Roscoby riser cam review 08-16-2008

The world of cameras has reached out across the hunting and fishing arenas with some new cleverly designed units that take up a nitch that was previously covered by some home brew rigs using camcorders. We have seen the Epic by Stealthcam and the BVR and now the Roscoby bow riser cam. Most modern archery bows are equipped with a screw hole that allows the use of a stabilizer. The purpose of the stabilizer is to dampen the vibration caused once the string is released and the arrow is launched. This torque action of the bow during this time when the string starts to move and launch the arrow which can cause the string to move in one direction or another making the flight of the arrow inconsistent. Ok, now let’s screw in a stabilizer and see what happens to the path of the arrow, it becomes much more consistent. What if someone wanted to use this stabilizer hole for another purpose and still get the job of stabilizing the bow done? Along comes the riser cam. The riser is that portion of the bow that has the stabilizer hole. These folks have taken a rubber armored camera and put it into a stabilizer. Why on earth would someone want something like this? We have to remember back to those folks that made up their own rigs with a bracket and that big old heavy camcorder to film their hunts and especially that time during the flight of the arrow. This eight inch long rubber armored octagonal two inch tube contains a stand alone recording system for this purpose. It does not use tape for recording. It is a self contained DVR that records to a SD card and from the camera mounted in the front of this tube. There is also facility for a plug in microphone that is about the size of AAA battery. The top of this octagonal tube has Three switches and a dime sized window to a small LCD. Front to back the switch buttons are power button, record on/off button, and the function button. The LCD is between button one and two and it displays the memory status. On the bottom flat of the octagon is a tripod insert and a rubber flap that keeps the rain out when the microphone is not plugged in. This tube is a two part tube and the back part can be detached from the front and screwed into the insert on the bow, there is a jam nut to insure tightness and alignment of the camera. The front half contains the camera and recorder with the SD card slot along with the battery compartment. The end that screws into the part that is mounted on the bow is where the SD card slot is and also the battery compartment.  Just above that is a AV out jack and mini USB jack.. The SD card slot has a lip over the top of it from the battery compartment door. This lip is to keep the card from dislodging during the vibration of the shot. This camera portion screws into the back section in two revolutions and has O rings to seal this junction from moisture and prevent vibration from unscrewing it from the front half. View the sidebar for pictures of these components. This bow camera is weather proof (water resistant) but is not water proof, meaning it will stand up to most field uses but would not liked to be submerged in water. There is suppose to be some built in dampening so that the video that is being shot is not disturbed that much by the oscillations of the bow.

Here are some observations made by the manufacture of this product. Use only San Disk SD cards because the amount of shock from the arrow release can cause other cards to immediately fail. They also recommend that folks use Energizer e2 lithium AA batteries. I spent an hour out looking but was not able to locate this battery close without me using up another dose of that four dollar a gallon gas. So I will just have to only have 30 minutes of service for my initial testing. One very nice feature is the keyed battery holder comes as a pair and you can load the second and keep it in your field pack incase you get that low battery light. When this device is in full operation it has a small green indicator next to the on off switch. This green light has two purposes it indicates the standby mode and the fact that the cells are up to power. Once this indicator starts to blink that is the indication of low power and the faster it blinks will determine the amount of recording time left. This camera can take up to a 4 gig scan disk SD card. The card should never be removed without first turning the power off and the green light is out. The contact side of the SD card should be up or on the same side of the camera as the switches when being installed. There is a red indicator next to the on/off switch and when it is on the unit is recording. If this red indicator starts to blink every ten seconds this indicates that your remaining recording time is 30minutes. The faster it blinks means different times down to 5 minutes remaining.

We have all the functional stuff talked about lets screw this thing into the bow and make sure things are correct. Depending on the depth of the insert on the bow will determine the amount of camera thread that is screwed in. take it all the way in and back it off so the switches are fully aligned with the top of the bow. They tighten the jam nut down to maintain this position. Now you probably want to run out to the “block” and fire a few arrows to get a feel of things. Lets cover a few precautions. Being the instant the arrow is released the bow goes through a violent shock. This over time can destroy the media card. So during practice use the old san disk cards you have laying around but when it comes time for that big hunt use a fresh but tested card to insure success in recording the big event. Also do not take a chance on the batteries you have been using for practice. Get off to the store and fill up both holders with new tested e cells by Energizer and you are ready and will have a back up set. Don’t leave the batteries in the camera if you are back for a while before the next trip they could leak and cause problems just when you are getting ready for that next trip to the field. Your choice of SD card will be determined by the amount of record time you want. A new san disk one gig card will record a full thirty minutes of video at the 640X480 30fps rate. So a 4 gig card will give you two hours of recording time. In that case I know that you would want the freshest batteries you can get. Should you fail to have a card there is a two minute 64 MB internal memory. Low light operations are only to 5 LUX so those very early near dark conditions will be difficult to record with any degree of effectiveness. To give an example of LUX value could be like what hunters call first light which is about three LUX. Pictures can be viewed on a TV with AV jacks with supplied cable or on your computer with a card reader or USB cable.

There is some requirements for XVID CODEC to be installed on the computer which this is explained in the manual much better than I can, so use that as a reference. Time for some field testing on the target range so It will get turned over to Anthony to accomplish this. Bow season is not too long down the calendar so we will get some shots providing the right animal walks out within good bow range.

08-17-2008 update:  The next step was to take this jewel and put it on the scales to see just what we are fixing to mount on the front of the bow. It came in at ¾ of a pound, which is a bunch to hold at arms length for you that also leave your quiver on the bow. The next thing is the rubber covered buttons which are somewhat hard to turn on and to remember that to initiate this device it requires it be depressed a full three seconds and the same to turn it off. In early morning light it was difficult to hit the button by feel alone. They are somewhat stiff and black rubber buttons in a black rubber case does not leave much contrast to see. Practice and memory are required to make sure you are hitting the correct button for that critical instant that old big walks out within bow range. Know what the top of this camera feels like so you can hit the correct button when the time comes. Let’s hope that it is during the time that the light is enough to get good footage. The documentation is a little weak on a couple of things like an up front description of what functions each switch does and a direct description of the proper procedure from the time you hit the stand until the shot is over. It would be nice to have this written in a lock step method. It appears that they are the on/off which is self explanatory and the record on/off. The function button seems to only be used during the time that you would hook it to the TV to view the pictures and in that case it would allow you to scroll through the pictures. Hooking to the computer with the supplied cable is another story and will be discussed later after we have done some actual testing on the bow and go through that procedure one step at a time and see the results.  

10-29-2008 update:  Logged many hours in the stand with this camera and have yet to get a deer in range to get some footage. We just cannot get the deer to cooperate and that is sad because we wanted to get some live action with it. We are still trying but between work and running the site time to play seems to be getting shorter as the year goes on   

Target Shooting Test #1:
Below is a sample video production we put together.  In this example we shoot at a 20 yard target.  In the video I show normal speed, slow motion and zoomed.  We were unable to actually see the flight of the arrow in our tests due to the vibration occurring during the recoil.

Click this link (or the pic below) to watch the streaming video results of our target practice.  This target is 20 yards away in mid morning light (9:30am) with moderate cloud cover.  Note: I did hit the bullseye center (trust me).  I could not make out the flight of the arrow.