Originally Posted by Tom Frank

You may have a portion of the file corrupted to prevent display of some of the video. What is the file size of that 15 min. clip? Do you get just one min. of playback or 14 min. of nothing (sound?), then one min. of video at the end? Also, what program are you using to play back the video? The freeware VLC player will sometimes play video that other programs will not.

The file size is 85 mb. There is only one minute of playback. I'm using Quicktime to view the file.

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

Welcome to the thread. It might be possible and has been brought up here before. It's something that is only useful for certain applications, though, since many (me included) don't want to risk losing an earlier recording on the card for the applications we use this camera for (i.e. aerial video from RC planes). I've only been pushing in this thread for basic improvements in the video quality and fixing the existing continuous recording bug since that impacts the most users. But you can pass on other feature requests via the eBay sellers who work closely with the developer. More input from those paths may get more attention.

One interim solution is to use a larger memory card, e.g. 32GB card would give close to 10 hours of video... a long day on the road!

Tom,

I took your suggestion and sent ebay seller the feature request.
On a related note, would you be interested to post a tutorial on how you modified the firmware? Is it entirely modified in raw assembly language or is there some type of decompiler to modify the firmware at your own will?

I am just wondering just how difficult it is to change firmware. I never wrote anything in assembly language. The closest thing I did was in C or C++, but always love to fiddle around to learn a thing or two. So any pointers from you are greatly appreciated!

Enjoy your weekend!

Originally Posted by otherworldliness

Tom,

I took your suggestion and sent ebay seller the feature request.
On a related note, would you be interested to post a tutorial on how you modified the firmware? Is it entirely modified in raw assembly language or is there some type of decompiler to modify the firmware at your own will?

I am just wondering just how difficult it is to change firmware. I never wrote anything in assembly language. The closest thing I did was in C or C++, but always love to fiddle around to learn a thing or two. So any pointers from you are greatly appreciated!

Enjoy your weekend!

I did not modify any of the firmware, nor is it possible to do by hacking the .bin file. All the firmware revisions I have posted I got from the developer and/or my eBay vendor. So any changes must come from the developer as well, and being a small company and working on new cameras, they don't have much time to devote to our whims.

I do think they could fix the bug fairly easily in the Continuous Recording firmware, though, since the original Release 1 version already had that functional. Beyond that, getting the camera to hold it's white balance through different exposure levels is my first want, then diminishing the color saturatation a couple of notches so colors look more natural. After that, I'd be happy assuming they can't find a better lens to eliminate the edge vignetting.

Originally Posted by dmoshiloh

The file size is 85 mb. There is only one minute of playback. I'm using Quicktime to view the file.

OK... interesting. There's one more possibility that could do this, and maybe you can confirm based on what is in the 1 min. clip of yours.

If the camera battery were very low when you started to record, it could have captured the first minute then closed the file on low battery power. Then, with the recording stopped, the battery recovers a bit of voltage, and has enough power to light the LED when you push the button to stop the recording (but the recording had stopped 14 min. earlier on low voltage). If this were the case, your video would show the first minute of your recording, not the last minute. What does your recording show?

Originally Posted by victapilot

Don't want to be OT, but this is a frame grab from the HK HD Wing cam. The lens tube is about 7mm threaded. I like it because no vignetting, but it does curve the horizon

If that lens tube has a 7mm thread, it might fit in a #11 if the pitch is right! A bit of a pain to try it though. I've thought a wider angle lens could help fix the #11 vignetting, but I've not been able to find a source.

Also, the #11 has an IR filter on the rear element of the lens, not in the lens holder over the CMOS. So finding one with an IR filter adds to the problem.

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

OK... interesting. There's one more possibility that could do this, and maybe you can confirm based on what is in the 1 min. clip of yours.

If the camera battery were very low when you started to record, it could have captured the first minute then closed the file on low battery power. Then, with the recording stopped, the battery recovers a bit of voltage, and has enough power to light the LED when you push the button to stop the recording (but the recording had stopped 14 min. earlier on low voltage). If this were the case, your video would show the first minute of your recording, not the last minute. What does your recording show?

It only shows the last minute of flight. The battery was fully charged when I started. I later filmed several short clips and a longer 15 minute clip at home and there was no problem. Previous to the flight in question, I had deleted several files from the 8Gb card. I don't know if this would cause a problem with recording. Also one other file would not play because of a corrupted part of the file, but it would not play any of the file. I just can't figure out how it started recording the end of the flight and none of the beginning.

Originally Posted by dmoshiloh

It only shows the last minute of flight. The battery was fully charged when I started. I later filmed several short clips and a longer 15 minute clip at home and there was no problem. Previous to the flight in question, I had deleted several files from the 8Gb card. I don't know if this would cause a problem with recording. Also one other file would not play because of a corrupted part of the file, but it would not play any of the file. I just can't figure out how it started recording the end of the flight and none of the beginning.

This is a weird one.. I've often wondered if folks just make up these brain teasers for you Tom but also realized some are are just so odd they couldn't be making this stuff up... awaiting your reply..JiMS

Originally Posted by dmoshiloh

It only shows the last minute of flight. The battery was fully charged when I started. I later filmed several short clips and a longer 15 minute clip at home and there was no problem. Previous to the flight in question, I had deleted several files from the 8Gb card. I don't know if this would cause a problem with recording. Also one other file would not play because of a corrupted part of the file, but it would not play any of the file. I just can't figure out how it started recording the end of the flight and none of the beginning.

OK... so it's an intermittant problem. Deleting files from the card should not affect anything. It sounds like perhaps the card memory space is corrupted. Have you checked your memory card's integrity or tried a different card?

Try re-formatting your flash memory card using the SDformatter utility, then testing the memory using the H2testw utility. Both are free downloads (Google for download sites). Once you have confirmed the memory card is good and it still does this with different cards, it must be some problem with the camera circuitry. But I'd try reflashing in the firmware as a last resort. I'd ask for a replacement if you can't get it resolved.

My important file got broken. After normal recoding, I connected the micro sd card with a card reader. My windows 7 shows the summary of the card "2.45GB free of 3.67GB", but no video file in the folder at all. This is the first time happen to me. I use 2nd version of the date-remove & continuous firmware. The video was taken for about 15 minutes after full charge. Class4 micro SD card was formatted right before taken the video.
Is there any known procedure to get the video file out of my card?

Originally Posted by TrafalgarLaw

My important file got broken. After normal recoding, I connected the micro sd card with a card reader. My windows 7 shows the summary of the card "2.45GB free of 3.67GB", but no video file in the folder at all. This is the first time happen to me. I use 2nd version of the date-remove & continuous firmware. The video was taken for about 15 minutes after full charge. Class4 micro SD card was formatted right before taken the video.
Is there any known procedure to get the video file out of my card?

The used space on the card looks about right for a 15 min. video, so the file may just not have been properly closed for some reason. You can try to use a file recovery utility... a number of free ones available on the internet. I use one called "recova" (Google for a download site) which works very well for deleted files. But I have not needed to use it for files which may have not been properly closed for some reason. If you try it and it works, please post back here. Good luck!

I'm demo'ing a video editor which has the ability of making time lapse out of regular video. I took a 1.5 hour drive from yesterday and compressed it to 8 minutes (1000%) at excellent quality. Reads and saves lots of different formats.
It's not free, but I think I may get it. It's VideoPad. Found it at CNet. Corel has one that will also compress, but no try before buy, so I walked.

Originally Posted by JumpySticks

I'm demo'ing a video editor which has the ability of making time lapse out of regular video. I took a 1.5 hour drive from yesterday and compressed it to 8 minutes (1000%) at excellent quality. Reads and saves lots of different formats.
It's not free, but I think I may get it. It's VideoPad. Found it at CNet. Corel has one that will also compress, but no try before buy, so I walked.

I recently used VideoPad for it's two week trial period. It has some nice easy to use features, but there's better editors for the money. After two weeks, the free trial just eliminates use of third party filters, and limits the output format to .AVI and .WMV/ASF formats. All other functions are intact, so there is no need to purchase this program if your conversion just uses the frame rate toggle when you output the file. The downside is you must also re-encode the video, which makes a slow editor excruciatingly slow!

Freeware like Vdub can do this conversion by direct copying the original video with no re-encoding, so the conversion is done in just a matter of seconds rather than hours (unless you found a different way to do this in Videopad). And you can convert the #11 .mov file to .avi (to import into Vdub) by direct copying in a matter of seconds using the MP4cam2AVI converter.

Unless you are also wanting to do some other editing with VideoPad that cannot be done with Vdub (like transitions and titles), these no advantage to using VideoPad, and a big disadvantage (speed) if you do. YMMV

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

I recently used VideoPad for it's two week trial period. It has some nice easy to use features, but there's better editors for the money. After two weeks, the free trial just eliminates use of third party filters, and limits the output format to .AVI and .WMV/ASF formats. All other functions are intact, so there is no need to purchase this program if your conversion just uses the frame rate toggle when you output the file. The downside is you must also re-encode the video, which makes a slow editor excruciatingly slow!

Freeware like Vdub can do this conversion by direct copying the original video with no re-encoding, so the conversion is done in just a matter of seconds rather than hours (unless you found a different way to do this in Videopad). And you can convert the #11 .mov file to .avi (to import into Vdub) by direct copying in a matter of seconds using the MP4cam2AVI converter.

Unless you are also wanting to do some other editing with VideoPad that cannot be done with Vdub (like transitions and titles), these no advantage to using VideoPad, and a big disadvantage (speed) if you do. YMMV

Wow, thanks for the excellent information. Yes, the conversion was an hour long process. I will give Vdub another try.

Originally Posted by JumpySticks

Wow, thanks for the excellent information. Yes, the conversion was an hour long process. I will give Vdub another try.

Check the video editing links in teh FAQs (post #3) for more info on MPcam2AVI and Vdub.

I converted a native 20 min. #11 video from .mov to .avi using the MP4camtoAvi utility to get a lossless .AVI file (took 4 secs. to convert), then importing that into Vdub, and exporting with video set for "Direct Copy", NO audio, and frame rate set to 338 fps (to get the same speedup you referenced), which took 34 sec. So about 1 minute to produce that sped-up file even with the program changes.

The playback with WMP was jerky on my PC, which has a lot of memory and a fast video card, probably because the native h.264 video codec over taxed my system playing back at the fast rate. I did not have this problem when I converted an H.264 video to a .WMV file playing at 64x normal speed with a WLMM converted file!

<edit> WHOA! I rebooted my system because it was sluggish on several tasks I had running. Now after a reboot to clean up my system, that sped-up file plays back at full speed with no pauses whatsoever! <edit>

I took my camera out today after upgrading to continuous recording & remove time release 2. I had a 4gb card in and it only did 31 minutes at 1.54gb and then shut off.

Is there anything I can do to get it to keep recording? Should I change to the stop/save/continue one?