Another new toy

[Spunkymonkey]

I saw this on EBay and couldn't resist:


Now, the box sort of gets it wrong - it's not a voice recorder at all but a video camera. But they certainly got the "small" bit right:


The lighter didn't come with it, I just added that for a sense of scale because saying "tiny" doesn't really get the concept across! It also doesn't come with a memory card, so you need to supply your own microSD card (up to 16Gb according to the manual). I had a spare 2 gig lying around, so that went in to test it with.

It also comes with just the sort of accessories the average man-about-car might want:


Clockwise from top right you get:
* "Croc clip" holder (which the camera clips into nice & positively)
* Lanyard
* Protective jelly "skin" case
* Wall (or similar) mount for the camera to clip to
* Ball-jointed magnetic mount (dashboard???) which the croc clip holder clips to

Now, all that's great but not much use if the thing doesn't work. Having been playing with it this afternoon, it certainly does work, although you need a little patience with it sometimes:
* The battery takes a long time to charge enough to use it (after the first hour it only managed 14 seconds of video)
* If you do something it doesn't like (such as removing the SD card while it's connected to your PC) it tends to freeze and you have to insert a "slim pole" into the reset switch.
* The instructions are in finest Chinglese but there's lots of info on the net for them as well.

so to the crunch - the videos. This is a 5 minute test-drive I took in Matilda the Daf with it simply clipped to the passenger sun visor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4hFrntOtbk

Bear in mind that I had to compress the video a huge amount before uploading - it came off the camera at 300Mb - so the quality of that clip doesn't really do it justice. Just to make amends for that, this is a still taken from a couple of minutes in, showing the full freeze-frame resolution:


Which I reckon isn't at all bad for a camera, with accessories, which cost.....

£9.95 including delivery!!!!!!!!

[JPB]

That's not too bad at all. Probably a very similar device to those small cams that were discussed in another thread a year or more ago which came from China and gave similar results. I had a couple of those and neither lasted well, though the one that fell off the Dolly's grille and found its way under the front wheel probably couldn't be blamed for its untimely demise.
That does look impressive though and I feel a sudden urge to acquire yet another gadget....



(By the way; is there a dog in the car? )

[Spunkymonkey]

Monty the mutt-hound was doing his usual "I'm in the car! I'm in the car!!" song in the background ;D

As for lasting or not, the external build quality seems to be pretty good and, looking round the net, it seems that many of the failures are either user-related (if you do things it doesn't expect like pressing certain unlikely buttons together it can cause problems), SD card related (they occasionally fill the card with random files and stop working until it's reformatted) or battery related (either wires breaking off or just dying like Chinese batteries do). Bigger capacity (and better quality) batteries can be fitted....

People have also hacked the firmware to remove the (apparently) annoying date-stamp and found that it appears to be designed as a mobile phone set-up complete with ring-tones and picture "frames" built in!

I did see the thread last year but seem to remember they were the key-chain type. Probably very similar (or identical) inside but this is soooo much easier to mount on cars!

[JPB]

Yes, they were the keychain ones. Definitely cam boards straight out of phones and there's a forum dedicated to those keychain cams.Why though?
It's precisely because of the ease of mounting (no gaffer tape or blu-tac required) that I'm going to have one of those like you have. The eBay prices seem to vary wildly though, from £35 for a new, unopened one, to auction-style listings starting at 99p for ones that have been out of the box and maybe used once.
Any chance of a clue to the identity of the seller of yours please, Joe? I'm assuming that it's the seller who has them advertised as used only once and who has ten available at the price of yours per unit plus a nominal sum for the postage?

[trackerjack]

Well I have had my key fob one for err 1 1/2 years and it has put up with a load of abuse.
This little vid was taken on it in June this year and it ends up soaking wet but survives, I am truelly amazed at the good quality for something so cheap.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW5WnqxP0B4

[Spunkymonkey]

Good to know they don't all die prematurely despite the rumours

Mine was from this guy, who has "more than 10 left" still:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/220839204126? ... 1439.l2649

I was a little dubious because it claims to be a UK (Bristol) item, he's registered in Honk Kong, and most of his feedback is in German. But it was ordered last Wednesday and arrived safe today, with a Bank Holiday in between despite the free "economy" postage. He also left feedback without waiting for mine, and actually used the "dispatched" feature so I knew it was on its way.

[marty dolomite]

Joe, when you come over for 'the pie' I will show you the worlds smallest camera, thats if i can i find
Seriuosly I do have the world smallest camera and i know its in the loft somewhere so its just a matter of finding it.

[Spunkymonkey]

If you're talking about the Minolta then you'd better not show it to me or you might not have it for very long......

[JPB]

Woo-hoo! Ta for that link. Cheapest of all the many sources and not used as some are. I've bought one.

bumped at 8:55am:
I've already had a despatched notice and feedback - in German. Funny thing is that the item was marked as sent at 3 this Morning. Strange, but probably not cause for concern.

[marty dolomite]

If you're talking about the Minolta then you'd better not show it to me or you might not have it for very long......

I cant remember tha make but will try to dig it out for you.

[Spunkymonkey]

Yeah, my dispatched and feedback were the same but it did arrive. Curiously, with a 1st class Welsh (bi-lingual) postage label showing a return address in Bristol (as the item said). Maybe whoever deals with the account is overseas and is just paying some Bristollian to go to the Post Office for them????

When it arrives, btw, don't go into panic "it's not working" mode when it seems to do lots of odd things or nothing at all. It needs a proper charge to do anything useful (at least 3 or 4 hours) and seems to charge better from a USB port than one of those USB wall wart thingies.

If you want to confirm it's working before that then you can set it up as a web-cam. The driver disk that came with mine seems to be blank (nothing like quality kit ) but the Windows driver is available here (2.8MB):

http://www.mediafire.com/?4mdji10muzy

Linux drivers for webcam mode seem to be a problem (at least as of last year) but there are people working on it.

I've also found that trying to copy a video directly from the camera seems to freeze sometimes in Linux - haven't tried in Windoze - but I prefer to use a card reader anyway so that's no real problem

[JPB]

Good stuff, joe, ta for that advice. I'm not needing to use the thing as a webcam - my Fuji Finepix does that well enough - so will use my Android phone to read the SD card as that communicates well with my home Ubuntu box. So a HK-registered seller, whose native tongue is German and whose items are posted by bilingual Bristol residents?

[Spunkymonkey]

New (undocumented) feature! Courtesy of here: http://md80instructions.co.uk/

If you start with the camera switched off then hold the record button down while connecting a USB power supply and keep it held down until the red light goes out (about 3 seconds) it will then record while connected to external power! I'm in the middle of trying to confirm whether it's genuinely using the ext power or simply running off battery with the lead doing nothing.

If it is using the external supply, that means a USB supply from your ciggy lighter and a 16 gig card could give about 8 hours of video! There are rumours that it splits the files automatically at 4 gig but can't see that being a problem

[JPB]

Maplins' price; £59.99 for the same thing.

I knew that they'd become [even more] expensive but that's just taking the wotsits.

[Spunkymonkey]

To be fair, Maplins are probably not selling the clone-of-a-clone type. Apparently the original was a really quite well made, alloy cased, one from Muvvi, copied by AEE into a plastic case, but still well made, then copied by various unknown makers for the EBay-for-a-tenner market*.

They're also far more likely to provide back-up if it goes wrong. Although, whether it's worth effectively paying £49 insurance on a £10 item is open to question!




* Incidentally, don't go getting the case of your EBay special tested for environmental niceness. It seems many contain more lead than the average 1960s kiddy's toy