08 September 2010

Product review: Adventure Eye Video Systems

This is more a review of a service, than a review of a product.

Adventure Eye Video Systems rents POV cameras so people can have first-person video of their extreme outdoor adventures.  They offer kiosk rental locations at various Colorado locations, and an online rental service. 

Adventure Eye gave me a demo of their online rental program.  The rental term is for 14 days, and they include a return shipping label to cover the return shipping.

Adventure Eye has several models of cameras for rent - even a scuba mask for those snorkeling excursions.
I chose the Contour HD 1080P - a very nice camera, but this is not a review about the camera.

There are two rental options for each camera: With damage waiver insurance, and without.  The rental cost is $100 with the damage waiver, and $75 without.  In my opinion, it's worth it.  Get the damage waiver.  Better safe than sorry.

The camera was shipped with everything that you need to mount it to a pair of ski goggles, or to your helmet - which I did as you can see below on my ever-willing model


I unfortunately didn't have any "epic" excursions planned, so I used the camera to film my commute to the bus, and a lunchtime ride around downtown SLC.   Just a note, I used a free version of a movie editing software to edit and speed up the videos I took, because I don't think anyone wants to watch 40+ minutes of me riding on a shared-use path, and riding in downtown traffic.  That being said, Adventure Eye will happily retrieve your footage from the camera when you return it, and burn it to a DVD for you.



My overall opinion is that it is a great system. A decent POV camera will set you back around $350 or more.  And something like that is not an item that you would use on a regular basis.  So save yourself some money and rent it for that once in a lifetime trip that you would actually want a helmet-mounted camera for. 

More information can be found at http://www.aevideosystems.com/

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