Cool My keychain 8gb camera came today...........

[ronaldf]

I just loaded the original AVI file into VirtualDud and stepped through the clip frame by frame. I did not see any duplicate frames. Each frame was different from the previous one. The problem seems to be dropped frames.
Is it possible that these cameras are shooting at 12 to 15 fps and inserting a modified frame in between each actual frame? This may be causing a dropped frame. If they are capturing at 30 fps, the buffers may not be able to handle the input and thus dropping frames. Oh well, for $15 it is still great for the purposes it isintended.

[johnprov]

Originally Posted by Crash One

That's who I got mine from. Try a different USB cable. Mine was useless and had me thinking it was the battery.

Agree try a different cable, the cables and batteries are not that great, if its charging it should feel warm. I will order new batteries when they are in stock at hobbycity.

[Tom Frank]

Originally Posted by FR4-Pilot

NTSC Cameras (what these cams are*) that record 720x480 video targeted for DV or DVD will actually use non-square pixels so when the video is displayed on (now outdated 4:3 aspect ratio) televisions the resulting aspect ratio is correct (the televisions would compress slightly in the horizontal axis). However, those exact same videos displayed on a computer will appear horizontally stretched because computer monitors display the videos as-is, without any horizontal compression.

If you were to burn the footage as-is from these cams onto a DVD and watch it on an older NTSC format TV & DVD player (or on an older non-wide screen computer monitor in "full screen mode"), everything would look fine (no stretching). If you're just watching on a computer or uploading to youtube then an adjustment can be made if the stretching bothers you (of course it does!).

It's even more confusing because some computer apps automatically adjust for you while displaying - others don't, so sometimes it looks fine and sometimes it looks stretched, depending on what tool you're using to display/view your video.

I've found two solutions you can do in a video editor:

1. Leave the frame size alone but change the aspect ratio to 4:3 (makes the pixels taller than wider).

2. Leave the aspect ratio alone (1:1) and re-size the frame to 640x480 (reduces the number of horizontal pixels).

Then export your video using these settings. Now when that video is displayed "normally" on a computer it should look fine.

-John

* Actually, they're almost NTSC cameras. A frame rate of 29.97 along with the 720x480 resolution would seal the deal. These cams are actually running at a non-standard frame rate - 30.99? so they're close but out of spec.

I'd like to see what G-Spot video anaylzer tool reports for that camera's native video. It will report the pixel and display aspect ratio.

[Tom Frank]

Originally Posted by ronaldf

I just loaded the original AVI file into VirtualDud and stepped through the clip frame by frame. I did not see any duplicate frames. Each frame was different from the previous one. The problem seems to be dropped frames.
Is it possible that these cameras are shooting at 12 to 15 fps and inserting a modified frame in between each actual frame? This may be causing a dropped frame. If they are capturing at 30 fps, the buffers may not be able to handle the input and thus dropping frames. Oh well, for $15 it is still great for the purposes it isintended.

Are you sure you are getting the full 30 fps? When you load it into Vdub, click on the "file/file information" menu item. The pop up window will show the frame rate in the top box.

[FR4-Pilot]

... just back from lunch. Did the dashboard test again. Found a duplicate section of 21 frames this time. But right after that it (playback) "sped up" as if to catch up to the audio.

Probably a frame-buffering issue within the design of the cam itself.

Not judging the cams - just analyzing

Maybe the $15 cams are the refurbished ones - I've seen the exact same cams sold with packaging (a printed box) that they're charging $40-$50 for. Who knows.?

-John

[quailbird]

Mine cost $15.00 and it is 720x480 at 30fps. I bought a micro 2 gig sdhc card and it works great. Color is good and the sound is decent. I usually take the sound down anyway and add music.

[guyg]

I hope to get my cam soon
3 weeks will be sunday..
Guy

[NitroCharged]

I'm not sure if I posted that I resize the video to 640x480 in my editor and drop a black overlay on the time stamp.

[Normandy5]

I am still updating my web page about the 808 car keys micro camera. The page has a link to this thread. I just got a micro SD type camera and so I will be adding info to the page as I review it. I'm open to comments, corrections and suggestions at
clohr@yahoo.com

http://chucklohr.com/808

-- Normandy5, Chuck Lohr

[FR4-Pilot]

That's a great website, Chuck.

Thanks for all of your effort! Very helpful in dissecting these little buggers!

-John

[ronaldf]

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

Are you sure you are getting the full 30 fps? When you load it into Vdub, click on the "file/file information" menu item. The pop up window will show the frame rate in the top box.

VirtualDub states 720 X 480, 30.979 fps. MediaInfo gives the same info.

The question is: How do these programs determine fps?
Do they count the frames per second? If so, the fps may not be acurate if the cam duplicates frames or inserts a morphed frame in the final avi file. Someone with more video savy will need to junp in.

[NitroCharged]

Chuck, if you can work out how to access the system files that would be great. The 15fps one I have - I hold the on button down for 10 seconds while plugging in the USB plug and the 3 drives come up. It doesn't do that with this better 30fps cam I now have. If I can see the .bin file perhaps the tag for turning off the date stamp is in there.

[Normandy5]

Originally Posted by NitroCharged

Chuck, if you can work out how to access the system files that would be great. The 15fps one I have - I hold the on button down for 10 seconds while plugging in the USB plug and the 3 drives come up. It doesn't do that with this better 30fps cam I now have. If I can see the .bin file perhaps the tag for turning off the date stamp is in there.

I learned that technique from you. Like you said it does not work for the 30 fps camera (what I call the #3 camera).

If I hold the mode switch down and connect the USB, Windows will try to load a "general image device". I contacted the seller and he said there is no driver for that. To get geeky, Windows is trying to load a driver for device vid_04fc pid_1528 (vendor id and product id). The vendor id is Sunplus Technology Co Ltd. They are a mega electronics company in Taiwan with many subsidiaries in China, Hong Kong, etc. I cant find any reference to product id 1528. Here for example are some of the pid identifiers that they use. You might recognize some of these brands.

0003 CM1092 Optical Scroller Mouse
0013 ViewMate Desktop Mouse CC2201
0015 ViewMate Desktop Mouse CC2201
0232 Fingerprint
0561 Flexcam 100
0c25 SATALink SPIF225A
1533 Mass Storage
500c CA500C Digital Camera
504a Aiptek Mini PenCam 1.3
504b Aiptek Mega PockerCam 1.3/Maxell MaxPocket LE 1.3
5330 Digitrex 2110
5331 Vivitar Vivicam 10
5360 Sunplus Generic Digital Camera
5720 Card Reader Driver
7333 Finet Technology Palmpix DC-85
757a Aiptek, MP315 MP3 Player
ffff PureDigital Ritz Disposable

This is just a mish mash of info that might not mean something now, but maybe later. It does possible explain why the AVI and JPG files begin SUNP.

[FR4-Pilot]

I really like the frequency response of the mic on this camera. Picks up low frequencies nicely (as long as the mic is close to the source). Not the wind noise, but the sound of the blades - the AeroCam never captured these low frequency sounds ... If you have a sub-woofer you'll hear what I'm all excited about

808 Car Keys Sound Test 1 (Quark SRB) (0 min 56 sec)

808 Car Keys Sound Test 2 (Quark SRB) (1 min 26 sec)