Tachyon XC 2010 Helmet Camera Review

The taking of onboard video is becoming increasingly popular amongst us motorcyclists and we are no different here at www.inter-bike.co.uk, check out our YouTube channel.

In the past we have generally used bullet cams wired back to an Archos Hard disk recorder in a tank bag. However this is a messy solution, in that it means a power lead into the tank bag to power the Archos, battery pack to power the bullet cams and wires out to the bullet cams. And all the equipment reduces the amount of usable tank bag space you have up for other touring essentials. Further more due to the value of the bullet cams and Archos,  this equipment has to be removed when the bike is left and then reset up which is very time consuming when touring.

We have for some time been looking for a neater, smaller, easy to use solution to filming onboard motorcycle video for publication on our YouTube channel and on our main site at www.inter-bike.co.uk.

Tachyon XC – the World’s Toughest Helmet Camera

Earlier this year we were at the Ally Pally bike show and happened upon ASP Trading Ltd’s stand, who sell innovative motorcycle and auto products. We were immediately drawn to their display for the Tachyon XC helmet camera, which Tachyon claim is the world’s toughest helmet camera. The quality of video on display on the TV on ASP Trading’s stand immediately led us to believe that this miniature video camera may be what we were looking for. Particularly as later in the spring we were taking a quick 5 day motorcycle tour to the Champagne-Ardenne region on the French Belgium border, giving us an ideal opportunity to try out the Tachyon XC camera.

A deal was done and next day our Tachyon XC and accessories arrived in the post.

So what do you get for your £169.99, in the box is:-

· Tachyon 2010 XC camera

· Battery cartridge

· Remote control

· Swivel mount (great for car dashboards, motorcycle top-cases etc)

· General mount (top of helmet, roll bar, roof etc)

· Side mount (great for off-road - uses your goggles strap to hold the camera in place)

· TV cable (used to connect your camera for playback)

· USB cable (used to connect your camera to your PC for editing

In addition Alan at ASP Trading Ltd kindly included for www.inter-bike.co.uk a 4GB Class 6 SD card and Energizer batteries for the camera and the remote control. We in addition bought separately 2 x 8GB Class 6 SD cards to make sure we had sufficient media to hold a day’s filming.

What immediately strikes you is just how small this camera is, being approximately 9.5cm long, 4cm high and 3 cm wide, which makes it easy to slip in motorcycle jacket pocket when not in use. Not more wires, battery packs or sizeable hard disk recorder to worry about.

Although the camera is primarily marketed as being a helmet camera and comes with all the fittings to easily fit to the camera to your helmet, we preferred to hard mount the camera to the front of the BMW R 1200 GS we would be using. For this purpose we turned to the services of the Ram-Man who supplies a whole plethora of mounts and mounting systems for motorcycles, enabling you to attach cameras, video cameras, Sat Nav’s, PDA’s etc to your motorcycle. A quick trip to the Ram-Man near Heathrow and a solution to mounting the Tachyon XC using the general mount supplied and various ram parts was quickly achieved.

Tachyon XC general mount secured to front of GS using ram mount parts

This enables us to quickly slide the Tachyon XC camera on and off its general mount whilst leaving the mount permanently fixed at the correct angle for filming on the front of the bike.

Tachyon XC camera mounted on the bike

The technical specifications for this miniature video camera are truly impressive. It has a patented shock-proof design, which is intended to prevent loss of video. All we know is it looks very solidly built! It is remote controlled in that you can stop and start filming using the remote.

We found this a real bonus when touring, as we were able to put the remote in the map pocket in the top of our tank bag and even with gloved fingers press the large stop start button through the clear plastic map cover. (Note the remote is not waterproof, so putting it in your tank bag map pocket keeps it dry.)

The camera is fully digital and can shoot up to 30 frames per second. Its high dynamic sensor and 90° wide angle lenses are designed to capture all the action. It can take from 4GB to 32GB SDHC memory cards giving you ample recording time. It has a time lapse mode (which we didn’t need), but for us importantly its waterproof, not just from heavy rain but down to 2 Atmospheres or 10.3 meters, so can be used for underwater filming should you wish too.

Because of its small size, sadly there is no screen to review the video you have taken on the camera, but you can easily view and playback the videos directly on your PC or TV using the included USB or TV Cables.

We always travel with a small Net book and found it very easy just to copy the video footage off the SDHC cards at the end of each days filming and review them on our Net book, though you can also connect the camera direct to a computer using the supplied USB cable.

 
Tachyon XC camera showing LCD control screen

The camera though does have a small LCD screen for viewing the menu controls for carrying out such functions, as setting the clock, changing recording modes, switching to time lapse camera mode, switching on privacy mode (which allows you to record video and stills in secret with no camera beeping or LED indicators), viewing the SDHC card status or viewing the battery indicator. The LCD screen also displays preview and playback and delete file controls when it is connected to a TV using the TV cables. The camera records video for output in both NTSC and PAL systems and playback in the appropriate format can also be selected on the LED screen.

The camera offers 4 recording modes, Superior at VGA resolution, which provides 1 hours recording on a 4 GB SDHC card, High which gives 2 hours recording and Medium and Long modes which give 4 to 8 hours of recording time respectively. We set the camera up before our trip to record in high mode which with us using 8GB SDHC cards meant we could get 4 hours video on each card. It was relatively simple at each lunchtime stop on our tour to just put in a fresh card, giving us 8 hours recording over a whole day, which was ample.

High recording modes is still in-fact at VGA resolution being described as VGA 640x480 compressed. However it’s worth noting that continuous recording time is limited to 30 minutes. At the end of each 30 minutes recording pauses for 5 seconds whilst the camera process the video data and saves the file to the SDHC Card; video recording then automatically resumes.

The camera is powered by 2 AA Energizer batteries, and these easily lasted two days filming. The remote uses 2 AAA Energizer batteries and these are still working after months of use.

Brilliantly I would say sums up our experience of using this amazingly little camera. It is simplicity itself to use. Each morning we loaded in an empty SDHC card, fresh batteries, slid it on the camera mount on the front of the bike, switched it on and forgot about it till lunchtime, when we repeated the process after lunch. It really was that simple!

If we needed to stop for a coffee or lunch, we could just stop the recording and slide the camera off the mount and secure it in a jacket pocket, until we returned to the bike.

No more hassle, a painless easy to use solution for onboard video filming on a motorcycle. The remote control was great because it meant we could easily stop and start the filming, without even having to dismount from the bike.

However it is worth periodically checking that lenses on the camera remains clean, we lost several good video sequences due to filming them through the remains of a squashed bug!!

We even got the sound of the bug hitting the lenses as the camera includes a built in microphone which is sealed inside the case of the Tachyon XC, to ensure it will function well in extreme conditions, however this does mean the sound recording quality is a bit lower than on an external microphone.

So what of the video, well firstly the camera lens truly is wide angle giving an excellent panorama of the road ahead. With the video camera securely mounted to the bike, there is no camera shake despite the appalling state of many of the pot–hole ridden roads we rode in the Belgium Ardennes. Also mounting the camera to the bike better shows the lean angles of the bike in corners, as opposed to helmet mounting the bike.

The video camera maintained perfect focus at all times and coped fairly well with rapidly changing light conditions. Accepting we were not using the video in its best quality recording mode the quality is good and more than good enough for web presentation.

We think it’s the simplicity of use, quality of the camera and small size that make this video camera such a winning package. We here at www.inter-bike.co.uk, shall certainly be using it as our regular onboard video camera going forward.

If you want to buy the Tachyon XC Camera for yourself then they can be purchased from ASP Trading Ltd’s eBay shop or you can find out more about the camera from ASP Trading Ltd’s website.