"Keychain" bike camera observations

grandpaul

grandpaul

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For what it's worth, once you get past the Chinese translated into English by French-born Mexicans, they are really unbelievable values.

- I got TWO of them to my doorstep for $15. The 4GB memory chips cost me $16 each at WalMart. (+/- $15.50 for camera + 4GB chip)

- The tiny LED is hardly visible in the sunlight, you have to cup your hand over it or you'll miss the "signals"

- Duct tape holds 'em on fine for 20 minutes in the hot sun and at ton-topping speeds

- a 20 minute ride uses a bit over 1.5 GB (18:30 = 1.43GB, 19:12 = 1.59GB). So, 2GB card = +/- 24 min., 4GB card = +/- 48 min., 8GB card = +/- 96 min. (1-1/2 hrs.), 16GB card = 192 min. (3 hrs!)

- The units have sound/noise level limit circuitry that lets you hear a nice exhaust note up to a certain level, then it's muffled above that, but still audible

- Amazingly, not a lot of wind noise.

- You get no real sensation of actual speeds. 45 looks like 20, 60 looks like 30, 110 looks like 45 or 50. Crazy.

Altogether, very nice!
 
It is amazing how far technology has come from literally no computers when I was young. I much prefer the way it was when people had a little bit of privacy and life was much less complicated. This technology, though cheap and fun for silly things like making video of rides, has actually made the world an open book for invasion of privacy and certainly will lead to a perfectly compliant law abiding society through utube exploitation............Oooops, got a bit off topic there.
 
Sorta like guns being dangerous.

The guns aren't dangerous; it's the idiots that get thier hands on them, or leave them where kids can get to 'em, that are dangerous.
 
No, I don't feel guns are dangerous and own several myself. The video camera's, camera phones and all the high tech gadgets that can be concealed to exploit personal privacy is what bothers me and ya to an extent put into the wrong hands sort of thing, but we make all of the technology readily available to anyone and everyone which isn't like the gun analogy.
 
i'm impressed by the clarity of the cheap camera. I really like the helmet mount for many reasons. Original plan was normal ride video and some Hey Watch This Stuff.
But fate has changed my emphasis to recording the close up splattering of paintballs off deer dog goat and turkey hides. The action happens pretty fast so don't think hacking camera to trigger record from pause would work fast enough so like the digit recording whole ride and then just pluck out the juicy parts. Too often it'd catch the cray views of me going down for the count'

I also want to try attaching the camera to view various bike component under load.
Swing arm spindle, fork and front iso aciton, chain and belt and clutch and tires and shocks. With ruins most real time audio so thinking to just hang a mike close to the exhaust exit for best fidelity of engine working.
 
What a mess!

Youtube needed the video limited to 15 minutes, that took well over an hour to do after dowloading a free editor software.

Then, it had to be converted to reduce the file size, another hour.

Upload failed after over an hour, restarted, then took 2-1/2 hours to fully upload.

My video career is destined to be extremely SHORT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSrmSGQ2pds
 
2.5 years in the making according to your time stamp. Really not bad quality for a cheap camera. I liked the hopped up lexus and the million stop signs you had to stop for at the end and alas you live in a gated community..........
 
The gates are always open in our section of the gated community, there are no gate operator apparatus installed (yet).
 
Another thing, the cameras apparently default to 29:59 (30 minutes) max video clip length. However, a subsequent video clip is automatically created, runs 'till the chip fills up, then automatically saves. Not bad.

Instructions only mention how to set the date by uploading a text file with the info on it. There are no other instructions such as setting video quality, video clip length, or file format.

Also unknown if using different size memory chip will result in different length max video clip length.

My biggest disappointments are how time consuming and convoluted it is to do a simple clip length edit (chop off start and end segments to get under youtube 15 min. max length), length of time to convert file type to get a smaller file size, and how ridiculously long it takes to upload the finished file to youtube.
 
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