Super Cub spycam

[killioughtta]

Man, I spent hours and hours on that last week! It is impossible to remove it by editing the TAG.txt file. It seems everyone that gets it removed either crops the video, like dill said, or uses some kind of masking software that blurrs out and arround the date like this guy:


www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw0Bl4bIvGk

[badlands]

These guys have managed to remove the timestamps successfully on their gumpack camera which is very similar to our spycam.

but...it involves removing the memory chip, reprograming it with a hacked firmware & then re-solder the chip back in.

I dont think it will be long b4 they have a user friendly method to remove the timestamps via a new firmware.

www.pluc.fr/2010/02/tear-down-and-hacking-around-gumpack-camera/

[Dillzio]

Come to think of it, it's probably a marketing ploy.

First they only had the crappy low res cameras with the datestamp that doubled up on every frame, so the 25fps was actually only 13fps with a lot of wasted memory. Then they made a 15fps version with removable datestamp, but it had bad motion blur just like it's predecessor.

The next two cameras they made were significant improvements, but neither of them had the removable datestamp. The next camera model did have the removable datestamp and higher resolution, but it has a lot of motion blur. The link reviewing them was pasted earlier in this thread, but here it is again: www.chucklohr.com/808/

It seems that they keep bringing out another camera every year for about $30, and deliberately leaving features out of their new releases so that they can save them for the release of their next "model".

I recon they're just releasing different models in baby steps to make as much profit as possible. How many thousands of these cameras do you think they sell every year? I'm actually not worried about it, I wanted my camera positioned so that you could just barely see the prop in frame, so you could see forward as much as possible. My datestamp appears in the dead space where the prop is anyway, so it's really no great loss to me.

[jbess]

Got mine today (finally!), and charged it for about 15 mins, then was too anxious to see how the video quality was. I took several videos, and for the first 10 seconds, there is a 1 second pause on the video every 3-4 seconds. After that, it clears up. Anyone have anything similar happen? Some videos it happens, others it doesn't. Maybe it's the cheap 4GB card it comes with?

Also, could someone post or point me to some decent directions on the tag.txt file? The Chinglish is awful on the directions.

EDIT: I figured out the TAG.txt file. Nevermind.

[killioughtta]

Feb 23, 2010 3:05:36 GMT 1 jbess said:

I took several videos, and for the first 10 seconds, there is a 1 second pause on the video every 3-4 seconds. After that, it clears up. Anyone have anything similar happen? Some videos it happens, others it doesn't. Maybe it's the cheap 4GB card it comes with?

It may be the card. Many people report lagging of the video when using cheap cards. I use a SanDisk and it's pretty fast; I can even play the video files straight from the card.

[Dillzio]

You definitely want to make sure you have a good memory card, the bitrate the video is recorded in is pretty high so you'll need a memory card that can keep up. Get either a sandisk or kingston brand one, but beware there are lots of fake sandisk cards out there, so try to pick one marked as "genuine". If the price is too good to be true you can bet it's fake. Ebay is definitely the cheapest place to buy them from.

[jbess]

Silly me, I assumed it was a cheap card since the price was cheap for the camera. I looked this morning, It IS a SanDisk. I let it charge overnight, and took a 48 second video. It froze video at 2 sec, then again at 4 sec, and that's it. If that's all, I can deal with it.

[ginginho]

Feb 23, 2010 13:31:07 GMT 1 jbess said:

Silly me, I assumed it was a cheap card since the price was cheap for the camera. I looked this morning, It IS a SanDisk. I let it charge overnight, and took a 48 second video. It froze video at 2 sec, then again at 4 sec, and that's it. If that's all, I can deal with it.

Are you reading directly from the card? If so you may get it in chunks (as described) as access to the file may be pretty slow via USB.

Copy the file to your hard drive then watch it again, you may find it is smooth then.

[jbess]

Feb 23, 2010 13:54:53 GMT 1 ginginho said:

Are you reading directly from the card? If so you may get it in chunks (as described) as access to the file may be pretty slow via USB.

Copy the file to your hard drive then watch it again, you may find it is smooth then.

I was watching from my HD. I know many of these devices don't have the speed to read data fast enough for video play, so I copied it to my HD, then watched them.

[jbess]

Took the camera on a flight today. Not very long, as it was windy, and I had some issues controlling the SC. I took one flight with the camera under the wing where the wing struts connect. I took another with the camera on the side of the fuselage behind the wing, point down. Both videos had major waves. The wing mount video was worse. I am using velcro to attach the camera. The video was only wavy when the engine was throttled up. On glides it smoothed out.

Any suggestions on how to fix it? Get a better prop and balance it maybe?

[Dillzio]

I mounted my camera IN the foam fuselage, and by doing that I managed to eliminate all the vibrations:
supercubclub.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=gotopost&board=cameras&thread=2576&post=17482

[greedyg76]

Dilz - great job on eliminating the vibrations with this camera. I have been trying different ways to mount the cam for weeks with bad results. Then I came across this thread, never thought about cutting a hole in the fuse. Thanks for being the guinea pig! I have also subscribed to your vids on youtube so keep the flight vids coming... I will be posting mine there soon
-Greg

[N4768Z]

Apr 27, 2010 21:56:13 GMT 1 greedyg76 said:

Dilz - great job on eliminating the vibrations with this camera. I have been trying different ways to mount the cam for weeks with bad results. Then I came across this thread, never thought about cutting a hole in the fuse. Thanks for being the guinea pig! I have also subscribed to your vids on youtube so keep the flight vids coming... I will be posting mine there soon
-Greg

Hold up before you go cutting holes in your fuselage! If that's where you want to mount it, great, but you don't have to. I'm not sure how you are mounting your current cam. I have tried all possible positions, believe me. As far as my findings go: It has no bearing on where you mount the cameras but how. Wherever you place it, make sure that it does not vibrate or move at all. Even if the plane is calm, the wind from the propeller will make it vibrate if the camera isn't mounted snuggly.

I have a mini spy cam as well. I always ended up with wobble until I added an extra piece of tape and ensured that there was no movement at all. Now, no video waves, wobble etc. I don't use loose Velcro either. I use a tape by 3m called dual lock. It’s sold in the same section as the Velcro. It locks rather than hooks and I can hold the entire plane by the camera. Here’s a pic of the stuff. I lock the camera to the plane, then add tape to hold the camera still. This gives you more placement options for trying out different positions.

www.roc-noc.com/images/P/DualLock_cut.jpg

Let me know if you have questions.

[Dillzio]

there's a good chance the vibrations could be caused by an unbalanced prop. Check out this video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=COiEgC73MFw

[Dillzio]

I just bought one of the keychain cameras off of ebay for 10 bucks US, they're dirty cheap so there's really no reason not to get one. When I get it, I can compare the video quality of the keychain DV camera and my mini sports DV camera and post the footage so you can see for yourselves. I'll be suprised if there's any noticeable difference