6$ SPY CAM very hackable, helmet/ride cam? ideas?

[icecube57]

Dont use velcro. It attaches to whatever you put it on but its still a loose attachment. It will pick up alot of vibration in your video. Use the 3m Dual Lock which is what I use. Its avaliable at any big box store. Its like velco but 10 times better and it rigidly locks it to whatever it is you snap it to. I have some on my brake lever housing and another piece on the back of the key chain camera. Its very solid and it locks so well that you might actually rip the strip off trying to unsnap it. A little bit goes a long way. Its also non gender. You dont have to have a mating side. They can snap into each other.

 

[HTB_Terry]

After getting one of these cameras, which works pretty good, I tried to find a webcam driver just for the hell of it. I went to the websites mentioned and followed some links on there. Somewhere I picked up several viruses that crashed my computer. It now is out of commission and requires a re-imaging of the hard drive. No telling what info would have been stolen if I had not stopped it. Be forewarned.

 

[Sheriff Jon]

I picked up a couple of these uber cheap Spy Cams to use on my Electric scooter. I ended up making a handelbar mount for it using a Planet Bike QR headlight bracket, a piece of angle aluminum and some velcro. The picture quality is not to die for, and some of the videos can be kind of wavey. But it is not bad for a video camera that costs under $10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YwfF8KxefU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiLoxIReMNw

 

[AussieJester]

Brilliant! I thought i would pick some mounts up from dealextreme myself, very neat setup John nice video to
cant beat the price haha...eagerly awaiting delivery of my two

KiM

 

[icecube57]

Your videos are super wavy. Im speechless. I even did a video where i shook it back and forth and there was slight chopping/tearing but non of that horrible wave action going on.
I think it maybe the velcro. It stuck on the mount but its still able to flop around. Here is a picture of my mount.

 

[docnjoj]

I just took my first video of my life with the little camera velcroed to my helmet. It came out good but aimed a bit too high. I have MS Movie editor but I wonder if there is any way once I edit it to avoid putting it on U-tube. I just want to post it to E-S. I have never done video editing or posting. Is there a way to do what I want. I don't want to publicly advertise the location of the ride.
otherDoc

 

[itchynackers]

How about photobucket.com

 

[docnjoj]

Hey itchynackers
Is it private and not viewable by the whole world?
otherDoc

 

[TylerDurden]

Tough call Doc... hard to avoid location-telling landmarks. Particularly since you have previously posted your general location. Any viewable video could be re-uploaded to a public server.

 

[icecube57]

Here is a close up on how I used those 3m strips I posted earlier. Its like velcro without the fuzz. It locks/snaps together. It doesnt allow for the vibration to ruin the video. Velco is floppy this is has very little wiggle.

 

[thedarlington]

damm that video looks like ur lens is made out of jello dude, what mount from dx is that? so the more rigid 3m thing shoots better video? really?? i would of thought the softer velcro kinda pads up all the bumps, how easy is it to take it off since its got such a good hold? i think we definitely should look for some cell phone wide angle lens adapters, i think meritline was selling some of those cheap a while ago but ill check the page just to see if its already been tried b4

 

[docnjoj]

Tough call Doc... hard to avoid location-telling landmarks. Particularly since you have previously posted your general location. Any viewable video could be re-uploaded to a public server.

Thanks TD
I have a bit of video of the public roads that we use so as soon as I figure out how to upload I'll give it a try.
otherDoc

 

[thedarlington]

this seems to be the wide angle lens used for this cam, im gonna try ordering it since its from china while i look for any videos that use it

http://cgi.ebay.com/Jelly-Lens-Fish-Eye-Wide-Angle-Cell-Phone-Camera-/260656789840?pt=Camera_Filters&hash=item3cb05af950#ht_3026wt_1139

 

[thedarlington]

check this out spycam inside tictac case with wide lens already on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FceY7JgENRg&feature=related

heres the difference before and after with wide angle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWWrHm0mJSg&feature=related

 

[AussieJester]

Just bought me a couple of them 15 bucks delivered to OZ ... Cheaper than one Turnigy video camera from HK
and from the videos posted, better performers.

KiM

I received my #3 cameras few days ago, initially i thought one had broken as after a few uses the the LED light on one of the cameras stayed on permanently, then Thud informed me of the reset button which fixed the issue LoL not before i emailed the seller telling him, he offered to replace it free of charge i accepted so now i have 3 of them LoL... Not bad for a $1.96 each i must say! The audio is excellent and out in the daylight the picture is pretty good, will definitely do for some ride day videos!

KiM

 

[thedarlington]

kim what seller did u buy from? today i was messing around with it and itll turn on but the button to take pics / vid doesnt seem to do anything, no flashing led nothing, tryin to figure out how to troubleshoot, reset button does nothing http://www.megarc.com/images/photos/car-keys-808-1.jpg

 

[AussieJester]

kim what seller did u buy from? today i was messing around with it and itll turn on but the button to take pics / vid doesnt seem to do anything, no flashing led nothing, tryin to figure out how to troubleshoot, reset button does nothing http://www.megarc.com/images/photos/car-keys-808-1.jpg

The seller amberwolf linked to on first page.

If you gotto the hack site also linked in OP it has a list of problems and possible fixes. You may need to disassemble cut the battery wire and reconnect, this is the only way to completely cut power apparently :-S

KiM

 

[Rin]

I just wanted to thank everyone who has posted on this topic. I ordered a couple of these keychain cameras and actually they came within about 10 days of ordering them from Linjiechong a Hong Kong supplier who advertised version #3.

A special thanks to Icecube for the 3M product information. It really is a much more solid hold than velcro.

I have posted a youtube video, however, actually when the video is downloaded on the computer from the camera it is actually a much clearer, sharper video than what winds up on youtube. I don't know if my codec conversion isn't good or what. Anyway, thanks again for all the good info.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg7kQgUC6gw

 

[AussieJester]

Nice job rin...and welcome to the forum

YouTube messess up video all the stuff i shoot looks great on the pc soon as it hits
youtube it turns to poo :-S

Yours is definitely the #3 camera, yellow time/date stamp lower right corner of frame

KiM

 

[biohazardman]

I got a couple of the, looks like, #3 units. Charged one up and went and got a 2gb Micro SD for it plugged it into the camera and, well nothing happened but a few seconds later its was warm then I thought overly warm so pulled the card. Once I had the SD card out I noticed it was a bit toasted like melted. So I wasted ten bucks on the card and seven, including shipping on the camera. I am a bit uncomfortable trying it again but do have another camera. Which cards are you guys using the plain old MicroSD or the SDHC ?

 

[AussieJester]

I used an old scan disk card i had in an even older mobile phone that no longer worked...the card must be pushed in correctly
its easy to slot it in on an angle and or upside down...did it myself...twice LoL...

KiM

 

[biohazardman]

Well I looked through the slot and figured it should go in a certain way. Took me a bit to figure out I had to stuff it in a bit farther with my fingernail to get it to lock in place which it did. Probly would not have burned up if I had not made good contact. Sounds like the same card I bought new. Just the stock old style Sandisk MicroSD

 

[icecube57]

I paid 30 for mine from a US vendor that was suggested on the hack site. I ordered friday. I had it monday. He is in the USA in SC i think. He shipped mine with a Sandisk 4gb class 4 sdhc card. I know you may think I got ripped but they guy spent the time and paired the stuff together with the best working cards so that there is no video issues. Im nothing but impressed with the daytime video... It gets warm while charging but it only needs to be plugged in like 2 hours max.

 

[thedarlington]

its noted the camera WILL smoke if you hold the reset and power buttons on at the same time, it doesnt seem like u did anything wrong, maybe ask the seller to replace? sd does not matter at all, only thing that counts is if its fast enough to accept a fast writting speed for recording, itll still work otherwise just skip frames everynow and then but defintely not make it blow up, thanks for the advice but same problem and when i try buttons while charging it just blinks on n off for 2 seconds each, the other one doesnt do that so i dont know whats going on

 

[thedarlington]

ok i solved the problem by mounting it on gparted and reformatting, i would erase my SD card, yet, in gparted it still showed up as 2.3gb used wtf? now the camera acts as it should, but when i take vids / pics, nothing is saved, my problem seems to be SD related, anybody know about these things? i simply reformatted as a fat32 even left the preceeding 4mb of space as originally it had, i dont understand ive never had an issue with an SD