DriftHD hands on (with videos)
Hi Guys
As many of you probably know I took a punt and purchased a DriftHD camera (with waterproof housing and extra battery) from Spaz mainly to record my upcoming trip to Japan.
I’ve had my first initial play with it today. As promised I’ll do my best to provide raw unedited footage captured by the DriftHD to aid in comparison against other cameras on the market.
The weather is horrible out here today so initially the best I can do is a quick drive around in the car.
First thing I need to mention is that youtube seems to have reduced the quality of the footage. The reflections on the side of the car look a hell of a lot better when viewing my source file. There seems to be compression artifacts as well (the pixelated squares)
Having said that you will still get the general idea of the quality.
Here’s my notes/setttings from the youtube clip:
“View in 720p!
Captured with DriftHD 720p@60fps, Outdoor Selected, Exposure 0.0, Firmware 1.1.24.
Camera mounted on suction cup via the integrated 1/4” tripod mount.
No processing/tweaking performed on raw straight from camera mov file.
Video has been trimmed to include a mixture of scenes (sunny, shadows, moving cars etc) using MPEGStreamclip (saved as mov)
Audio track removed (wind noise!!!)”
And the link to the video.
Just went for a quick bike ride to the gym and strapped the DriftHD to the top of my helmet. Here are the results
Let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers
Nice stuff drc!!!!!
Now all ya gotta do is add some white stuff!!!!! 
Now all ya gotta do is add some white stuff!!!!!
I’m onto it! 
Thanks for sharing The quality looks pretty good - better than other YouTube footage of drift hd.
Thanks for sharin
No worries Dan, glad you’re impressed and hope it helps.
I will try to get some more footage up soon can probably do some bike riding, snowboarding (when in Japan) and some swimming/surfing when I have the waterproof case.
I’m a bit limited with internet and uploading videos as I’m stuck on telstra wireless broadband which just chews through the data/credit so I have to be somewhat picky on how much I upload.
Just received a micro-HDMI adapter and connected the DriftHD directly to my 58” Samsung 1080p HD Plasma.
Played back a couple of the recording’s I made. I’m quite impressed with how it looked, I’ve always thought clips played back in fullscreen on a computer looked pretty bad compared to windowed mode.
On the TV it looked a lot sharper much like a true HD TV show. Will try a 1080p recording at some stage as it should look even better matching the TV’s native resolution.
I can definitely see myself sitting back with family and friends and watching my Japan recordings from the comfort of the couch.
Looks pretty good to my untrained eye. I would say the whites occasionally get blown out but it seems to compensate after a short time, and I reckon most of these cams probably do that.
Very nice video 
Postman pat at 30secs
Looks pretty good to my untrained eye. I would say the whites occasionally get blown out but it seems to compensate after a short time, and I reckon most of these cams probably do that.
Yep I’d agree it didn’t seem to like direct sunlight much but would expect that would be a common complaint with this level of camera definitely worth noting though. On the other hand I was impressed with how it handled the tree shadows.
Very nice video
Postman pat at 30secs
haha cheers mate, Postman Pat got left in because his nice red van added some colour to the scene
Looks pretty good to my untrained eye. I would say the whites occasionally get blown out but it seems to compensate after a short time, and I reckon most of these cams probably do that.
Yep I’d agree it didn’t seem to like direct sunlight much but would expect that would be a common complaint with this level of camera definitely worth noting though. On the other hand I was impressed with how it handled the tree shadows.
Even my little still camera (Panasonic TZ7) seems to have this problem. Check out the clouds in this shot I took yesterday at Wilson’s Prom.
Even my little still camera (Panasonic TZ7) seems to have this problem. Check out the clouds in this shot I took yesterday at Wilson’s Prom.
Ahh yes so it does. Bloody beautiful photo though!
Waiting for yt to load the vid…
Uploading problem
YouTube probably doesn’t like 60fps (I had a similar problem with Vimeo)
Try changing the fps from MpegSC - instead of save use export (command+e)
use Vimeo instead of YouTube
check the uploading guidelines and suggest file settings for whoever your video host may be.
Edit: I added the yt video to your original post - spaz
i also recently purchased a drift hd and i filmed my tree / pow run yesterday here in whistler
so i’ll upload it to vimeo and post it soon so everyone can check it out
Drc13 your housing has arrived, I had mine in the pool yesterday.
I did go for a surf but borrowed a friends board and didn’t want to risk damaging it.
The housing floats even with the weight of the monopod attached! And the monopod is really good! I am concerned the telescoping will come loose when boarding but it held up to hanging out it out of the car - fully extended (40cm). It is more of a handle than a pole and really short! but the adjustable head is strong and light. My only problem with the housing is no included place to attach a safety leash, after careful study of the housing I found some possible places.
I was very happy when playing back the raw camera file on a 50” monitor. Most impressive was watching the 90fps 480p footage when the RC truck ran into it. I haven’t watched any 1080p this way yet. When I changed from 90fps to 60fps I put the exposure at -1.
The video isn’t finished editing - I straightened the horizon and scaled up the footage (zoomed in) so each of the camera settings are in the same frame. Trying to keep all the video as untampered as possible so little rendering is needed until final export, which will be for Vimeo export settings. I’ve adjusted the sound and put a soundtrack under it (ACDC - “shook me all night”)
With the exposure I found it almost too dark: at -1 at too over exposed at 0 in the brightest area’s as most P&S cameras do (video and still). A polarising filter will fix or adjustment in post production - fixing it at the lens is better than digitally.
i also recently purchased a drift hd and i filmed my tree / pow run yesterday here in whistler
so i’ll upload it to vimeo and post it soon so everyone can check it out
Ooh definitely looking forward to that footage! have you updated the firmware on the camera? How did you mount the camera for the run?
Drc13 your housing has arrived
Great news! Won’t be able to organise a pickup today but will in the next couple of days if that’s fine with you (you could even leave it out somewhere if you want)
Looking forward to seeing some of your footage.
How are you planning on mounting the camera to your surfboard? I’m not 100% sure on how I’m going to go about it yet.
I’ve got heaps of learning to do on post processing and editing. I’m tinkering around with premiere elements, premiere CS 5.5 and Sony Vegas Pro. On all of them I can’t even seem to do something as simple as save/export the file in the original format. I’m concerned converting it to a different format/codec will compromise the quality.
Other than that I simply want to trim/stitch footage, reduce wind noise, put a soundtrack over the top, use slo-mo taking advantage of 60fps and finally save it in a format that doesn’t reduce the quality.
I haven’t updated firmware yet.
I need to do a bit more reading on creating true slomo - sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so good.
I’m going to use a Flymount http://www.flymount.com/
or mount it to my softboard using a leash plug as an anchor and the Drift monopod extension pole’s head - screwed into the board (anchored to the base half of a fin plug).
or find a ball and clamp hinge and make my own.
Haven’t thought about fibre glass boards.