Need help with vid camera choice

[Mowgli1647545497]

Hey all,

 

Looking into a camera purchase. But I have little idea what to get, and so would appreciate any help. Here's my criteria:

 

Has to be pretty rugged

Has to have an external camera mount, like a lipstick camera, that can affixed to a helmet with a long enough wire to run back to the camera so it can be placed in a pocket

Has to have decent recording length (2hrs min)

Has to be small enough to fit into an oversized pocket

Has to have decent battery life or easily swappable batteries (6 hour min preferred)

 

My brother in law has one of these, its got no moving parts, its super rugged and built for extreme sports.

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_SC_X105L/4505-6451_7-31337431.html

 

At first glance it seemed just the ticket, but...

while I like it, once ew got to using it we found the restrictions imposed by the memory stick capacity and the fact that it tends to go into sleep mode when not directly filming after some period of time and you can't turn it back to record easily (cant do it at all from the external lens control once its gone to sleep - you have to dig out the camera from your pocket, flip open the screen, navigate thru the menus... pita).

 

Looking at minidisks for their capacity, but i'm open to any tech thats doable.

 

All suggestions appreciated - thx in advance