorkel, skydive, or even better, play airsoft! You can record your skirmish actions on video and upload it to your preferred video sharing website and share it with your friends, family, and skirmish mates.
Improving on the ATC 1000, Oregon Scientific made this new version that is capable of capturing that quick reflex shot of yours at 30 fps (frames per second, not to be confused with feet per second). It is said that it can go down 10 feet deep under water, making this waterproof enough with its watertight container that protects the internals from water seeping inside.
This doesn't come with a SD Card, and it is expandable up to 2GB. The on-board memory is not enough as it is only 32MB and with AVI as its video format, you'll use this up immediately even before you finish reading this paragraph. It is recommended that you buy the Sand Disk 2GB Secure card and reformat this card to FAT32 (or just FAT if you do not have that FAT32 option) rather than NTFS in order for the card to record properly and it would not record when using the NTFS format. If you intend to upload the videos to Youtube.com, you can reduce the video size to 320 x 240 as Youtube.com automatically reduces all video files to 320 x 240. The good news for this video size is that you can record over an hour's worth of video (1 hour and 30 minutes at 640 x 480, 30fps, and 2GB SD card).
Another improvement made by Oregon Scientific is that, as compared to the ATC 1000 which uses three AAA batteries, the ATC 2000 uses two AA batteries. It is recommended that for cold weather use, you should use lithium batteries for optimal use.
The camera has a small LCD and 3 buttons with which you can view the minutes recorded and operate the on/off, menu, and record buttons:
The battery, SD Card slot, RCA connection and USB port areas are located at the rear of the camera, which is the bulkier part of the camera that you can access by unscrewing the cap counterclockwise. You'll need to open the battery compartment by pushing down the bottom flap and there you can insert two double A batteries.
On the video output. I have to say that for its price and compactness as a helmet/gun cam and recording unit at the same time is good enough. However, for extreme sports where there is a lot of movement, such as jumping, abrupt shifts, vibration when mounted, rough roads, or uneven terrain, this camera lacks image stabilization to ensure some smoothing out as it records at 30fps. The video is jerky enough, much more than the Blair Witch Project video. Thus, when viewing the videos, you'll notice this difference and when compared to a higher quality video camera, it'll be much much obvious. Even for its video format of AVI, which is an uncompressed video format, some cheaper MPEG-4 compact cameras (not helmet cams though) coming out of China can do better (which will be subject to a future review) can produce better output than this.
While the camera performs fairly in better lighting conditions such as a bright sunny day, it fails miserably in low light conditions, something for Oregon Scientific engineers to improve on if they plan on releasing a new version of the ATC. They need to improve the CCD sensors that are more sensitive and be able to draw properly from light sources even at lower light conditions. The screenshots below show how the camera captures video in low-light conditions, it actually darkens more the frame rather than reflect the actual light conditions when this video was taken.
The actual light conditions in the photos are far much brighter than is shown in the video player. Movement is much more hazy and some great action scenes were missed here, much to our disappointment after the game. In better weather conditions, you can use this camera for great action shots. Just leave it in your go-bag when it starts to darken. Some camera phones actually do better videos than this in darker conditions.
More on the bad news, sound capture is awful. The wind noise is just horrible and audio is actually muffled. In a skirmish with clacking AEGs, pyros exploding, and people shouting, all it ever recorded was the wind noise and the sounds you actually want recorded are nothing but just “whispers”. In one scene, it was just eerily quiet, but I was quite sure there were lots of shouting and firing, but the camera failed to capture these. The only thing that you can do to compensate for the poor audio capture is just add loud background music when editing the video and pray that viewers at Youtube.com won't notice that you didn't capture any audio in the scenes you want to share.
Flanker Tanker also has the same gun cam which he mounted on his Tokyo Marui Thompson. He posted a video titled “Test of my new Gun Cam at Urban Assault Airsoft” at YouTube.com. View this and you will understand better what we mean. When he was fired his AEG, the sound that came out was closer to radio static being muted with a radio squelch button. He also added loud background music to minimise the annoying noise as expected.
While the quality of the ATC is much better than the Tony Hawk Helmet Cam, the latter is cheaper by almost US$70. We suggest that you consider using the ATC 2000 camera as a gun or helmet camera under sunny weather, just don't expect to get great audio.
In a nutshell:
- Pros: Small, affordable, durable, no moving parts, SD card expansion, 30 fps, no wires trailing from your helmet/gun cam to your video recorder, sleek design, useful manual, RCA, USB 2.0 and Mac support, waterproof, mounting accessories, and no expensive video recorder to wreck
- Cons: Poor audio capture, no video compression option (MPEG, Quicktime Mov, etc.), no image stabilization, not advisable for use in low light conditions, straps need to be longer
Mounting the camera on a rifle
You can use the strap provided to mount the cam as this does not come with rail mounts. Ensure that it is strapped tightly to your AEG to minimise some wobbling of your camera and also that it won't fall off. You can also wrap the camera with black electrical tape to an existing rail mount to make it more stable on the rifle.
Pacific Concepts (www.advancedtaccam.com) has a modified product that uses the same camera, provided it with a RIS mount and a barrel mount that you can buy separately. Calling it the Advanced Tactical Camera (ATC), they're retailing this at US$279.00, over US$100 more than the ATC 2000.
