A couple of weeks ago, I picked up one of these - keychain spy cam - on eBay. Came to about $11 with shipping. I figured that there was little to lose, and it was a definite improvement over the $80 Estes Oracle rocket camera I have - 720x480 vs. 640x480, sound vs no sound, and it stored the movies on a micro SD card (up to 3 hours worth), whereas the Oracle used only volatile memory, forcing an immediate download into a nearby computer.

Today at the local TARC launch, I taped this little keychain cam to the outside of my scratch built Salvage-90, which flew about 10:30, and then to my Fliskits Deuce's Wild, which flew just after 1. Got home and downloaded the movies into my computer for processing, and you can see the results of the Deuce flight at the link below (uploaded it to YouTube, but it's still processing )

http://gallery.me.com/cookewj#100052

The movie above is at standard 640x480 quality, but I must say I am pretty pleased with this purchase.

Sometimes cheap is good

Bill

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Bill,

What's the dangling thingie in the line of the camera? It looks like a "blow out", though it doesn't seem to hurt the rocket's flight...

Wait... You said this was the "Deuces" flight... Is that one of the two engines?

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Yep, it's one of the Deuce engine pods

The Salvage-90 flight vid (it'll make you dizzy) is now up at

http://gallery.me.com/cookewj#100059

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There is some obfuscation if not downright misrepresentation about these cameras... some more than others, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. Here's the general details...

While most of these cams are advertised as 720 x 480, the are actually stretched from a 640 x 480 source image. This means the 640 lines are stretched to 720 lines, so the picture is actually a bit "off". This is most easily seen filming a perfectly round or sperical object, like a ball, which will appear slightly stretched into an oval shape (either vertically or horizontally depending on how the picture is stretched). Vdub and other editing software can correct this and get the picture back to it's "source state" but not all software can.

Some of the new cameras are being represented as something like 1740 x 1280 (or something to that effect, essentially saying they're "HD" quality). Some camera/electronics buffs have clearly shown that to be false, simply due to the image chip size (in the CMOS camera itself) and even if a larger chip WERE used, there is NO WAY the pinhole lens on these things could deliver an HD quality image to that chip; a significanly larger lens would be required. (there ARE HD alternatives out there, like the HERO camera among others, but you'll pay HD PRICES for them, NOT $10 from Hong Kong with free shipping!) These cameras are most likely doubling the image size to get the 'stated resolution' but of course this just 'fakes' the image-- the detail from such a larger resolution is of course missing, since the pixels are merely duplicated. This is bad because, while not getting the advantages of a larger pixel count if the pixels are merely stretched or duplicated, the "larger" image size merely increases the filesize and slows down the write speed of the camera to the memory chipset, in effect writing big fat files at a slower rate (affecting FPS speed) with no more TRUE resolution than 640x480.

True shutter speed is also sometimes 'fudged' a bit in the advertisements for these things. Some folks have reported shutter speeds of anywhere from 10-15 frames a second, to the mid 20's, all the way up to the stated 30 frames/second. Of course 30 frames per second is the most desireable to minimize blurring and image distortion, as well as jerky movements on playback. Even then, some cameras delivering a STATED 30 fps can actually be only delivering in the 15 fps region, as some cameras simply duplicate the image a second time, which, if done every time at 15 frames a second, would show up as 30 frames/second, even though only 15 of those frames would be 'real' and not duplicates. This seems to have gotten better, and tends to vary a bit depending on the scene, movement, and card capacity and class, and even how the card has been formatted or how full it is. Virtually ALL the cameras tend to duplicate some frames, but some are worse (or better) than others, and the factors mentioned above have been mentioned in posts about these cameras and is being studied to minimize it.

Another thing that has cropped up is, people ordering flash cards with the cameras (or built-in to the cameras on some models) have found that they've gotten 'fake memory'. When checked out in windows, the flash memory will REPORT (via properties) that it's, say, a 4 or 6 Gb card. When tested with standalone programs designed to test the parameters and characteristics of memory, it will show up to actually be only a 2 Gb card. Essentially, someone deceptively reprogrammed the properties the card reports to the OS as being something more than it is to defraud folks. There's a lot on this over at the chucklohr website, so buyer beware!

Also, there were some folks misconstruing the cameras they were selling as CCD cameras, when in reality they are CMOS cameras. CCD's have certain advantages and are preferable, but CMOS cams have improved markedly in the last few years and have a few advantages of their own. Some Ebay sellers listed their cams as CCD cams, and folks paid extra for them, only upon receiving them and shooting test videos finding they were CMOS sensor cams. The CMOS sensor gives a distinct 'picture artifact' when shooting video through a propeller arc (such as on the RC planes on the RC Groups thread) which breaks the spinning propeller's image up into a series of horizontal lines or 'bars' across the screen inside the propeller arc. True CCD cameras do NOT do this, because they capture the image in a different way. CCD's are also significantly higher than CMOS sensors-- again, something not likely to be found in a $20 camera with free shipping. Some folks confronted the Ebay vendors about these supposed "CCD" cams, and were told it was an 'advertising ploy' in slightly more sensitive yet still less accurate language.

The RCGroups page on these things is an absolute GOLD MINE of information, as is chuck lohr's site. That's where I've learned most of the information here.

SO, it is what it is... there are good and bad in all these cams... and there is a certain randomness to whether you get a good one or not, or how long it stays good... but for $10-20 bucks, what can you expect?? Still a bargain at those prices IMHO. Personally I'd put down $30-40 bucks to get one guaranteed to be what it said it was, to not be glitchy or out of focus or have a bunch of electronic fakery done to it to try to make it more 'sellable'.

Also, caveat emptor... I've seen some of these things being advertised for as much as $200-300 bucks, and from all appearances seem to be only slightly 'souped up' versions of your basic $10 keyfob cam... Some poor guy on TRF got burned for $300 bucks before I could warn him on a keyfob cam with "password protection" though I've seen some with other electronic 'gimmickry' on it to make it 'safe for spies and private investigators' and other such nonsense. http://www.rocketryforum.com/showth...ht=video+camera

Good luck! OL JR

PS... you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about the Astrovision and Oracle... these keyfob cams and gumpack cams are everything the Oracle and Astrovision SHOULD HAVE BEEN. Even the price beats the pants off the Oracle and Astrovision, and when you consider the performance and features, the Oracle and Astrovision are TOTALLY blown out of the water!

Oracle and Astrovision have NO SOUND, and as you said, only VERY SHORT video capability, and completely volatile memory-- no flash memory, and if powered off or the switch gets bumped on landing or the batteries lose contact, your vid just vaporized. I understand that the quality of the vids on both Estes cams are VERY poor quality, even compared to these fob/gum cams, and the frame rate is slow. TO top it off, the software 'drivers' for these cams are SO out of date that the Estes cams are virtually useless with a newer computer, because the software won't run on them, so you have NO WAY to get your vids off... These fob/gum cams are 'plug-n-play' with their .avi file format...

Adios Oracle/Astrovision-- hopefully now that Hobbico owns Estes, maybe they'll come out with a REAL camera setup to replace these rockets soon... maybe make a massive buy of these cams from the factory and integrate them into a nosecone with several different mounting/recovery options, if not completely integrate these cams 'guts' into their own built-in-nosecone camera...

Well, one can hope... OL JR

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Although from comments in the Chuck Lohr site, part of what is leading to cheapness is the buying of rejected parts and IP issues. The former makes quality control more expensive for Hobbico (since they have more of a reputation to maintain than the Hong Kong dealers do), and the latter makes Hobbico a lawsuit target ... Both don't bode well for a $20 Oracle.

An interesting question to me is how much will decent QC and paying off IP cost? As you say in part of your post that I cut, it would be nice to pay a little more (i.e. $40 or so) and know you are getting a decent product, a sentiment I agree with. Can a mainstream manufacturer deal with the QC and IP issues and still sell something for $40?

Sam

You're zeroed in on the key thing. That said, if a legit web-cam can be had for 30-40 bucks, from a reputable manufacturer, I'd say yes, a manufacturer (eg, Estes) should be able to build a rocket camera with reasonable features and reliability, at an affordable price, without resorting to questionable supplies.

Doug

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Well, that's why I said do a bulk purchase FROM THE FACTORY (probably should have added that). Of course they wouldn't want to source these things from these secondary vendors selling on Ebay... they'd need to get a contract for an order of X number of units of these things meeting specific quality specifications. What the final 'bulk buy' price per unit would be to Hobbico or any other company wanting to pursue this would be, I don't know (I've suggested it to Tim Van Milligan as well). DEFINITELY you'd want a contract that spelled out just what QC targets are required AND what recourse the buyer would have if they failed. Factory seconds being sold by internet vendors just wouldn't cut it.

What the final 'out the door' price would be for such a camera system integrated into a nosecone as a single unit, or as a 'slide in' fob/gum cam mounted on a special nosecone with mounting options (2-3 positions so you could pick and choose where the camera looked before flight, including recovery setups (harness, look down, look up, etc.) I don't know either.

I would tend to think that it could be done for about the same price as an Oracle or Astrovision and probably about on par with the various Boostervision setups. I think it'd be worth it too, and there'd be a market for it...

OL JR

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Our store buys the cameras from a middle man in China. They cost us more than you can get them for on ebay and we sell them (like crazy) for $35. The ones we order come with 2gb internal memory and have the micro SD card slot for additional memory. I would estimate that we have sold about 600 of them so far and have only had one returned so far. It was for a dead battery. Ours also come in a nice box with an AC adapter. I would say that you CAN get quality out of these things as long as you have the right supplier.

LUKE! Next time you are going to make a post saying mean stuff about the gum cams, could you please warn me so I can make sure none of mine are in front of the computer? I'm sure it's comments like yours that make them start to act up.

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Sorry rokit didn't mean to upset your gummycams... Nice little fellas that they are!

I may just take you up on one of those... I know that the ones off ebay have been rather hit or miss. Still for the money they're worth the risk IMHO... BUT it would be nice to have something that you can depend on working rather than the "ya pays yer munny and ya takes yer chances" type stuff with Ebay...

I find it rather amusing that these dinky little things are SO much more impressive and capable than the $100 (or thereabouts-- I guess the Astrovision was a little cheaper) Estes cams... I really thought Estes had something-- figured any company that came out with the Cineroc had to be selling the top-of-the-line modern equivalent... WRONG!!! I read everything I could find on the Astrovision and Oracle before I bought one, and boy was I glad I did! Saved me a bucket o' money and a lot of frustration for poor results! That's one reason why I'm not an 'early adopter' when it comes to new technology-- I let other folks burn their money getting the buggy substandard no-feature crap at double the price... I can wait six months to a year or so and get good stuff with more features at half the price the 'early adopters' paid...

Oh well... ce la vie...

Take it easy! OL JR

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One thing to keep in mind is the source of the gum cam's we're all getting. These are either reject or surplus devices thus having prices that are not necessarily in line with actual market prices. That is, if all Estes wanted to produce was a few hundred (or few thousand) units that they could build using surplus camera stock from some electronics channel, then they too could have a much lower price.

But when you approach a project as a mass merchandiser, you must ensure you have a supply channel than can be sustained. Thus, you must contract with someone who is currently manufacturing the underlying bits and pieces - IOW, you can't spec in OOP parts The result is that you pay market price for the components and hence must charge market price for the new widget.

In a nutshell, while we are all ever aware of the disparate costs and (inverse) quality of the Astrovision/Oracle versus our cheapy gum cam's, it's a whole different story when you try to design one of our gum cam rockets for production. If you just tried to clone a gum cam, I think folks would be shocked if they went and got bids on the parts used to make one. I suspect the 20 dollar gum cam would have bill of materials totalling a hundred bucks at the start If you keep working your suppliers and chipping away at it, after a while, and a several 10's of thousands of units, you can get the price down into the 20 dollar range. At that point, it still needs to sell for 100 dollars retail to make any money So, while I don't like the non-volatile nature of the Estes camera, and the low resolution, I can certainly understand how they made those cost tradeoffs in the product development cycle.

Doug

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