Just came across this thread and in exchange for the very interesting discussion I just read I thought I'd add an additional warning about the 8GB units. I have one of these and it isn't really an 8GB chip at all - it claims to be (even showing up as 8GB to the OS) but there is really only a bit under 4GB of useful space. It turns out that this is a common problem, see for example: http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/xprodeal-ebay-fake-flash-seller-alert-china/ This blog suggests that the chips are basically factory rejects that are reprogrammed and resold.
So it would appear that the 8GB cameras might just be cheap counterfeits of the 4GB ones. What i don't quite understand is the amount of effort these guys have clearly gone to to sell something very close to their claimed spec, but not quite there - the camera works, albeit probably at a fake frame rate. I guess if they think people wouldn't buy them if they knew they were inferior, but it would arouse much less suspicion if the capacity was accurately reported - who needs 8GB anyway when the battery will run out before you fill it?
@Erco: Thanks for pointing out my mistake in thinking that the microSD was not removable. Thanks for the settime.txt file also. It's nice to have the date correctly set.
I was able to take out the 4GB microSD, and put in a 16GB unit instead. It seems to work just fine, but I haven't tried filling it up.
The reason I got 16GB is so that I can keep several videos on there, and so that it can replace my thumb drive as well.
One problem that I see though is the data rate when reading/writing the flash is pretty slow (about 1MB/sec copying to it, ~950KB/sec copying videos off of it)
It is handy having all that space. After it gets done copying a DVD iso file(if it works), in 30 minutes or so, I am going to archive these very informative forum pages to it so I have instructions handy.
One thing I would like to see in these units would be an audio only option. That should lower the power and space consumption a lot, and maybe even cut down on the buzz I hear when playing back video.
Well, it didn't quite work as well as I had hoped as a "thumb drive" of sorts. First, it took over an hour, then it bombed out 1 byte short of 4GBytes 4294967295 bytes, to be exact.
·I really don't think there is such a thing as a keychain camera that's CCD. I do aerial videos from model planes and a lot of us use these small wonders on smaller planes and so fa none of them have been CCD. The easiest way to tell is to video a propeller. If the video shows weird lines where the prop is, it's cmos.
Have you tried aiming it at something that spins like a propeller? I have two of these that are cmos and although the video quality is great, when they are aimed at a spinning propeller they exhibit a weird "lined" effect like looking through a venitian blind. On one of the forums I am a member of, it's been stated that some vendors advertise these as ccd to "set the hook" but in reality they have all been cmos that have been shipped. Even the expensive ones that people on the forum have found were in actuality a cmos camera. But that's not all bad either as most of the pocket HD cameras on the market are cmos as well, including the HD Contour, Aiptek Go HD, and the Go Pro Hero HD camera.
Do you have a link to the CCD version? I'd be interested in the specs.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1115052&page=14
Look at post #207
This is what I'm referring to. It's also a 34.99 camera and they advertise it as ccd but if you ask them directly they say "ccd" was put in there to lure more people to buy it. ·
I wrote the seller of the "ccd" camera on ebay and got this reply. I hate to rain on anyone's parade but none of these have been found to really have ccd sensors. That's not to say that they are bad cameras but if anyone thinks that the more expensive cameras are ccd and bought them under that impression then my best advice is to file a complaint with ebay because they are not as described and you just got took for twenty bucks.
Post Edited (randall huston) : 10/16/2009 12:33:07 PM GMT
Thanks Tim. If you go to www.rcgroups.com , look for the aerial photography section. You'll see some of the wildest aerial video and photography setups you could ever imagine. A lot of us, like me, use custom built electric planes to ferry cameras and some of us even fly via a video downlink system. I have several videos on www.vimeo.com and my name is randall huston in case you want to look them up. I use a mix of ccd and cmos cameras.
Here's another keychain cam video I just posted from the nose of a faster plane. The only reason I can think of that some of these cameras have better video than others has to do with electronics rather than the type sensor. It could also be that the earlier ones had less than great optics or some other factor. I have a couple of cmos cameras lying around for weight testing on new planes and even some of the cmos cameras are better than other cmos cameras.
I use an Aiptek Go HD for ground video and although it's a cmos camera the video is simply stunning. Some of the high end DSLR cameras are also cmos.
Amazing video, Randall, and excellent flying skills to take off & land on a residential street! Nice aerobatics, too!
Your video is definitely as clear or clearer than the 'CCD' units I've seen, and it has a very clear yellow time/date stamp, the first I've seen like that. Very good find! Please verify that that this is the keychain cam you got from gadget.topseller88, and I'm sure some forum denizens will order one ASAP!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ·"If you build it, they will come."
erco said...
Amazing video, Randall, and excellent flying skills to take off & land on a residential street! Nice aerobatics, too!
Your video is definitely as clear or clearer than the 'CCD' units I've seen, and it has a very clear yellow time/date stamp, the first I've seen like that. Very good find! Please verify that that this is the keychain cam you got from gadget.topseller88, and I'm sure some forum denizens will order one ASAP!
Mine is actually from myzone50. I also have an identical one from eletoponline which I put a 400 ma battery in for longer duration. I emailed gadget.topseller88 and his response is on my earlier post, where he states that his camera is actually cmos but they put "ccd" on the ad to make it "easier" for people to find them, but my thought is that they are deliberately missleading people into believing they are buying a ccd camera.
Here are links to both cameras. They are identical so I'd get the least expensive. Nowhere near 34.99 http://cgi.ebay.com/DVR-Hidden-Camera-720x480-Video-30FPS-Spy-Car-Key-Chain_W0QQitemZ160369400037QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2556c2d8e5
Oh and if you really want to see some flying go to www.vimeo.com and look me up. My name is randall huston. I've got much better videos from much better cameras on that site. I've done everything from cars, to helis, to airplanes. I've been flying RC planes for over fifteen years now and have flown just about everything. Thanx for the compliment on my flying skills but that video really was nothing. That plane is a "Slow Stick" with only rudder and elevator. It's pretty basic. You will see when I get out my Yak 54 which is full four channel control. I haven't done a video from it yet but soon I will. It will literally twist itself into knots.......
Post Edited (randall huston) : 10/16/2009 6:33:55 PM GMT
Whenever I click this link the page also redirects to one of those fake AV scan sites that tries very hard to trick you into thinking you have about 100 critical viruses and won't let you off the site without clicking ok.· Fortunately I know how to deal with those, but wow...just a warning...
HollyMinkowski said...(trimmed)
@Chris
It was emailed to me by hinv
It's very strange looking...no english writing on it.
2 buttons and a text box.
Pressing the leftmost button creates the 2 txt files
and places them on the flash drive.
I can post the exe here as an attachment or whatever if you need it.
Apparently I need this exe file...mine won't set with the settime.txt file following every set of directions I can it just doesn't work.· Mine shows the date/time in white in the top/left corner.
For the cam with white time and date in upper left corner
you can use the exe or create the txt file and place into root dir
of the cam.
The txt file must have this name "time.txt"
and must contain the time in this format exactly....just copy this string and modify it.
"2009-10-16 19:56:28" of course the quote marks don't go into the file.
Once you place the txt file into the cam root dir
just power the cam down and power it back up....
On re-boot the time/date will be set and the txt file will be deleted.
Just keep a copy in the root dir named something like backup-time.txt
so you can just copy, alter and rename that file to set the time again
when you need to and you will as the time needs to be reset occasionally.
I did not know about that download page doing that redirect :-(
I have the ad blocker running in firefox so that must have blocked it.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Post Edited (HollyMinkowski) : 10/17/2009 2:07:46 AM GMT
Evidence suggests that the 720x480 cams are merely stretching the 640x480 frame
to imitate a 720x480 aspect and make the cams appear more desirable.
Not saying that the cams don't take great video but if like me you cannot tolerate
watching video in the wrong aspect you will need to reconvert to 640x480 using a util
like virtualdub...this is easily done and indeed needs to be done as the motion jpg
files created by these cams are simply too large. I always lower the color sat when I
convert as it is 25% too hot. I convert to 2-pass XviD avi files using the free virtualdub.
a kbps rate of 1500 to 2500 seems fine. You can convert to 16:10 (vga pc monitor wide aspect)
or 16:9 (HDTV wide aspect) and cut off the orange time/date stamp at the same time.
I have video samples of both aspects and can post particulars if anyone is interested... you
wind up with a video that looks better when posted on youtube IMO.
All the cams take 640x480 still jpg images, the processor in the cams is reconverting to
a larger size but this is just a stunt....wish they just left the images alone, 640x480 is fine
for what these cams are intended for. Reconverting the jpg's back to their original size
will give you a better looking image that looks better even when zoomed full screen...I
just run a batch convert on the whole dir full of jpg images.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I don't really care whether the cams are one or the other, I just wanted
true 30fps and modest low light ability. The ones from sinoit are just fine.
You can do fair low light but you must push the image a bit in virtualdub
by increasing the gamma. I posted a test file of this earlier in this thread.
Some truly excellent HD camcorders use CMOS.
But compared to the 30fps cams the 12.5 fps cmos cams are a steamin pile of
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
We truly live in amazing times. These days we take things for granted that would have made James Bond green with envy forty years ago. There is no limit to the uses for these cheap little cameras. At fifteen grams, complete with sd card, I can put mine on the smallest rc plane I have and have a blast logging the flight. Some of my small planes are chased around by sparrows and swallows and I've never had a chance to get that on video before. For what they are and especially the price they really can't be beat. This would also be an excellent camera to attach to a model rocket. My opinion is that as long as anyone gets the camera that takes a micro sd card they'll get the 30 fps and I do believe those have a bit better optics.
Nitrocharged said...
Hi Guys, jumping on board here too as a bleed over from the rcgroups thread.
Did anyone work out the command for turning off the date stamp on the better quality cam (time in bottom right corner)?
I am using Tag.txt for the cam to alter the time at the moment.
Cheers,
Nitro
One of the posts in the RCG used a "N" and "Y" in the time set txt file. That was for the chewing gum pack camera. Have you tried using that in the Tag.txt file for the keychain camera?
I'm Chuck Lohr and I have the 808 Car Keys Micro Camera review page at chucklohr.com/808/
and a teardown video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8_0NuGkioI
My email is clohr@yahoo.com
My website is non-commercial, advertising is not accepted, and I am not being paid for any mention or promotion.
I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I have a link to this thread on my review webpage.
To those of you who have sent me emails with information, thanks. I try to post that info.
I just received my second camera (one with the external micro SD card) from Hong Kong so I have posted some preliminary info.
This camera, unlike the last one, installs as both a USB mass storage device and a USB image device, but the image device is not functional, yet.
I have emailed the seller to ask about the image device mode.
Post Edited (Normandy5) : 11/3/2009 5:14:44 PM GMT
Normandy5 said...
I'm Chuck Lohr and I have the 808 Car Keys Micro Camera review page at chucklohr.com/808/
and a teardown video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8_0NuGkioI
My email is clohr@yahoo.com
My website is non-commercial, advertising is not accepted, and I am not being paid for any mention or promotion.
I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I have a link to this thread on my review webpage.
To those of you who have sent me emails with information, thanks. I try to post that info.
I just received my second camera (one with the external micro SD card) from Hong Kong so I have posted some preliminary info.
This camera, unlike the last one, installs as both a USB mass storage device and a USB image device, but the image device is not functional, yet.
I have emailed the seller to ask about the image device mode.
Welcome Chuck, I found your site very informative and refer to it often for updated info. Many of us are still looking for a way to turn off the clock display. Are there any of these cams that truly capture at 30 fps? I just got my 640 x 480, 8GB external micro SD model. I haven't played with it much yet. I'm using a 8GB micro SDHC card in it and it works fine. I was successful in setting the clock with your instructions. You might want to add that all files and folders must be deleted before it will work properly. The TAG.TXT must be the only file on the card on startup. · I just bought this USB charging unit off of Ebay. It includes a wall charger and a car charger. This will allow you to fill a 8GB card without having a computer to charge the camera and transfer video.
i have one 8gb cam...
My windows 7 doesnt detect the cam, says that "doesnt have drivers for device".
Anyone have drivers for use the cam?
i tried reset but not work...
Comments
Just came across this thread and in exchange for the very interesting discussion I just read I thought I'd add an additional warning about the 8GB units. I have one of these and it isn't really an 8GB chip at all - it claims to be (even showing up as 8GB to the OS) but there is really only a bit under 4GB of useful space. It turns out that this is a common problem, see for example: http://sosfakeflash.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/xprodeal-ebay-fake-flash-seller-alert-china/ This blog suggests that the chips are basically factory rejects that are reprogrammed and resold.
So it would appear that the 8GB cameras might just be cheap counterfeits of the 4GB ones. What i don't quite understand is the amount of effort these guys have clearly gone to to sell something very close to their claimed spec, but not quite there - the camera works, albeit probably at a fake frame rate. I guess if they think people wouldn't buy them if they knew they were inferior, but it would arouse much less suspicion if the capacity was accurately reported - who needs 8GB anyway when the battery will run out before you fill it?
Hope this helps some of you!
I was able to take out the 4GB microSD, and put in a 16GB unit instead. It seems to work just fine, but I haven't tried filling it up.
The reason I got 16GB is so that I can keep several videos on there, and so that it can replace my thumb drive as well.
One problem that I see though is the data rate when reading/writing the flash is pretty slow (about 1MB/sec copying to it, ~950KB/sec copying videos off of it)
It is handy having all that space. After it gets done copying a DVD iso file(if it works), in 30 minutes or so, I am going to archive these very informative forum pages to it so I have instructions handy.
Thanks,
Doug
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·"If you build it, they will come."
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
·"If you build it, they will come."
Do you have a link to the CCD version? I'd be interested in the specs.
Look at post #207
This is what I'm referring to. It's also a 34.99 camera and they advertise it as ccd but if you ask them directly they say "ccd" was put in there to lure more people to buy it.
·
www.chucklohr.com/808/
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Post Edited (randall huston) : 10/16/2009 12:33:07 PM GMT
http://www.vimeo.com/7090142
Here's another keychain cam video I just posted from the nose of a faster plane. The only reason I can think of that some of these cameras have better video than others has to do with electronics rather than the type sensor. It could also be that the earlier ones had less than great optics or some other factor. I have a couple of cmos cameras lying around for weight testing on new planes and even some of the cmos cameras are better than other cmos cameras.
I use an Aiptek Go HD for ground video and although it's a cmos camera the video is simply stunning. Some of the high end DSLR cameras are also cmos.
http://www.vimeo.com/7091061
Post Edited (randall huston) : 10/16/2009 4:23:35 PM GMT
Your video is definitely as clear or clearer than the 'CCD' units I've seen, and it has a very clear yellow time/date stamp, the first I've seen like that. Very good find! Please verify that that this is the keychain cam you got from gadget.topseller88, and I'm sure some forum denizens will order one ASAP!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
·"If you build it, they will come."
Here are links to both cameras. They are identical so I'd get the least expensive. Nowhere near 34.99
http://cgi.ebay.com/DVR-Hidden-Camera-720x480-Video-30FPS-Spy-Car-Key-Chain_W0QQitemZ160369400037QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item2556c2d8e5
http://cgi.ebay.com/Key-Chain-Spy-Camera-and-DVR-HD-Covert-A-V-Recorder-cam_W0QQitemZ280407057714QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item4149902532
Post Edited (randall huston) : 10/16/2009 6:33:55 PM GMT
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
50 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 20 53 69 74 65
·
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
50 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 20 53 69 74 65
·
For the cam with white time and date in upper left corner
you can use the exe or create the txt file and place into root dir
of the cam.
The txt file must have this name "time.txt"
and must contain the time in this format exactly....just copy this string and modify it.
"2009-10-16 19:56:28" of course the quote marks don't go into the file.
Once you place the txt file into the cam root dir
just power the cam down and power it back up....
On re-boot the time/date will be set and the txt file will be deleted.
Just keep a copy in the root dir named something like backup-time.txt
so you can just copy, alter and rename that file to set the time again
when you need to and you will as the time needs to be reset occasionally.
I did not know about that download page doing that redirect :-(
I have the ad blocker running in firefox so that must have blocked it.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Post Edited (HollyMinkowski) : 10/17/2009 2:07:46 AM GMT
Evidence suggests that the 720x480 cams are merely stretching the 640x480 frame
to imitate a 720x480 aspect and make the cams appear more desirable.
Not saying that the cams don't take great video but if like me you cannot tolerate
watching video in the wrong aspect you will need to reconvert to 640x480 using a util
like virtualdub...this is easily done and indeed needs to be done as the motion jpg
files created by these cams are simply too large. I always lower the color sat when I
convert as it is 25% too hot. I convert to 2-pass XviD avi files using the free virtualdub.
a kbps rate of 1500 to 2500 seems fine. You can convert to 16:10 (vga pc monitor wide aspect)
or 16:9 (HDTV wide aspect) and cut off the orange time/date stamp at the same time.
I have video samples of both aspects and can post particulars if anyone is interested... you
wind up with a video that looks better when posted on youtube IMO.
All the cams take 640x480 still jpg images, the processor in the cams is reconverting to
a larger size but this is just a stunt....wish they just left the images alone, 640x480 is fine
for what these cams are intended for. Reconverting the jpg's back to their original size
will give you a better looking image that looks better even when zoomed full screen...I
just run a batch convert on the whole dir full of jpg images.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I don't really care whether the cams are one or the other, I just wanted
true 30fps and modest low light ability. The ones from sinoit are just fine.
You can do fair low light but you must push the image a bit in virtualdub
by increasing the gamma. I posted a test file of this earlier in this thread.
Some truly excellent HD camcorders use CMOS.
But compared to the 30fps cams the 12.5 fps cmos cams are a steamin pile of
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Did anyone work out the command for turning off the date stamp on the better quality cam (time in bottom right corner)?
I am using Tag.txt for the cam to alter the time at the moment.
Cheers,
Nitro
and a teardown video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8_0NuGkioI
My email is clohr@yahoo.com
My website is non-commercial, advertising is not accepted, and I am not being paid for any mention or promotion.
I just wanted to say hello and let you know that I have a link to this thread on my review webpage.
To those of you who have sent me emails with information, thanks. I try to post that info.
I just received my second camera (one with the external micro SD card) from Hong Kong so I have posted some preliminary info.
This camera, unlike the last one, installs as both a USB mass storage device and a USB image device, but the image device is not functional, yet.
I have emailed the seller to ask about the image device mode.
Post Edited (Normandy5) : 11/3/2009 5:14:44 PM GMT
I found your site very informative and refer to it often for updated info. Many of us are still looking for a way to turn off the clock display. Are there any of these cams that truly capture at 30 fps? I just got my 640 x 480, 8GB external micro SD model. I haven't played with it much yet. I'm using a 8GB micro SDHC card in it and it works fine. I was successful in setting the clock with your instructions. You might want to add that all files and folders must be deleted before it will work properly. The TAG.TXT must be the only file on the card on startup.
·
I just bought this USB charging unit off of Ebay. It includes a wall charger and a car charger. This will allow you to fill a 8GB card without having a computer to charge the camera and transfer video.
http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-CAR-WALL-Cha...item4837e7d8f6
My windows 7 doesnt detect the cam, says that "doesnt have drivers for device".
Anyone have drivers for use the cam?
i tried reset but not work...
thanks...