[Ssc-dev] Contour camera has GPS data in MOV file

[Nathan of Guardian]

I recently had the chance to play with a "extreme sports" style helmet
cam (no I did not use it on the slopes). The most interesting thing
about the hardware is that it has built-in GPS sensors and bluetooth radio.

The GPS sensor records the data into the video itself, which is stored
in a Quicktime MOV format. Here is some info on how they do it:

"The Contour GPS records the GPS data directly into the video file. It
uses a NMEA format. There is a tool that can extract the GPS data,
available at
http://support.contour.com/contour/topics/tada_gps_export_available_now. "

NMEA apparently is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NMEA_0183#Sample_file
or: http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

We should see how they store the data in the MOV.. i.e. is it stored in
a time-based way, or just as a big blog?

As for the Bluetooth radio, it can be used to pair with a smartphone, on
which you can preview video streams coming from the device (which has no
built-in screen itself).

It is a pretty fantastic device all around:
http://www.launchhelmetcams.com/contour-plus-camera

I was able to pop the MicroSD card out of it, and open the videos on my
Samsung Player device, so hopefully we can support the use of dedicated
video hardware like this in concert with our video processing tools.

+n