Stutopia Posted April 24, 2014 Share Posted April 24, 2014 (edited) I picked up one of these little cameras for a road trip in the summer and some moderate track fun. I may install it as a full on dash cam if it proves to be nice and reliable. This is my first small video camera so i thought I'd post up a few thoughts on it and also a little bit of sample footage from my first test run. Straightforward purchase from fleabay, it's take about a fortnight to arrive, no drama. £60. http://www.ebay.co.u...ME:L:OU:GB:3160 It seems to be a contender at the mobius end of the market and I think it looks quite smart, with it's metallic look plastics and compact size. It's certainly not an eyesore when resting on your dash and not much bigger than a Zed key. It comes in a handy little box you can just about get everything back into if you fancy just stashing it away in the cubby if you don't use it all the time. I just, temporarily, sat it in between the oil pressure and voltmeter pods with some extremely weak double sided to keep it in place and not mark the pods. Sat there quite merrily without moving around. It'll need a better location for more serious use though as you can see from the test footage in the first youtube video of my test footage. In terms of setup and ease of use. It came with firmware pre-installed and a proprietary usb cable in the box and an AV lead - note it is not just a micro USB connector so, you'll need to go back to Innovv for a replacement/spare USB cable. I popped a Class 10, 32 GB, micro SD card in and performed a firmware update before I used it. There's good technical detail and some how to vids here: http://www.innovv.co...cification/ccn9 Couldn't have been easier to do the FW update (with the assistance of the videos) and FW was updated in about 10 minutes flat, including download time, malware scan, unzip, etc etc. Like any firmware update you do need your Captain Brave Pants on the first time as you fear you might brick it, but it was dead easy. As well as firmware, you can also download a little settings tool (which seems to be windows only, but ran fine on my iMac via VMWare). You can set it up dash cam style, e.g. auto record on power on, no audio, time and date stamp (which is a bit massive!) looping recording etc etc, you can also mess around with the exposure, light balance and saturation if the defaults aren't to your liking. It does also take photos (up to 3M) but I can't think of a reason you wouldn't just use your phone instead. It records in one of two resolutions and frame rates, 1920x1080 30fps and 1280x720 60fps, so far I've only used the first one. There's no on-board display, so you config it on your PC and have to do a bit of trial and error to get the framing correct, but it has such a wide field of vision you're unlikely to miss entirely whatever it is you're trying to capture. It's not got GPS or any speed monitoring stuff, so it won't grass you up for doing a few mph over the limit. It does have a G-sensor, so you could use it in parking mode and in theory it should fire up when an impact is detected (not tried this yet), it has three settings for impact sensitivity (small knock, light bang, nuclear holocaust). Last but not least, it has a cool trick that it can tell if it is upside down (handy for roof or windscreen mounting) and it flips the image the right way up for you. I've not tried this out yet. It can record in a one great big file (like a home movie) or auto store them in 1, 3, 5, 10, 30 minute long separate files which is good for getting the section you want off the camera without having to edit down loads of minutes of un-needed footage. It alleges to have a high dynamic range, which in theory gives decent low light performance, but I've yet to do a night run. I'll post up some footage when I do. Some simple, non-spirited footage below in town and on the motorway. There's a bit of motion blur and fast moving objects might require a pause and bit off effort to see detail, but I think it's more than adequate for my needs and if the reliability is strong I will probably configure it as a dash cam in the end All in all, it seems decent and delivers pretty well for £60 (not including memory card) you might want to splash out on the Innovv website for a mount for dash or windscreen or bike or helmet, but happily they don't take your pants down on price. Not sure I'd go for one of their memory cards though if you can find a known genuine one for similar money, no point in skimping on the recording media IMHO. http://www.innovv.co...shop--cart/cg1f Hopefully I'll get some footage from Croft the weekend after next that I can share, once I figure out the best place and way to mount it for an unrestricted view and minimal shake. If I have one gripe about it (well there has to be one) the sound recording is a bit pony. It seems to try and compensate for background noise (which in the Zed can be quite loud), so it adjusts the levels, most noticeably the treble. You can spot this in clip 1 below as the tunes on my stereo playing in the car sound flat. Not a big deal as a dash cam, but I'm curious to see how it performs as a regular video camera, from an audio capture perspective. This is the RAW 1080p video footage, not sure if youtube compress it though, but it gives a good idea. Obviously the positioning is rubs, so you get a lot of dash, but it was my first try! This is the same footage but cropped a bit, image stabilised and with a new soundtrack. You can see that even with fairly heavy cropping, the image quality stands up well I think. Edited April 24, 2014 by SuperStu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted April 25, 2014 Author Share Posted April 25, 2014 A short night run, seems to cope nicely with low light. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cs2000 Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Looks pretty good. My night-time footage is pretty much useless so i may look at upgrading to one of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spatt Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 Great write up Stu.. Does the cam have a threaded hole for using it with a tripod or a suction mount? (Like the ones you find in most point and shoot cams and our dslrs) Also what is the max video hrs and battery life like, and is the battery replacable. Hope to see you soon Matt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted April 25, 2014 Author Share Posted April 25, 2014 (edited) Looks pretty good. My night-time footage is pretty much useless so i may look at upgrading to one of these. Seems solid on first use. Where do you mount yours? All my shots are 40% dash plastic Great write up Stu.. Does the cam have a threaded hole for using it with a tripod or a suction mount? (Like the ones you find in most point and shoot cams and our dslrs) Also what is the max video hrs and battery life like, and is the battery replacable. Hope to see you soon Matt The camera has no threaded hole, but mine came with a plastic clip that it sits inside, which does have the standard "tripod style" threaded hole. Not sure about battery life, I bet you could "mod" it with a new battery, but there's no easy disassembly process that I can see. There's certainly no battery you can just clip on and off. I ran it for a couple of hours yesterday with no issue. Edited April 25, 2014 by SuperStu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 I just bought a RoadHawk HD for the GTR for a roadtrip in May and ASDA charity day in August. Forward facing camera and rear facing (this one will be in the front aimed at the passenger ), WIFI connection to phone/tablet and quality is rather good from tests... will post some videos of the raodtrip +-15 GTRs driving through Europe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted April 25, 2014 Author Share Posted April 25, 2014 I just bought a RoadHawk HD for the GTR for a roadtrip in May and ASDA charity day in August. Forward facing camera and rear facing (this one will be in the front aimed at the passenger ), WIFI connection to phone/tablet and quality is rather good from tests... will post some videos of the raodtrip +-15 GTRs driving through Europe. Sounds good. How much did that install come in at? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spatt Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 To throw another one into the mix My brother has a "drift HD" cost around £170 from Amazon the quality is near as good as a GoPro the battery isn't great but its replacable (And they are cheap to buy) It has an LCD (to help from shots) The lense rotates 360 so no matter where the camera is facing you can always get a good shot set up On the down side its a little heavy but for motorcyclist its a lot better than having a massive go pro on your head. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted April 25, 2014 Share Posted April 25, 2014 I just bought a RoadHawk HD for the GTR for a roadtrip in May and ASDA charity day in August. Forward facing camera and rear facing (this one will be in the front aimed at the passenger ), WIFI connection to phone/tablet and quality is rather good from tests... will post some videos of the raodtrip +-15 GTRs driving through Europe. Sounds good. How much did that install come in at? £270 or so, but still need Sly to hide all the wires Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wain_alan Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 Looks good, cheers for the reivew, looks like I might have to get one. Just got my 350z in February. Im also from Blackpool so will probably drive past you at some point. Where have you been taking your car for a service? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted May 9, 2014 Author Share Posted May 9, 2014 Looks good, cheers for the reivew, looks like I might have to get one. Just got my 350z in February. Im also from Blackpool so will probably drive past you at some point. Where have you been taking your car for a service? I'm well pleased with it. Good to see another Fylde zed, there aren't many about, I regularly see a Sunset near Blackpool FC (sometimes get a wave) and an Azure at the Shell garage in town with a lady driver. See plenty of 370s, common as muck, never wave Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
350zedd Posted May 9, 2014 Share Posted May 9, 2014 Thanks for sharing this Stu...interesting I'm after one myself but as yet undecided as I cant make a decision There's a load on amazon for around £30 and then there's the GoPro What made you choose this particular one over any other? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stutopia Posted May 9, 2014 Author Share Posted May 9, 2014 Thanks for sharing this Stu...interesting I'm after one myself but as yet undecided as I cant make a decision There's a load on amazon for around £30 and then there's the GoPro What made you choose this particular one over any other? I wasn't looking to spend go pro money and it had to be small, on top of that it had decent reviews, and I'm considering putting one in front and back so wanted to see if they're any good at this money, also it ticked all my boxes TBH: 1080p Discreet Parking mode Supposed to have slightly better night performance than the möbius and looks a bit nicer than it too IMHO Sensibly priced There's so many budget options and it's the only one I've used, so I can't honestly say if it's the best at this price point, but I'm pleased with it and looking forward to using it on my road trip. Checkout dashcamtalk if you want to read reviews of ones you're looking at, there's good content on there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhackyWill Posted May 10, 2014 Share Posted May 10, 2014 Very good quality for that money. Night vision is very good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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