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<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber1" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="58%"> When we first started the ATVTORTURE website we tossed around all of our ideas on what we wanted the site to contain. We had still pictures, tech tips, forums, videos of our rides and many other ideas that we wanted to incorporate into our site. We decided we would have writers, an editor, a publisher, and a photographer. Everyone was jumping at the chance for the first 3 positions but the last job, as photographer, was not getting any takers. I couldn’t figure out why, as it seemed to be the easiest job and by far should have the best end result. Someone said, ” The photographer will always be too busy taking video or pictures and would not be able to enjoy the actual riding”.
So I thought OK, maybe I should look into some kind of camera to mount to my quad or my helmet. That way we would all still have fun and at the end of the day we would be able to sit back, enjoy our memorable days ride, and let our readers enjoy the coverage of our ride as well.
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</td> <td width="50%"> I began searching the Internet for helmet style camera systems. Wow! There are a lot to choose from and since I knew nothing about them, I really didn’t know what to get or where to start. Several models I looked at were way out of our price range, but we did not want to sacrifice performance over cost. I called several of the companies that turned up in my search engine, but most acted like they were too busy to spend time talking to me since I was just window-shopping, so to speak. My last call of the day was to MotoComm where I spoke with Eric.
Eric told me everything that the MotoComm DSR-100 had to offer. The system sounded great and at a retail price of $359.99 I thought it was even better.
Here are the capabilities and specs of this system:
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</td> <td width="57%"> I was absolutely amazed at the capabilities of this camera. We decided to give this thing a try. I spoke to Eric at MotoComm and he filled me in on all of the rest of the details and goodies the DSR-100 came with.
A short time later the camera arrived from MotoComm. After unpacking and a close inspection I was quite astonished at the quality in how everything was packed. The camera system came in an organized divider style case kind of like a tackle box. All sorts of cables, mounts and other accoutrements were packaged in their own neat little compartment. Now I could not wait to fire this thing up and test it. Problem was we were leaving for the Hatfield and McCoy National Trailfest in Southern West Virginia in less than 12 hours and I still needed to load my quad and pack the rest of our equipment. So performing any sort of familiarization with the DSR-100 was out of the question at that time.
We were about 3 hours driving time from our final destination so I decided that this trip was the perfect time to read the manual on the DSR-100 and familiarize myself with it.
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber5" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="58%"> The setup and installation instructions seemed very easy to comprehend and left me thinking that hopefully I wouldn’t have any issues installing it and getting it running once we get to the trail head.
When we arrived to our cabin I took the opportunity to do a quick setup of the DSR-100 and experiment with a few things on it before we got started on our ride that evening. I first decided to mount it to my handlebars but with my winch controller and GPS mount this posed a problem. I use a Universal Solex taper style bar, which did not allow the camera’s handlebar mount to clamp onto it. This wasn’t any fault of MotoComm’s, it was just that I had too many accessories mounted to my bars already. We then opted to simply mount the unit onto my front rack.
The wiring was very easy. MotoComm provided a very nice cabling assortment that should compliment every sort of situation you may encounter from straight long cables to coiled cables. The main connections are comprised of male / female s-video connectors, which make it nearly impossible to make the connections wrong.
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</td> <td width="53%"> Along with ample shapes and styles of different control wiring, MotoComm also provides a 12 VDC power pack that is comprised of 8 AA batteries to provide power to the camera itself or you can choose to wire the unit directly to any 12 volt DC source. The actual digital recorder is rechargeable. This is one thing I would like to see MotoComm change in their future units. They could very easily supplied a 12 VDC rechargeable battery pack for the camera power supply as well as the digital recording device which uses a 5 volt DC power supply. We did not use the power supply at all since I thought best to wire it directly to the 12 VDC battery on my quad.
The Recorder / playback unit which MotoComm refers to as the DSR-7680 has an internal 1800mAh Lithium battery pack. With a full charge the battery pack will 0perate the DSR-7680 for approx. 6 hours with the LCD screen ON, and approx. 8 hours with the LCD screen off. We found this adequate for all of our riding needs during testing. Along with long battery life it is packed with many features ranging from a couple of games built in, as well as playback, video outputs to a TV or VCR set, a built in MP3 player and voice recorder. MotoComm even sends helmet speakers for use of the MP3 player while riding. We have not had a chance to test this feature yet.
The DSR-7680 recorder also features 512 MB of onboard memory and will accept up to 2 MB SD memory cards. During our testing we used a 1 GB SD card, which was capable of nearly 4 hours of video.
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber7" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="60%"> During our initial testing we had noticed that the DSR-100 camera system did very well at masking the vibration that would typically be experienced in ATV riding. Like I said we didn’t have a lot of time to play with the DSR-100 prior to our trip so the video quality appears a little blurry because we failed to focus the camera before using it.
One thing we noticed was that when the camera is in a fixed location you really miss out on a lot of footage and everything becomes very 2 dimensional. I think that if we had mounted it to my helmet it would have yielded some better video footage. This will be something we will need to test in the future with this unit.
A couple nuances we would like to see possibly changed in future models would be to switch the DSR-7680 digital recorder’s power source to a 12 VDC. This could be a problem for campers who want to use this unit and have no way of recharging it.
Another thing that would be a nice feature is a wireless remote. We basically would start the recording ride and know that we had 4 hours of recording time. Since the digital recorder was placed under my seat in the dry storage box it made it very inconvenient to start and stop recording phases. With a wireless remote it could make the video editing a lot easier. We give the MotoComm DSR-100 the “TORTURED” stamp of approval.
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So I thought OK, maybe I should look into some kind of camera to mount to my quad or my helmet. That way we would all still have fun and at the end of the day we would be able to sit back, enjoy our memorable days ride, and let our readers enjoy the coverage of our ride as well.
- We were looking for a few specific things in a helmet style camera system.
- Ability to accept some sort of removable media type card.
- Good frame rate.
- Capability to record sound.
- Rugged and weatherproof.
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Eric told me everything that the MotoComm DSR-100 had to offer. The system sounded great and at a retail price of $359.99 I thought it was even better.
Here are the capabilities and specs of this system:
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- Universal Helmet/Bike Mount Included
- Rugged Aluminum Housing
- Weatherproof Connectors
- Digital Recorder/Playback Unit with Color Display
- Records Video and Audio from Camera and Remote-Mount Microphone
- Uses Standard Compression and File Formats
- Saves Video in Internet Standard 320x240 at 30 Frames per Second Resolution
- 512 MB On-Board Memory
- Accepts SD Cards - A 2GB SD Card = approx. 6 Hours of Video/Audio Recording (SD Card Not Included)
- Color LCD and Built-In Speaker for On-The-Go Playback, or Rearview Camera Monitor
- Built-In MP3 Player - Helmet Speakers Included!
- USB Connector for Transfer of Video/Audio Files to Computer
- Analog RCA Video/Audio Output for Playback of Videos Direct to TV
- Captures Digital Still Pictures from Helmet Camera
- All Cables and Accessories Included in Convenient Carrying Case
A short time later the camera arrived from MotoComm. After unpacking and a close inspection I was quite astonished at the quality in how everything was packed. The camera system came in an organized divider style case kind of like a tackle box. All sorts of cables, mounts and other accoutrements were packaged in their own neat little compartment. Now I could not wait to fire this thing up and test it. Problem was we were leaving for the Hatfield and McCoy National Trailfest in Southern West Virginia in less than 12 hours and I still needed to load my quad and pack the rest of our equipment. So performing any sort of familiarization with the DSR-100 was out of the question at that time.
We were about 3 hours driving time from our final destination so I decided that this trip was the perfect time to read the manual on the DSR-100 and familiarize myself with it.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber5" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="58%"> The setup and installation instructions seemed very easy to comprehend and left me thinking that hopefully I wouldn’t have any issues installing it and getting it running once we get to the trail head.
When we arrived to our cabin I took the opportunity to do a quick setup of the DSR-100 and experiment with a few things on it before we got started on our ride that evening. I first decided to mount it to my handlebars but with my winch controller and GPS mount this posed a problem. I use a Universal Solex taper style bar, which did not allow the camera’s handlebar mount to clamp onto it. This wasn’t any fault of MotoComm’s, it was just that I had too many accessories mounted to my bars already. We then opted to simply mount the unit onto my front rack.
The wiring was very easy. MotoComm provided a very nice cabling assortment that should compliment every sort of situation you may encounter from straight long cables to coiled cables. The main connections are comprised of male / female s-video connectors, which make it nearly impossible to make the connections wrong.
</td> <td width="42%">
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The Recorder / playback unit which MotoComm refers to as the DSR-7680 has an internal 1800mAh Lithium battery pack. With a full charge the battery pack will 0perate the DSR-7680 for approx. 6 hours with the LCD screen ON, and approx. 8 hours with the LCD screen off. We found this adequate for all of our riding needs during testing. Along with long battery life it is packed with many features ranging from a couple of games built in, as well as playback, video outputs to a TV or VCR set, a built in MP3 player and voice recorder. MotoComm even sends helmet speakers for use of the MP3 player while riding. We have not had a chance to test this feature yet.
The DSR-7680 recorder also features 512 MB of onboard memory and will accept up to 2 MB SD memory cards. During our testing we used a 1 GB SD card, which was capable of nearly 4 hours of video.
</td> </tr> </tbody></table>
<table style="border-collapse: collapse;" id="AutoNumber7" border="0" bordercolor="#111111" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tbody><tr> <td width="60%"> During our initial testing we had noticed that the DSR-100 camera system did very well at masking the vibration that would typically be experienced in ATV riding. Like I said we didn’t have a lot of time to play with the DSR-100 prior to our trip so the video quality appears a little blurry because we failed to focus the camera before using it.
One thing we noticed was that when the camera is in a fixed location you really miss out on a lot of footage and everything becomes very 2 dimensional. I think that if we had mounted it to my helmet it would have yielded some better video footage. This will be something we will need to test in the future with this unit.
A couple nuances we would like to see possibly changed in future models would be to switch the DSR-7680 digital recorder’s power source to a 12 VDC. This could be a problem for campers who want to use this unit and have no way of recharging it.
Another thing that would be a nice feature is a wireless remote. We basically would start the recording ride and know that we had 4 hours of recording time. Since the digital recorder was placed under my seat in the dry storage box it made it very inconvenient to start and stop recording phases. With a wireless remote it could make the video editing a lot easier. We give the MotoComm DSR-100 the “TORTURED” stamp of approval.
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Here is a video sample.
MotoComm customer service is top notch and they have a quality product in the DSR-100. This is a perfect system for the novice or professional who I looking to document their rides on video and at $359.99 this system won’t break the bank.
- Customer Service / Technical Service: 10
- Price competitiveness: 10
- Packaging: 10
- Ease of installation: 9
- Fit: 10
- Finish: 10
- Performance: 8
- Test Mileage: 422
