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Good, cheap helmet cam: MD80

Old 08-07-09, 09:46 AM
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Good, cheap helmet cam: MD80

I recently received an MD80 video recorder, purchased from eBay for $59 shipped. Search for "smallest video" to find them. BTW at this price they ship from Hong Kong so it takes about 2 weeks to get one. Maybe even a bit longer. Be patient.

Specs:
* 640x480 30fps
* records in Motion-JPEG video, 24K mono PCM audio, about 2GB per hour
* saves to micro-SD, manual says up to 16GB supported, I'm using an 8GB in mine now.
* internal rechargable 2 hour LiIon battery
* ships with clip holder, magnetic ball socket holder, a couple of strips of velcro, a 2GB microSD card, a wall charger (with USB socket), and two USB cables (one is supposedly for charging)

Here's the item, it's 2 1/4" long, 7/8" wide, 3/4" deep.


I bought it primarily to attach to kites, balloons, rockets, etc for aerial shots, but figured I'd try it on the helmet too since some people here might be interested.

Here's a sample from this morning, uploaded to YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR6P7O9Cs0I

The timestamp is not mandatory - you can choose whether to embed that in the video or not, though it's not simple - you set the time by editing a text file, dragging it into the root of the thing's filesystem while it's plugged in, then rebooting the camera. If you put a Y at the end of the time, it embeds the time, if N then it doesn't.

At 640x480, it's almost but not quite good enough to pick out license plates. Here's a sample still:
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Old 08-07-09, 10:18 AM
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Pics of how it's attached to helmet?

That is a klunky way to change settings. I suppose the camera doesn't have a full display / set of controls?
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Old 08-07-09, 10:42 AM
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The ball joint that came with it might work on some helmets, but on mine I couldn't get the thing pointing exactly straight, so I just bent a small piece of metal, put velcro on the helmet side, some loop velcro on the camera side just to give its little clip something to grasp, and presto.

It has a master power switch, a VOX switch for voice-operated recording (which I haven't toyed with), and one button on top. You turn on the power, then hold the top button for a couple of seconds, it comes on. You press it, it starts recording, you press it again, it stops. That's all of the controls.

Yes, it's a clunky way to change the time, but with no display, what's the alternative? I suppose you could write an app to do it, but honestly I kind of like the text file thing better, it's going to work on ANY computer. And if someone wanted to write an app to just take the current time and write it to a text file on the thing's filesystem, it would take about 5 minutes to do.

And honestly, personally I don't think I usually want the time on there anyway, I just did it for fun for this trial.
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Old 08-07-09, 10:56 AM
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BTW, I just took it apart, and it's built like a tank. The covers are cast aluminum and it looks solid as heck inside.
The very first thing I did with it this morning was to accidentally knock it off of the helmet mount, so it fell 6 feet onto the pavement. Didn't bother it at all.
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Old 08-07-09, 11:26 AM
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Originally Posted by ItsJustMe
BTW, I just took it apart, and it's built like a tank. The covers are cast aluminum and it looks solid as heck inside.
The very first thing I did with it this morning was to accidentally knock it off of the helmet mount, so it fell 6 feet onto the pavement. Didn't bother it at all.
Nice vid. I especially liked the burp towards the end...made me laugh out loud. One thing you might want to try is taking a small piece of foam rubber and placing it over the microphone. It may help w/t wind noise. Otherwise, amazing resolution for 60.00. Thanks for sharing. What's the max running time? My commute's over an hour. Would I be able to record the whole ride? You can PM me w/t rs if you want.

The amount of traffic you contend with makes me appreciate my own rural commute. When you turned the corner and I saw the dumptruck facing you in the right lane it was like...Uh-oh.
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Old 08-07-09, 12:50 PM
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Heh, hadn't noticed the burp. I'm sure I make all manner of rude noises when I'm commuting; isn't it one of the simple pleasures of being alone, being able to burp and fart whenever you like with never a thought?

Actually, 80% of my commute is rural. That video starts just as I start to hit traffic. I used it as a sample because it was interesting and gave a good idea of what traffic would look like in it, which is what many people want.

That truck has been there a lot in the last week, that whole section of town including the bridge and a dam that used to be under the bridge has been completely torn up and replaced in the last 2 years, and they're finishing the back roads now. They're totally rebuilding the slope on the side of the river since the manmade wetlands that were there for 100) years are mostly gone now (dam torn out, it hasn't been used for the mill that was originally there for about 90 years).

After that section, I'm on 30 to 50 MPH road with an acceptable (2 foot) shoulder and decently wide lanes for 3 miles and then I'm at work.

I have thought about the foam rubber, I may try that.

The battery is supposedly good for 2 hours. However, I suspect that it may stop after about an hour since the memory card is formatted FAT32, and you can't have a file > 2 GB in FAT32 so either it'll have to stop when it gets to 2GB or start a new file.

My commute this morning was 38 minutes, but I didn't post the whole thing because I don't want to be in the running for world's most boring video.

It would be fairly trivial to extend the battery time; a USB cable to some batteries should do it. Four NiMH AA cells would give about 5v nominal, probably close enough, and are easily light enough to velcro to a helmet.
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Old 08-07-09, 02:40 PM
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Originally Posted by ItsJustMe
The battery is supposedly good for 2 hours. However, I suspect that it may stop after about an hour since the memory card is formatted FAT32, and you can't have a file > 2 GB in FAT32 so either it'll have to stop when it gets to 2GB or start a new file.
I thought the limit is 4GB for FAT32?

As for the txt file, yeah, I wouldn't mind using that system, but it is klunky.
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Old 08-07-09, 02:45 PM
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Originally Posted by oboeguy
I thought the limit is 4GB for FAT32?
You're right, I misremembered. I left the camera running after I got done with my 38 minute ride just now, I'll see whether it hits the 4gb limit or the battery dies first. It's been running for 1:30 or so right now.
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Old 08-07-09, 05:58 PM
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Interesting video.

One point (an observation only, not criticism): I noticed that when you moved out to go past the truck, just after your right turn, you didn't appear to glance back. Was this because you knew, from your right filter immediately before the turn, that there were no vehicles behind you?
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Old 08-07-09, 08:45 PM
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Originally Posted by atbman
Interesting video.

One point (an observation only, not criticism): I noticed that when you moved out to go past the truck, just after your right turn, you didn't appear to glance back. Was this because you knew, from your right filter immediately before the turn, that there were no vehicles behind you?
I don't generally glance back. I have a mirror and it works quite well for me, I can see better in the mirror than with a shoulder check, since I can't see directly behind me by turning my head; I can't turn my head enough so that my glasses are in play, and I can't see well enough without my glasses to know if there's anything smaller than a medium sized building heading towards me. Shoulder checks are therefore worse than useless, but my mirror works quite well for me and I'm always 100% aware of every vehicle around me.
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Old 08-07-09, 08:45 PM
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Looked very familiar, then I saw you were from Michigan....

DEXTER******************************
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Old 08-07-09, 11:57 PM
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Originally Posted by ItsJustMe
Heh, hadn't noticed the burp...isn't it one of the simple pleasures of being alone, being able to burp and fart whenever you like with never a thought?
Exactly! That's what made me laugh out loud. My wife calls me the 'master of methane' and 'burpmaster Bill' when we ride together. She never even spits..what's up w/that?
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Old 08-08-09, 05:55 AM
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not bad. though I wonder if my playback was typical? not very fluid images on my system. I don't have that problem with other video's and maybe my connection was just bad this morning? noticed as you passed some signs that depth of field as the signs came into and out of focus. you probably could catch those license plates if you figured out how far away that focus spot is and caught the tags in the focus field. that would be on my wish list. I enjoy the scenery but I'd like to ID the idiots that are aggressive drivers and report them. I'm so bad?

which side of helmet was camera on or was it on front? that's not much of a shoulder to work with at the start of the video?
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Old 08-08-09, 10:07 AM
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Originally Posted by bikegeek57
you probably could catch those license plates if you figured out how far away that focus spot is and caught the tags in the focus field. that would be on my wish list. I enjoy the scenery but I'd like to ID the idiots that are aggressive drivers and report them. I'm so bad?

which side of helmet was camera on or was it on front? that's not much of a shoulder to work with at the start of the video?
If you were coherent enough during an incident, you could read the plate number out loud, the mic would pick it up. The camera was just left of center on the front of my helmet (vent in the exact center, a Bell Metro). It would probably help if you started practicing that in general. I do occasionally read plate numbers of cars passing me, just so I'm sure I can do it. If you started doing it whenever a car did something to raise your adrenaline, you might have a good chance of doing it in case of an actual incident.

That's actually way more shoulder than most of my ride has. Most of my ride is rural and the beginning of the video is the last quarter mile of 4 miles of that road; before that is 4 miles of gravel with bad washboarding. I don't think there's shoulder on much of any of the road in Michigan of that type. But there's not much traffic either. White line, 2 inches and then gravel. Luckily the higher-traffic road between town and the expressway, which is the last 1.5 miles of my route, does have a 2 foot shoulder.
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Old 08-08-09, 03:01 PM
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Originally Posted by ItsJustMe
If you were coherent enough during an incident, you could read the plate number out loud, the mic would pick it up. The camera was just left of center on the front of my helmet (vent in the exact center, a Bell Metro). It would probably help if you started practicing that in general. I do occasionally read plate numbers of cars passing me, just so I'm sure I can do it. If you started doing it whenever a car did something to raise your adrenaline, you might have a good chance of doing it in case of an actual incident.
ya know I have really got to get my prescription sunglasses done. vision is 20/20 but have astigmatism so things are fuzzy around the edges.
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Old 08-09-09, 03:29 PM
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That's awesome! The pics of the camera itself make it look tiny and that clip just might fit into an old tail light bracket I've got laying around.

edit: Just bought one of'n da 'bay. Used with an 8gb card for 39 bucks. Free shipping too!! Thanks for the review!
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Old 08-11-09, 03:02 PM
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Thinking about getting one of these. How are your cams holding up so far? Seems pretty cheap and I wonder if it might be better to just spring for the Oregon Scientific (2 1/2 times the price though...) if it means build quality/mounting options are better.
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Old 08-11-09, 03:28 PM
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Originally Posted by oboeguy
I thought the limit is 4GB for FAT32?

As for the txt file, yeah, I wouldn't mind using that system, but it is klunky.
I think the 4GB limitation is for FAT, not for FAT32. Can't remember what the limitation is for FAT32 off the top of my head.
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Old 08-11-09, 03:56 PM
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Originally Posted by bikegeek57
<snip>... you probably could catch those license plates if you figured out how far away that focus spot is and caught the tags in the focus field
Actually, if it comes to that, there is resolution enhancing software available that will allow that license plate to be read, even with some pretty crummy focus on your camera. Look up "super resolution" on the interweb...
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Old 08-11-09, 07:06 PM
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I wish I would have had one of those today. I saw a cat run across the road into some bushes and then make a 90 degree turn and catch a bunny. The bunny cartwheeled a couple of times and then made this high pitched squeak. I didn't know they made noise.
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Old 08-12-09, 03:34 PM
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Originally Posted by jbarham
I think the 4GB limitation is for FAT, not for FAT32. Can't remember what the limitation is for FAT32 off the top of my head.
Nope, the FAT limit for a VOLUME is 2TB, FAT32 goes to 8TB. The problem here is the PER FILE limit which is 4GB on FAT32.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat32#FAT32
"The maximum possible size for a file on a FAT32 volume is 4 GB minus 1 byte (232−1 bytes)."

However, the camera seems to start new files occasionally, though I can't figure out what it uses to determine when to do this. I let it run for 2 hours a couple of days ago, and it created files of varying sizes, the biggest a bit over 2GB.

I bet it just shoots a given number of seconds per file (I've deleted the files so I can't check). The Motion JPEG codec would result in different file sizes since the first file was during the ride, and the rest were just the camera clipped to a drink glass pointing at a bookshelf in my room.
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Old 08-12-09, 03:36 PM
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Originally Posted by Squeazel
Actually, if it comes to that, there is resolution enhancing software available that will allow that license plate to be read, even with some pretty crummy focus on your camera. Look up "super resolution" on the interweb...
I pulled it into photoshop and tried every filter I could find. If you had specialty software made for recognizing characters on plates, you might be able to do it. The sharpening helped a bit but it's still nothing I'd try to make hold up in court.

Specialty software may also be able to combine multiple frames as the plate went past and increase virtual resolution that way, maybe that's how it works.
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Old 08-12-09, 06:28 PM
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Originally Posted by ItsJustMe
I pulled it into photoshop and tried every filter I could find. If you had specialty software made for recognizing characters on plates, you might be able to do it. The sharpening helped a bit but it's still nothing I'd try to make hold up in court.

Specialty software may also be able to combine multiple frames as the plate went past and increase virtual resolution that way, maybe that's how it works.
Thats pretty much exactly how it works. In a grossly simplified way.
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