11-30-07 // Previewed: Twenty20's New VholdR

A hex-key tool, the VholdR battery, a Micro SD card and the back of the VholdR camera

Once you get the thing running, a 2-gigabyte card will yield 100 minutes of footage at 640 x 480 resolution.

The camera itself is housed in an aluminum case and uses fiberglass rails with a nylon coating on either side of the unit. The rails match up to a number of different mounts that slide on and click in place. The mount the unit comes with is a flat, easy-to-adapt plate that is indexed to fine tune the camera’s vertical angle. More mounts are in the works.

After a show-and-tell session Wednesday we convinced Anthony to stick around, and yesterday we played hooky and headed for the Santa Ana Mountains to try out the camera on a favorite local shuttle.

So, how does it work? Turn the thing on by holding down the power button on the back of the unit. After giving it a few seconds to wake up, a beep tells you it’s ready. Stick it on your helmet, sight it in with the lasers and you’re ready to go. (Mounting the camera required the use of some gaffer’s tape, but alas, with any of these systems tape and zip ties are usually par for the course. The nice thing about the Twenty20 unit is there’s only one piece to have to worry about jerry-rigging.)

Once you’re mounted up, just slide the large, glove-friendly toggle on to start recording, and slide it off when you’re done, truncating the clip. A new clip will start once you turn it on again.

We got about 60 clips from a 1.5-hour shuttle run with two cameras. We looked at a few on Godoy’s computer after we downloaded the files and the quality and field of view looked good. Didn’t hurt that the trail is pretty kick-ass, too.

Units will ship with all the drivers and codecs and widgets and software you’ll need to view and edit video. Right now the system works seamlessly with PC users – 90 percent of computers.

The other 10 percent, Macs, which this is being typed on, are a little more confusing to use with the VholdR. But this is pre-production still, and once the final version is shipped the guys at Twenty20 say they will have a tidy solution for Mac users.

Last but not least: how do you get one? The initial pre-order of 500 is sold out. The second pre-order is selling out. Orders taken before Christmas are likely to be filled by the end of January, and by the spring the company expects to be rolling units out at a good clip.

Don’t worry about buying one of the first units and getting hosed with a less-than-ready product. The same standard USB cable that lets you download video to your computer will also upload firmware updates from Twenty20 to the unit.

An edited-down version of our ride yesterday is currently being produced by Godoy, and we should have it up on the site next week. Stay tuned.

Watch the video that Anthony Godoy and the Bike mag crew made HERE.

For more info go to VholdR.com.

Micro SD cards are tiny!

Reader Comments 

Posted Mon Apr28, 2008, 6:49 PM — By killer

you guys are full of crap this cam is not worthy of plugging the shit hole it came from. 90% of the users have problems with software and the cam itself, dont blame MAC

Posted Sat Oct18, 2008, 5:55 PM — By Freakhead

Yes this is the worst buy i've ever did. The cam is totaly useless. The sound sucks, the encoding sucks,just nothing good comes out of that cam. I strongly suggest NOT buying this crap.

Posted Thu Dec25, 2008, 2:47 PM — By Tom

Mine works just fine, no issues. Great video quality.

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