I just got my new 4GB Keychain DVR ebay item#250486006903 seller gadget.topseller88
Unfortunately, It does not have the microSD card in it, but it does appear to have a CCD camera like
I got the model number and manufacture from properties of one of the images:
Manufacturer: Anyka
Model: AK322x Chip
On the properties of one of the videos:
25Frames/Sec
195kbps
and I have the small date in the upper left corner.
Erco, can you tell us what you see on the properties for an image and a video?
Holly, I think we got the exact same camera. If so, it royally sucks. I got it to record my class lectures(without needing the approval papers and Smile with it- yippee!). However, the camera quality is poor(can't even make out the professors writing on the board 10 feet away, AND the darn thing isn't even reliable for recording... Sometimes, after recording for 30 minutes or so, I check the camera on my laptop, and it didn't even record anything, OR it only recorded the first 5-7 minutes! I'm VERY dissappointed in this particular camera.
Erco, any chance you can get a batch of GOOD cameras this way sometime soon? I'm going to try and send this camera back to the seller and tell them that their sample videos and images are were clearly not taken with THIS camera(false advertising?)
Check your video files using virtualdub and see if you have the same
12.5fps rate as I do. There are 25fps, but on mine the same frame is repeated twice.
[noparse][[/noparse]0 1] [noparse][[/noparse]2 3] [noparse][[/noparse]4 5] [noparse][[/noparse]6 7] = 4 different frames... not 8.
Perhaps you could post a test video clip from your cam? http://www.ziddu.com/ is a good place to upload a file anonymously.
The exe you sent me writes 2 files to the root dir of the flash drive in the cam
setdate.txt
this contains a date in exactly this format
2009-09-15 16:10:05
same with the time file
time.txt
2009-09-15 16:10:05
Yes, they both have the same data... No idea why they did not just
use one file to signal both data sets to the cpu???
I expected this would reset the time when the cam
next booted up...but it did not? The time remains the same :-(
Is there some extra action that needs to be taken I wonder??
Maybe sacrificing a chicken???
The instructions in the 'manual' are obscure, to say the least.
I'm hoping the cam uses an ARM cpu....
I will pop it open sometime soon when I
have the time to hack and see.
I suspect that you can reprogram the flash code
inside the cpu by placing a data file in the root dir
much as the time is set....if so this may make a great
hackable toy
I'd like to remove the resizing code that ruins the 640x480 stills
the camera is taking. the resulting images would look better
and take up much less space, also you could take images faster
without that resizing taking place every time you click for a
picture. If I can pull the contents of the flash out I can find the
name of the data file that would reprogram the flash on reboot.
I was supposed to get another, hopefully different, cam in the mail
today but it did not arrive :-(
I called the post office and they said they would make sure she
had the box with her tomorrow.
This cam is not nearly as good as the 4gb ccd one but it is
still acceptable as a security camera, and the audio is quite clear.
It does have 8gb of flash drive space...and that alone is worth
about what I paid so it's not all bad.
If I can just find the hoop to jump through to get the clock reset...arrgh
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I reformatted the flash drive using fat32 and quick format
under windows....then I ran the weird little time setting .exe
and the time was reset. (I also sacrificed the poor chicken)
I suppose that simply creating the txt files and placing them on
the drive after a reformat would also work...I see no reason it
would not. Evidently the code in the cpu can only see the txt
files if they exist all by themselves on the drive!? Who coded these
things!
You need to unplug, power down the cam and reboot so that the time gets set
quickly after you write the txt files.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
BTW, The 8GB camera I got from cititrading shows up as "Anyka AK322x Chip" just like the 4GB unit when I look at the properties of an image taken on it.
I will send you some video samples via email, and you can tell me.
Erco, let us know what you find on the batch that comes in. I really want one like you posted to youtube with the microSD. Hopefully this wasn't some big bait&switch scam by the manufacturer.
Yep, my new 4 GB cams are the same good CCD units. They're not off Ebay,· I buy 'em 10 at a time from China and they ship via DHL. I'm almost sold out again, but if anybody wants one I think I can get it to you for $40 ($35 plus $5 shipping from LA). I should probably order some more! PM me or email erco@netzero.net if you want one.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ·"If you build it, they will come."
Some other difference between the 4GB unit and the 8GB units that I purchased:
The 8GB unit has a more amplified microphone
The 8GB unit automatically mounts, but the 4GB does not. I have to mount it with "mount -t vfat /dev/sdc /mnt2" under linux.
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.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
@hinv
If it is ccd it will be shooting video at 29.7fps (they round this off to 30fps but it's actually 29.7)
use virtualdub to test it....just single frame step through a second of video...if it is 25fps with
each frame repeating twice then it's the cheap cmos camera.
The image will not smear as you pan the camera around if it is ccd.
And the time will appear in the lower right corner in orange digits.
The cmos cams have the time in white in the upper left corner.
OK, I got two (yes, another·all-day sucker with size 11 tennis shoes) of the 8G sucky·cititrading units with the off-kilter orientation.· The fine-print Chinglish "instructions" have left me with my eyeballs spinning counter-clockwise, setting aside the bifocals for the magnifying visor.· I managed, somehow,·to do a couple of videos and to take some stills (yuck), but I haven't nailed the process owing to the puzzling multi-function buttoning (really hate that), shooting in the dark as it were.· Anybody got this nailed down and can do a re-write in standard English maybe?· [noparse][[/noparse]BTW, mine don't show any time-stamps at all.]
We should get a box full of the good 4gb cams on Mon Or Tue.
I'm going to compare/contrast the cheap 8gb cams with the better cams
and write new instructions up. You may have yet a 3rd variation if your
cams don't have a time stamp on the video.... there are no time stamps
on the stills.
A simple exe also needs to be written to easily set the clock on the good ccd cams.
I will create one when I have time.
The processor inside seems to go into sleepmode when you turn it off.
It just watches for button clicks at that point. The time chip always runs
as long as the battery is charged.
When you manage to get the cams into video record mode the led is
switched off so as not to make anyone suspect it's recording.
You can tell the processor is recording video by holding an am radio
close...you will hear a lot of hash noise.
When you plug the unit into a USB port or charger the led will blink
slowly if the battery is charging...it will remain on and quit blinking
when the voltage indicates the battery has a full charge.
When you unplug from USB the cpu watches for a button press and
if none occurs it goes into sleep mode in a few seconds [noparse][[/noparse]off]
instructions for stills 8gb cheap cmos cam
When the cam is in sleep mode [noparse][[/noparse]off] a quick press of the on/off
button boots the cam up and turns the led on.
The on/off button is the rear button of the two, the one farthest from
the front of the cam. When booting you will see the led flicker about
a second in....no idea why, maybe it indicates boot procedures
have finished.
At this point with the led lit steadily if you quickly press the front button
a still jpg will be taken.
While a jpg is being processed the cpu turns the led off...when it comes back on
you can take another jpg.
Often when you try to take that first jpg the quick press of the front
button is not recognized #$%^ This is a bug, after a second or so if the led does not blink out
(indicating a jpg is being processed) just press it again, it always seems to
work the second time.
At this point to turn the cam off press and hold the rear button until
the led goes off...the cam is now in sleepmode again.
instructions for video
With cam in sleepmode a quick press of the rear button
wakes up the cpu and lights the led.
Hold down the front button until the led blinks 3 times and goes
off, you are now recording video and the led remains off.
Sometimes holding the front button down does nothing..the led just stays on!?!?
This is some sort of program error and to correct it release the front button
and once again press it and hold until the 3 blinks occur...then release.
[noparse][[/noparse]No good coder would release a product with a bug like this!]
OK, you got the 3 blinks and video has been recording and now you want to
stop recording.
Simply give the front button a quick press....nothing seems to happen!
the led remains off? What is happening is the cpu is finalizing the avi
file and storing it on the flash, after a couple of seconds the led will
come on and remain on...this means the avi is safely stored away.
DO NOT interrupt the cpu during the period of pressing the front
button to quit recording and the led's coming back on and remaining on! If
you do the avi will often be corrupted :-(
With the recording stopped and the led on you can either press and hold
the front button to record another avi, or press and hold the rear button
until the led goes off signaling the cam is back in sleep mode [noparse][[/noparse]off]
Hope these simple notes are of value to you
Oh!, since there is no power switch and the cams cpu is always on in
some mode or other they put a reset switch that can get you out of
trouble if the cpu locks up. Look 2/3 of the way towards the rear on
the USB socket side of the case and you will see a tiny hole. Pressing some
really tiny object in there resets the processor.
The USB code in the cam seems a bit weak and sometimes your pc
won't recognize the device...just unplugging/plugging the cam seems to eventually
get it recognized. Sometimes it is recognized as USB2.0 but usually, at
least on my pc it comes up as USB 1.1
If the cam is in your purse and something accidentally presses the rear button
and boots up the cam a counter is started and after a minute if no other button
presses are detected the cam goes back to sleepmode....so no need to
worry about the battery draining.
They really need to put all this info in understandable English
on a slip of paper and send with these cams.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Post Edited (HollyMinkowski) : 9/20/2009 9:57:59 AM GMT
Thanks for that assist.· This will go far in keeping me from subjecting the·device under test (DUT) to an unscheduled,·though well-deserved,·series of "shock & vibration."
Our ccd cams came in...I brought 2 of them home to play with.
Video quality is amazing for something so small!
No smearing like the cmos keychain cams...YaY
(I will find a use for those cmos cams I am stuck with)
No software bugs that I can find...the button functions
are all quick and flawless.
Still have probs getting USB to recognize them as USB2.0
The video data rate is so large that USB1.1 can't deliver the data
fast enough to render the file without jerks and pauses...so I
had to move the avi files to the HD before they would play well.
My old AMD2400+ pc is not fast enough to render the files well
at all...had to recompress with virtualdub before that old pc
could play them. If you get jerky video it's either cpu speed
is too low or data delivery from the cam is too slow...on the old
and slow pc some avi's just froze at the start.
You will want to recompress the avi files anyway...they are just too large
in raw motion jpeg form. I suggest a 2-pass render using vdub and
xvid with a data rate of 2000-3000. Mine came out best after lowering
the color level as it seems a bit high to me. Cropping for 16:9
aspect still leaves you with a nice image and it zooms to fill a
widescreen vga monitor....just take 40-43 off the top and bottom,
or vary that to center on your desired spot so long as total cropped is
80-86 or so.
Gordian Knot will deliver a superior xvid avi but it will take
a while to analyze the avi's because of the huge bitrate...for
anything over a few minutes its an overnight job or all day
as a background process.
Will test to see how long you can shoot video on a fresh
battery charge tomorrow at work... length will also be
limited by the fat32 max file size...isn't it 2gb?
Unlike with the cmos cams you can rapidly take jpg images...
no more waiting about 4 seconds between shots.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I was out walking the dog just before sunrise and took a short video clip
from the back yard. I was curious about the low light ability of these
cams. It's amazing they work in anything less than bright sunlight
since the lens opening is considerably smaller than a BB. Having the
lens opening stopped down this tiny is really great for sharp focus
but terrible for light gathering.
I recompressed this clip with virtualdub using xvid codec at 3000kbps.
I cropped for 16:9 aspect, lowered the color saturation a bit and raised
the gamma a bit. It was a 2-pass render.
(virtualdub and the xvid codec are freeware)
These cams are not ideal for low-light and could never compare
to a cam with a huge low-f lens but for the curious here is the clip.
Holly,
I have two of the CCD cameras and I'm having the same problem with them only connecting at USB1.1.
If you find a way to get USB 2.0 speed out of them PLEASE let us know.
P.S. I was able to record video until the memoy was full (a little over 1 hour). But it is taking just about that long to transfer the data to my hard drive.· Arrrrg...
Bean.
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- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Does that byte of memory hold "A", 65, $41 or %01000001 ?
Yes it does...
Post Edited (Bean (Hitt Consulting)) : 9/24/2009 11:04:10 PM GMT
I just got an order of 10 in from erco's supplier. I opened one up, and it looks very much like the one in the pictures on the first page of this thread.
One thing I didn't notice until now is that the microSD card is in a position that you couldn't replace it without taking off the USB connector. I haven't tried that yet,
An ugly and unconfirmed rumor: the micro SD card is easily removed and replaced in the 4GB units from Sinoit. The metal bracket holding it in is not a solid one-piece part, but has 2 arrow-shaped intentations that show how to unlatch the bracket to get at the SD card for upgrading or "harvesting" as Holly Harvester likes to say.
I don't have my unit here to confirm, but a friend who got one of my Sinoit units just told me it was an easy swap for an 8 GB card. In the photos I posted on the first page of this thread, I do see the arrows he mentions.
Hack freely, one and all!
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ·"If you build it, they will come."
Well....I sure am late to this party..and quite an interesting one at that! Coming across this thread is like opening a door to a room and seeing where all the cool kids r hangin out. LoL. Don't worry, I won't tell. Trying to digest the 4 pages of this thread has my head spinning kinda like Whit's head from Erco's video. The price of this thing is the showstopper. Okay...lets see..is this the one with the CCD (not cmos), microsd card or is this one horsepucky?!
IMO the only way to be certain of getting a good ccd cam is to buy 10 of them from sinoit.com
or buy one from erco or someone else that got them from sinoit. Maybe it will cost you an extra 10 dollars
compared to buying 10 at a time for 300.00 but the cams are well worth 40.00 I have seen them selling
for 300.00 each at several security companies that supply gear to investigators.
If you buy 10 of them you will soon discover that every geek that sees how well they work begs you to
let them have one
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
DVK said...
Did you see strings "SETTIME.TXT" and "TIMEOUT.TXT" in there? [noparse]:)[/noparse]
What it may be?
I see those strings. Note that they are not identical to the hex representation of the
file names SETTIME.TXT and TIMEOUT.TXT as the "." char is ascii [noparse][[/noparse]2E] but is replaced
by ascii [noparse][[/noparse]20].
But even so it seems to indicate that just as creating the file SETTIME.TXT with the proper
contents and placing it into the root dir of the camera changes the time/date some similar
result would follow the creation of the file TIMEOUT.TXT ????
You could try creating a file named TIMEOUT.TXT with various data inside it to see what
happens!? But it might have undesired results You may know you succeeded if the file
TIMEOUT.TXT has been deleted on re-boot...it also might be that files with these names are
deleted from root dir on every boot whether they were successful in changing the cams settings or not.
I also found two .bin file names... oddly the filename is separated from the .bin suffix by not one
but two [noparse][[/noparse]20] chars ?
ADJUST.BIN and CRESFW.BIN may be data files that if placed into the root dir would cause them to
be boot loaded and cause unforseen joy or distress
One of them might actually replace 808.bin as the contents of the mem chip in the camera.
Playing may result in a bricked camera.
I also found the string [noparse][[/noparse]RGBGain] ... it would be nice to be able to reduce the gain as the color
saturation seems about 25% too high to me.
Sure wish I had commented source for these cams....
I keep googling for hack pages for these cams but with no result. If anyone finds a hack page please
let me know.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
To set the time & date on a CCD camera ONLY (has the time stamp in orange letters on the bottom right of the image):
Copy the attached text file into the root·folder of your cam. This is what shows up in "MY COMPUTER" as a removeable drive. The only other file in the drive is the DCIM folder. Modify the file to contain date & time info EXACTLY in that format. Set the time a minute ahead and save the file. It will·DISAPPEAR when it sets the time when you disconect the cam and take a quick vid within a minute (to keep your time data current). So I always save a backup·copy of this file inside the·DCIM folder to keep it handy. So the DCIM folder will contain the backup settime file and the 100DSCIM folder only.
Note that the file must be called settime.txt and only contains EXACTLY 2009.10.07 00.19.00····· (updated)
That's the date YYYY.MM.DD, a space, and the time HH.MM.SS
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ ·"If you build it, they will come."
Comments
I just got my new 4GB Keychain DVR ebay item#250486006903 seller gadget.topseller88
Unfortunately, It does not have the microSD card in it, but it does appear to have a CCD camera like
I got the model number and manufacture from properties of one of the images:
Manufacturer: Anyka
Model: AK322x Chip
On the properties of one of the videos:
25Frames/Sec
195kbps
and I have the small date in the upper left corner.
Erco, can you tell us what you see on the properties for an image and a video?
Thanks,
Doug
Erco, any chance you can get a batch of GOOD cameras this way sometime soon? I'm going to try and send this camera back to the seller and tell them that their sample videos and images are were clearly not taken with THIS camera(false advertising?)
Check your video files using virtualdub and see if you have the same
12.5fps rate as I do. There are 25fps, but on mine the same frame is repeated twice.
[noparse][[/noparse]0 1] [noparse][[/noparse]2 3] [noparse][[/noparse]4 5] [noparse][[/noparse]6 7] = 4 different frames... not 8.
Perhaps you could post a test video clip from your cam?
http://www.ziddu.com/ is a good place to upload a file anonymously.
The exe you sent me writes 2 files to the root dir of the flash drive in the cam
setdate.txt
this contains a date in exactly this format
2009-09-15 16:10:05
same with the time file
time.txt
2009-09-15 16:10:05
Yes, they both have the same data... No idea why they did not just
use one file to signal both data sets to the cpu???
I expected this would reset the time when the cam
next booted up...but it did not? The time remains the same :-(
Is there some extra action that needs to be taken I wonder??
Maybe sacrificing a chicken???
The instructions in the 'manual' are obscure, to say the least.
I'm hoping the cam uses an ARM cpu....
I will pop it open sometime soon when I
have the time to hack and see.
I suspect that you can reprogram the flash code
inside the cpu by placing a data file in the root dir
much as the time is set....if so this may make a great
hackable toy
I'd like to remove the resizing code that ruins the 640x480 stills
the camera is taking. the resulting images would look better
and take up much less space, also you could take images faster
without that resizing taking place every time you click for a
picture. If I can pull the contents of the flash out I can find the
name of the data file that would reprogram the flash on reboot.
I was supposed to get another, hopefully different, cam in the mail
today but it did not arrive :-(
I called the post office and they said they would make sure she
had the box with her tomorrow.
This cam is not nearly as good as the 4gb ccd one but it is
still acceptable as a security camera, and the audio is quite clear.
It does have 8gb of flash drive space...and that alone is worth
about what I paid so it's not all bad.
If I can just find the hoop to jump through to get the clock reset...arrgh
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I reformatted the flash drive using fat32 and quick format
under windows....then I ran the weird little time setting .exe
and the time was reset. (I also sacrificed the poor chicken)
I suppose that simply creating the txt files and placing them on
the drive after a reformat would also work...I see no reason it
would not. Evidently the code in the cpu can only see the txt
files if they exist all by themselves on the drive!? Who coded these
things!
You need to unplug, power down the cam and reboot so that the time gets set
quickly after you write the txt files.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I will send you some video samples via email, and you can tell me.
Erco, let us know what you find on the batch that comes in. I really want one like you posted to youtube with the microSD. Hopefully this wasn't some big bait&switch scam by the manufacturer.
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·"If you build it, they will come."
The 8GB unit has a more amplified microphone
The 8GB unit automatically mounts, but the 4GB does not. I have to mount it with "mount -t vfat /dev/sdc /mnt2" under linux.
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Chris Savage
Parallax Engineering
50 72 6F 6A 65 63 74 20 53 69 74 65
·
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.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Both from different sellers, both the same lower quality units just
like the one I already had :-(
One did come in a box with a wall charger and a free trinket.
But it just has 4gb flash and I paid 5$ extra hoping it was the
ccd cam...oh well
Going to try one more time to get some ccd cams.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
If it is ccd it will be shooting video at 29.7fps (they round this off to 30fps but it's actually 29.7)
use virtualdub to test it....just single frame step through a second of video...if it is 25fps with
each frame repeating twice then it's the cheap cmos camera.
The image will not smear as you pan the camera around if it is ccd.
And the time will appear in the lower right corner in orange digits.
The cmos cams have the time in white in the upper left corner.
virtualdub is a freebie
www.virtualdub.org/
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Where's a 0101th-grader when you really need one?
We should get a box full of the good 4gb cams on Mon Or Tue.
I'm going to compare/contrast the cheap 8gb cams with the better cams
and write new instructions up. You may have yet a 3rd variation if your
cams don't have a time stamp on the video.... there are no time stamps
on the stills.
A simple exe also needs to be written to easily set the clock on the good ccd cams.
I will create one when I have time.
The processor inside seems to go into sleepmode when you turn it off.
It just watches for button clicks at that point. The time chip always runs
as long as the battery is charged.
When you manage to get the cams into video record mode the led is
switched off so as not to make anyone suspect it's recording.
You can tell the processor is recording video by holding an am radio
close...you will hear a lot of hash noise.
When you plug the unit into a USB port or charger the led will blink
slowly if the battery is charging...it will remain on and quit blinking
when the voltage indicates the battery has a full charge.
When you unplug from USB the cpu watches for a button press and
if none occurs it goes into sleep mode in a few seconds [noparse][[/noparse]off]
instructions for stills 8gb cheap cmos cam
When the cam is in sleep mode [noparse][[/noparse]off] a quick press of the on/off
button boots the cam up and turns the led on.
The on/off button is the rear button of the two, the one farthest from
the front of the cam. When booting you will see the led flicker about
a second in....no idea why, maybe it indicates boot procedures
have finished.
At this point with the led lit steadily if you quickly press the front button
a still jpg will be taken.
While a jpg is being processed the cpu turns the led off...when it comes back on
you can take another jpg.
Often when you try to take that first jpg the quick press of the front
button is not recognized #$%^ This is a bug, after a second or so if the led does not blink out
(indicating a jpg is being processed) just press it again, it always seems to
work the second time.
At this point to turn the cam off press and hold the rear button until
the led goes off...the cam is now in sleepmode again.
instructions for video
With cam in sleepmode a quick press of the rear button
wakes up the cpu and lights the led.
Hold down the front button until the led blinks 3 times and goes
off, you are now recording video and the led remains off.
Sometimes holding the front button down does nothing..the led just stays on!?!?
This is some sort of program error and to correct it release the front button
and once again press it and hold until the 3 blinks occur...then release.
[noparse][[/noparse]No good coder would release a product with a bug like this!]
OK, you got the 3 blinks and video has been recording and now you want to
stop recording.
Simply give the front button a quick press....nothing seems to happen!
the led remains off? What is happening is the cpu is finalizing the avi
file and storing it on the flash, after a couple of seconds the led will
come on and remain on...this means the avi is safely stored away.
DO NOT interrupt the cpu during the period of pressing the front
button to quit recording and the led's coming back on and remaining on! If
you do the avi will often be corrupted :-(
With the recording stopped and the led on you can either press and hold
the front button to record another avi, or press and hold the rear button
until the led goes off signaling the cam is back in sleep mode [noparse][[/noparse]off]
Hope these simple notes are of value to you
Oh!, since there is no power switch and the cams cpu is always on in
some mode or other they put a reset switch that can get you out of
trouble if the cpu locks up. Look 2/3 of the way towards the rear on
the USB socket side of the case and you will see a tiny hole. Pressing some
really tiny object in there resets the processor.
The USB code in the cam seems a bit weak and sometimes your pc
won't recognize the device...just unplugging/plugging the cam seems to eventually
get it recognized. Sometimes it is recognized as USB2.0 but usually, at
least on my pc it comes up as USB 1.1
If the cam is in your purse and something accidentally presses the rear button
and boots up the cam a counter is started and after a minute if no other button
presses are detected the cam goes back to sleepmode....so no need to
worry about the battery draining.
They really need to put all this info in understandable English
on a slip of paper and send with these cams.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Post Edited (HollyMinkowski) : 9/20/2009 9:57:59 AM GMT
Thanks for that assist.· This will go far in keeping me from subjecting the·device under test (DUT) to an unscheduled,·though well-deserved,·series of "shock & vibration."
Post Edited (hinv) : 9/20/2009 7:16:57 PM GMT
Video quality is amazing for something so small!
No smearing like the cmos keychain cams...YaY
(I will find a use for those cmos cams I am stuck with)
No software bugs that I can find...the button functions
are all quick and flawless.
Still have probs getting USB to recognize them as USB2.0
The video data rate is so large that USB1.1 can't deliver the data
fast enough to render the file without jerks and pauses...so I
had to move the avi files to the HD before they would play well.
My old AMD2400+ pc is not fast enough to render the files well
at all...had to recompress with virtualdub before that old pc
could play them. If you get jerky video it's either cpu speed
is too low or data delivery from the cam is too slow...on the old
and slow pc some avi's just froze at the start.
You will want to recompress the avi files anyway...they are just too large
in raw motion jpeg form. I suggest a 2-pass render using vdub and
xvid with a data rate of 2000-3000. Mine came out best after lowering
the color level as it seems a bit high to me. Cropping for 16:9
aspect still leaves you with a nice image and it zooms to fill a
widescreen vga monitor....just take 40-43 off the top and bottom,
or vary that to center on your desired spot so long as total cropped is
80-86 or so.
Gordian Knot will deliver a superior xvid avi but it will take
a while to analyze the avi's because of the huge bitrate...for
anything over a few minutes its an overnight job or all day
as a background process.
Will test to see how long you can shoot video on a fresh
battery charge tomorrow at work... length will also be
limited by the fat32 max file size...isn't it 2gb?
Unlike with the cmos cams you can rapidly take jpg images...
no more waiting about 4 seconds between shots.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Can you a provide a link for them?
from the back yard. I was curious about the low light ability of these
cams. It's amazing they work in anything less than bright sunlight
since the lens opening is considerably smaller than a BB. Having the
lens opening stopped down this tiny is really great for sharp focus
but terrible for light gathering.
I recompressed this clip with virtualdub using xvid codec at 3000kbps.
I cropped for 16:9 aspect, lowered the color saturation a bit and raised
the gamma a bit. It was a 2-pass render.
(virtualdub and the xvid codec are freeware)
These cams are not ideal for low-light and could never compare
to a cam with a huge low-f lens but for the curious here is the clip.
www.ziddu.com/download/6616730/lltest2.avi.html
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
I have two of the CCD cameras and I'm having the same problem with them only connecting at USB1.1.
If you find a way to get USB 2.0 speed out of them PLEASE let us know.
P.S. I was able to record video until the memoy was full (a little over 1 hour). But it is taking just about that long to transfer the data to my hard drive.· Arrrrg...
Bean.
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Does that byte of memory hold "A", 65, $41 or %01000001 ?
Yes it does...
Post Edited (Bean (Hitt Consulting)) : 9/24/2009 11:04:10 PM GMT
One thing I didn't notice until now is that the microSD card is in a position that you couldn't replace it without taking off the USB connector. I haven't tried that yet,
Doug
I don't have my unit here to confirm, but a friend who got one of my Sinoit units just told me it was an easy swap for an 8 GB card. In the photos I posted on the first page of this thread, I do see the arrows he mentions.
Hack freely, one and all!
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·"If you build it, they will come."
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250501514232&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
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"A complex design is the sign of an inferior designer."
or buy one from erco or someone else that got them from sinoit. Maybe it will cost you an extra 10 dollars
compared to buying 10 at a time for 300.00 but the cams are well worth 40.00 I have seen them selling
for 300.00 each at several security companies that supply gear to investigators.
If you buy 10 of them you will soon discover that every geek that sees how well they work begs you to
let them have one
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
erco
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·"If you build it, they will come."
is easy to swap out
I wonder if it can handle 16gb...
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
Did you see strings "SETTIME.TXT" and "TIMEOUT.TXT" in there? [noparse]:)[/noparse]
What it may be? [noparse]:)[/noparse]
I see those strings. Note that they are not identical to the hex representation of the
file names SETTIME.TXT and TIMEOUT.TXT as the "." char is ascii [noparse][[/noparse]2E] but is replaced
by ascii [noparse][[/noparse]20].
But even so it seems to indicate that just as creating the file SETTIME.TXT with the proper
contents and placing it into the root dir of the camera changes the time/date some similar
result would follow the creation of the file TIMEOUT.TXT ????
You could try creating a file named TIMEOUT.TXT with various data inside it to see what
happens!? But it might have undesired results
TIMEOUT.TXT has been deleted on re-boot...it also might be that files with these names are
deleted from root dir on every boot whether they were successful in changing the cams settings or not.
I also found two .bin file names... oddly the filename is separated from the .bin suffix by not one
but two [noparse][[/noparse]20] chars ?
ADJUST.BIN and CRESFW.BIN may be data files that if placed into the root dir would cause them to
be boot loaded and cause unforseen joy or distress
One of them might actually replace 808.bin as the contents of the mem chip in the camera.
Playing may result in a bricked camera.
I also found the string [noparse][[/noparse]RGBGain] ... it would be nice to be able to reduce the gain as the color
saturation seems about 25% too high to me.
Sure wish I had commented source for these cams....
I keep googling for hack pages for these cams but with no result. If anyone finds a hack page please
let me know.
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
To set the time & date on a CCD camera ONLY (has the time stamp in orange letters on the bottom right of the image):
Copy the attached text file into the root·folder of your cam. This is what shows up in "MY COMPUTER" as a removeable drive. The only other file in the drive is the DCIM folder. Modify the file to contain date & time info EXACTLY in that format. Set the time a minute ahead and save the file. It will·DISAPPEAR when it sets the time when you disconect the cam and take a quick vid within a minute (to keep your time data current). So I always save a backup·copy of this file inside the·DCIM folder to keep it handy. So the DCIM folder will contain the backup settime file and the 100DSCIM folder only.
Note that the file must be called settime.txt and only contains EXACTLY 2009.10.07 00.19.00····· (updated)
That's the date YYYY.MM.DD, a space, and the time HH.MM.SS
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·"If you build it, they will come."