Originally Posted by jhi

Looks like the camera now need to load firmaware from the card

Did you try to load the firmware with the USB connected to the computer like I described in post #462 or did you try it without the USB connected?
I have a feeling that on some cams the firmware only loads properly/complete with the USB connected.

Originally Posted by Tom Frank

FWIW, .MOV and .MP4 are kissin' cousins, so you can usually use either extension and the files will play (do I hear banjo music!? )

Well, I heerd they got deevorced but they're still cusins

(useless post taking up space)

Yabba

Originally Posted by KeithLuneau

Yep, focus is dead on Yabba! Just this morning I tweaked mine again, using the webcam mode this time. I think it's a little better this time. I know it wasn't perfect after my last attempt...

If I can get mine as good as yours is I'll be happy!

Tom, I ordered the 0.67X wide lens a few days ago, it'll be here in a week or two I guess. Do you happen to have a picture of the HD808 with it mounted? I'm just curious about the size. Any chance you could measure the outer diameter of the lens where it sits on the camera? I'm hoping it will fit another little camera I have here too, but it will need to sit down in a recessed area on the front of that one. Maybe you can spare me the anticipation while I wait on the slow boat to get it here...

I don't own one of the wide angle lenses, but if you go over to the "The Mega Key Chain Camera" thread in this forum and do a search there for "wide angle", you should get many hits.

I believe the lens attaches to a magnetic ring that was glued to the camera case, maybe with hot melt glue. The lens is pretty big compared to the camera, but useable. There are some pictures in that other thread.

Originally Posted by deepinside

Did you try to load the firmware with the USB connected to the computer like I described in post #462 or did you try it without the USB connected?
I have a feeling that on some cams the firmware only loads properly/complete with the USB connected.

I don't remember exactly, but I think I first loaded the firmware to the card, then disconnected the camera and turned it off - then on trying to load the firmware first time. I shall have another look at your post #462, hopefully I shall have the camera fully working sometime tomorrow - it's getting late here now. Thanks for staying with me

/Jan

Originally Posted by KeithLuneau

Yep, focus is dead on Yabba! Just this morning I tweaked mine again, using the webcam mode this time. I think it's a little better this time. I know it wasn't perfect after my last attempt...

If I can get mine as good as yours is I'll be happy!

Tom, I ordered the 0.67X wide lens a few days ago, it'll be here in a week or two I guess. Do you happen to have a picture of the HD808 with it mounted? I'm just curious about the size. Any chance you could measure the outer diameter of the lens where it sits on the camera? I'm hoping it will fit another little camera I have here too, but it will need to sit down in a recessed area on the front of that one. Maybe you can spare me the anticipation while I wait on the slow boat to get it here...

I took some pictures of my .67x macro lens. The diameter of the metal ring (glued to the camera) is ab. 13mm (half inch). A metal cap also came with the lens - very useful to protect the camera lens.

On the picture you may also notice the "cone" I made to the camera lens opening hoping to get rid of some of the vignetting - it did not help

/Jan

Awesome! That's just what I needed. It's a bit smaller than I expected really.

What about the diameter of the lens itself, the rear part that fits the magnet. Is it any larger than 13mm?

Here's a link for free BitrateViewer, for anyone interested. It gives the following for the "crossing the bridge" sample

I opened mine up to focus and there is glue holding it from spinning so i cant turn it any sugestions

Originally Posted by RADAR_66

I opened mine up to focus and there is glue holding it from spinning so i cant turn it any sugestions

If you turn it carefully with some pliers (I used needlenose) the glue will give. Just be careful not to put too much power to it in case the glue is something strong. The glue on mine was somewhat flexible.

Doug

Originally Posted by djdavid60

If you turn it carefully with some pliers (I used needlenose) the glue will give. Just be careful not to put too much power to it in case the glue is something strong. The glue on mine was somewhat flexible.

Doug

Doug has the it right. Be gentle and it will break loose.

Originally Posted by RADAR_66

I opened mine up to focus and there is glue holding it from spinning so i cant turn it any sugestions

Also, you might want to try to cut the glue with an exacto knife prior to turning the lense.

Doug

Also, mark the factory location before turning shoul you get astray with your adjusments. I used a fine tip yellow paint pen.

Originally Posted by RADAR_66

I opened mine up to focus and there was glue holding it from spinning so i cant turn it any sugestions

Some lenses turn easier than others! Mine had a small touch of glue on the top AND the bottom side, plus a big gob of hot melt glue on one side to keep the lens holder in place. After marking the initial lens position on the lens barrel and base holder with a small stripe of paint, I carefully dug out the hot melt, being very careful not to short or damage any connections, I still could not budge the lens with needle nose pliers without applying what I felt was excessive force or without the pliers slipping off.

Personally, I would not advocate trying to force the lens to turn with pliers without first carefully picking off all the glue, and on mine that required getting access to the underside of the lens module by taking out two more tiny screws so you can lift the circuit board out of the case. When you do that, I'd advise not touching any of the soldered connections with your bare hands. I bricked two old 808's doing that. I wrapped my circuit board with masking tape to insulate the bare connections before handling... Better safe than sorry.

Whatever you do make SURE you hold the square lens holder base securely when you finally turn the lens barrel so you don't apply any force on the ribbon cable connecting the lens holder to the circuit board. I found my fingers were too big, and the lens barrel too small and too hard to turn without my fingers blocking the camera image while I turned it. I used tweezers to grab and turn the lens barrel so I could turn it and see the image change while holding the camera fixed with my hand.

For reference, turning the lens counter-clockwise when looking from the front the focal point will move closer to the camera, and clockwise moves it further away. I used the webcam display method to focus, but found that the normal 640x480 native web cam video size a bit too small for my eyes to see distant fine detail well enough to get the best focus. So, I used VirtualDub editor, which has a nice video capture function under the "file/capture AVI..." menu. To use this, first connect your camera and toggle it into the webcam mode before booting Vdub. Then select the above menu item, then under the "device" menu, select your camera which should show up as "USB PC camera (direct show)" and you should see the normal 640x480 image on your PC display. If that image is not large enough for your eyes, click the "video/stretch to window" menu selection to enlarge the image to whatever size you can drag your window borders.

I will be finishing my "focus hocus pocus" tomorow... hopefully with better light than we had here today! I will try to get good focus across the entire display from corner to corner. This may mean that both the center and edges are a VERY TINY bit "out of focus" because I don't think the cheap lens can get both areas in their best focus at the same time... we'll see.

I tried some AviDemux filter tweaks on my original HD key cam video test clips to reduce the over-saturated (to my eye) color, increase the brightness a bit, and sharpen the detail slightly.

This not only made the colors look more natural, but also brought out detail in shadow and under-exposed areas, and lessened the camera's center "hot spot" and edge vignetting a bit, an unexpected bonus.

The clips were cropped and combined with one click of a custom (one-line!) AviSynth script icon, which does its magic and outputs the stream into Vdub for final saving.

Here's an abbreviated before (left) and after (right) side-by-side comparison video. For best viewing, click on the video player window title to go to Vimeo, then expand the player there to full screen and toggle "scaling" off in that window to view the video in normal size. The sharpness tweaks are most noticeable if you pause the video and look at the edges of distant trees, etc.

HD Key Camera processing example with AviDemux editor (1 min 14 sec)

<edit> CRAP! Vimeo did not render these in full 1280x720 frame size, so the full screen with scaling off method I mentioned only shows them half size, which makes the changes much less visible. Oh well, if you're interested you can download my original upload within one week of today's date. <edit>

Tom,
Very obvious differences between the 2 before and after enhanced videos.
Which of the 2 you think is closer to natural colour?
I've tried using the free AviDumux to stabilise one of my videos but It didn't turn out very good.
Are you using the premium AviDemux?