Helmet Cam Debuts

July 2, 2001 - Baseball, it’s been around for many years. It almost feels as if it’s been around forever, and that may not be far from the truth. There is archeological evidence that people have played games with sticks and rocks (and then stick and balls) since the dawn of time. These games date back to ancient Egypt, the world’s oldest civilization, to Greece, the cradle of civilization, and Europe through the middle ages. Baseball is called an American sport because of its almost frenetic popularity, but the rest of the world is just as devoted to it. The game that we know today as baseball was developed in the 1800s, in North America by children. And the XCam2 has just stepped into the arena.

Chip Proser debuted the Helmet Cam at his team’s recent softball game. What a great idea! Since we all like to watch softball, either from the stands, or on television, how about watching softball from the players themselves? Now that’s a view we haven’t seen yet... Until today that is. And after he set up the Helmet Cam, Chip set up another camera on the backstop so he could have two views of the softball. "I stuck a camera on the backstop and it turns out it auto switches between the Helmet Cam and the Backstop Cam depending on the strength of the signal," Chip told us. So when the ball is out of range from one camera, the other camera automatically picks it up.

"We also moved the mike to the underside of the helmet brim to pick up sound better," Chip said. So not only do they have video of the ball game from the players’ point of view, they’ve got the audio to go with it. "I would like to make four Helmet Cams for the game," Chip continued, "so the pitcher, batter, catcher and infield player can all be wearing them." Which means that all those players will have to pay attention to what they say. After all, every word is going to be immortalized on tape.

And what a game it must be to watch. Watching the ballgame from the stands, and then going home and watching the ballgame from the players’ point of view. That strike-out might make more sense when you’re watching the ball from the batter’s or the pitcher’s point of view. That fumble in the outfield might not look so clumsy when you see what the outfielder was seeing. Or if it was all that clumsy, what fun it would be seeing the ball coming at the camera, and then disappearing into thin air while the outfielder tried to keep his balance.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could watch our favorite professional baseball team that way too? Perhaps X10 could put in a call to our own professional baseball team. Have we got a deal for them? Millions of Americans would have loved to have been on Mark McGwire’s head when he hit his sixty-second home run, breaking the all time record for home runs hit. XCam2 could have done that.

Send comments or feedback on this article to xzone@x10.com