Originally Posted by jesolins

It is max 640x480 in webcam mode. It shows up as a USB video device USB\Class_0e& SubClass03
Cheers,
Jim
Quadrocopter and Tricopter Mega Link Index

Excellent... much higher chance of this working in Linux then, even if it doesn't have the high res mode. Thanks!

Hey Guys,

I just built my first Eyepod mount for the HD cams.

Yon can see my build here.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showp...&postcount=156

Full Thread here.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1333287

Here's a couple of pics of the my mount.

Joe

Nice I like it joespeeder good job

Hi Tom,

Glad to see you are still at it and helping all of us videofiles. You helped me allot form the 5 in 1 days ) SO I'm concidering a new cam, is the newer version better, how can I be assured I'm ordering the latest version. ALso will I be imperssed with the new vid (think 5 in 1) Looks real exciteing, thanks for your help, reading as fast as I can )

Steve

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

What you are getting is pretty much the name of the game with this inexpensive camera, but if you look at the latest FlyCamOneHD, it has the same problems, is much bigger, much heavier, and costs $170. Yes, it is also more versatile, but in terms of picture quality, I can't see any difference from our HD key cam. So here's the deal...

The lens is cheap, it has vignetting on the right/left edges and all four corners. Also the focal plane is not flat, so the right/left edges and all four corners, which are much further from the lens axis, have a slightly different focus from the center. If you focus the center perfectly, the edges and corners will be slightly out. If you focus the edges and corners perfectly, the center will be slightly out. A few of the cameras seem to also have the CMOS sensor array not bottomed out flat in the lens module, so it is not perpendicular to the lens axis like it should be, and the focus in not consistently the same across the entire frame for that reason as well. I had one and just exchanged it, but fortunately there seem to be few with that issue.

Also, the cameras CMOS sensor is very sensitive to light level, and it seems to not hold the color saturation and/or white balance the same as light level changes. This can result in very noticeable changes in color as you pan the camera, getting more or less sky in the picture, or more/less sun. And these problems become more noticeable when the light level is low (i.e. cloudy days as compared to bright sunny days), and when the scenery has a lot of white in it... e.g. snow covered scenery). I could be wrong, but I think the color "hunting" is a function of the CMOS sensor chip/controller, not the main video processor chip.

SO it is what it is... a $40 HD camera with some drawbacks that might be expected at that price point.

As an aside, I will be posting my findings shortly with my new replacement camera which came today. We now have what appears to be the first change in a key circuit component with this camera... the CMOS sensor. Is it any better? Too early to tell, but I will be doing some comparison testing. It's possible that others aleady have this version. I will post pictures, but one tip off might be mine did not have the little "QC" sticker on it, and came pretty poorly focused for any distance!

Originally Posted by Mr.frankenjet

Hi Tom,

Glad to see you are still at it and helping all of us videofiles. You helped me allot form the 5 in 1 days ) SO I'm concidering a new cam, is the newer version better, how can I be assured I'm ordering the latest version. ALso will I be imperssed with the new vid (think 5 in 1) Looks real exciteing, thanks for your help, reading as fast as I can )

Steve

Hi Steve,
I just finished re-focusing my new replacement camera. Quite honestly, I cannot see any visible difference in the videos between this newer one with different CMOS sensor compared with my original one. I just uploaded the following video which I shot with a very high contrast scene intentionally, both to test my re-focused camera, and also to see if this newer camera's native video has color that is very over-saturated with too much contrast like my original one (and it does!). All of these cameras have a central "hot spot" and vignetting in the corners. But as the following video shows, these artifacts are made much worse by the high color saturation and high contrast.

The top clip in the video is right off the camera, but rendered at half size during the clip combining. The bottom video is the same clip, but with post processing with the AviDemux editor using one filter to de-saturate the color and decrease the contrast, and another filter to add some sharpening to really bring out hidden detail.

Note how the central hot spot and vignetting is very visibly diminished by the color and contrast tweaks, and how detail in the shadow areas is made visible. The sharpening just makes the entire picture look a lot more crisp. This is best viewed on the Vimeo site in full screen mode with "scaling" toggled off, or download my original upload streamed to play on your local PC in full size and fidelity:

http://vimeo.com/19730789

The post processing was done with the Avidemux editor. I used the "Mplayer eq2" color filter with contrast setting lowered to 90 and saturation setting lowered to 65, and the "Asharp" sharpening filter with its default settings.

Thanks again Tom,

off to ebay )

Hi guys,

I am using wide angle lens from dealextreme and it looks quite good. Camera needs a little tweaking in focus. Quality is not that good as on original files because of video processing. Take a look at my video:

808 HD keychain demo with fisheye lens (1 min 57 sec)

@DaggyMAC great job! I'm searching dealextreme now and I'm wondering wich one is your lens? This one?

ShinG0 - Yes, that's it.

My lens with sensor is pointing little bit down, so this is the reason why I have roundness on the upper edges. I need to reglue lens or attach metal ring little angled.

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

Updated information as of 02/01/2011 in red below
... It has been discovered that the camera CAN charge AND shoot video with any +5V source with a generic USB plug configuration (i.e. +5V on pin #1), BUT you need to start a recording with the camera's internal battery first while disconnected from the USB plug, and THEN plug into the USB. The special car charger plug with non-standard USB plug configuration (i.e. +5V on pin #4) is not essential, although using that plug arrangement will allow the camera to charge and start recording while it is plugged in to the charger.

This method does not work on my #11 HD (sealed with date sticker), received today. I start recording and about 15 seconds later I connect my Motorola wall charger. The red charging light on the camera comes on. After about 5 minutes the red light turns off. After a total time of 20 minutes the yellow light turns on, so I presume the camera changes to stand-by mode. I left the camera running for a total of 140 minutes but only got 20 minutes video (1 file) on my 32GB card. I repeated the test a second time. Same results.
I realize that my Motorola wall charger may use the data pins, but I very much doubt it. Viewed externally, the cable has 2 wires joined together, similar to a 2-wire flat mains cable, just smaller.
Could someone else please confirm that this method does indeed work. I have no luck

Originally Posted by DaggyMAC

Hi guys,

I am using wide angle lens from dealextreme and it looks quite good. Camera needs a little tweaking in focus. Quality is not that good as on original files because of video processing. Take a look at my video:
...

Can the lens be relocated slightly to eliminate the clipping of the upper corners of the video, and still keep the full frame coverage in the bottom two corners?

Video quality seems to be pretty good considereing it's a fisheye!

Originally Posted by Isoprop

This method does not work on my #11 HD (sealed with date sticker), received today. I start recording and about 15 seconds later I connect my Motorola wall charger. The red charging light on the camera comes on. After about 5 minutes the red light turns off. After a total time of 20 minutes the yellow light turns on, so I presume the camera changes to stand-by mode. I left the camera running for a total of 140 minutes but only got 20 minutes video (1 file) on my 32GB card. I repeated the test a second time. Same results.
I realize that my Motorola wall charger may use the data pins, but I very much doubt it. Viewed externally, the cable has 2 wires joined together, similar to a 2-wire flat mains cable, just smaller.
Could someone else please confirm that this method does indeed work. I have no luck

I now have my replacement camera, and can test this. Others have reported the camera will continue to record if the battery power was minimal when the generic cable is connected, but will not recover from the 20 minute stop/save/continue function when it sees the generic charger connected. I have several different generic chargers, so I will test this today and revise my original post accordingly. When I posted that, I did not let the camera run to the 20 minute mark, so did not pick up the discrepancy.

If we get the firmware update soon as promised that will allow CONTINUOUS recording, then there would be no stop/save function and I think the generic charger would work OK in that case if you start the recording before connecting.

Originally Posted by Isoprop

...got 20 minutes video [...] on my 32GB card.

Now this is interesting. Can you confirm this please? You are using a 32 GB MicroSDHC card in the HD cam and it works with it, is it right?

Who is the manufacturer of the card? What class is it?
Have you tried to fill it completely by using the car charger or a modified USB cable? If yes, how many hours could you record and how many files were on the card after that? Which mode were you using?

oo
.l.

I watched a zoomed in video of a Funcub on the thread of the same name. The plane was rock steady in the video and the outside edge of the video frame moved around quite a bit as consequence of the image stabilization. That told me the tightly zoomed image was really bouncing around in raw form but after processing it was stable.

The video editor used was Adobe premiere CS4 with Mercalli stabilization plugin. I want to know if there is anything on the market that will plug into the free ware we use.
Here is the video:

FunCub flight excerpts (4 min 45 sec)