Tuesday, May 17, 2011

808 #11 keychain "Spy camera"

I have grown dissatisfied with the quality of the MD80 clone (D001) "spy" camera I've been using as a helmet cam.

So, I ordered an 808 #11 keychain "spy" camera from ebay.

This one was slightly more expensive. ($40 including shipping!) It provides 720P HD video with the time stamp that I like. (HINT: look in model rocket and RC hobby sites for a replacement firmware if you DON'T like the date stamp)

This one takes a slightly differently formatted file to set the time.
It didn't come with any instructions so I had to figure it out on my own. (with the help of google and some RC hobbyists who got them before me.)

Basically, you need a file called timeset.txt
It should be 1 line long and should look like this:

2011-05-17 23:38:51

You can edit the file yourself in your favorite text editor, or just use my scripts:

Linux: 808date.sh
#!/bin/sh
DATE=`date +%Y-%m-%d`
TIME=`date +%H:%M:%S`
echo "$DATE $TIME">timeset.txt
echo "808 #11 keychain camera date & time have been updated in the timeset.txt file."

Windows: 808date.cmd
@echo off
set YEAR=%date:~6,4%
set MONTH=%date:~0,2%
set DAY=%date:~3,2%
echo %YEAR%-%MONTH%-%DAY% %TIME:~0,8%> timeset.txt
echo "808 #11 keychain camera date & time have been updated in the timeset.txt file."

Just copy these files into the root folder (not DCIM, just stick them next to DCIM)
double-click the one for your operating system
eject the drive once you see the timeset.txt file appear
unplug it
turn it on
make a video
plug your keychain back into the USB
check that the timeset.txt is gone and the video has the right date and time.

[UPDATE June 2, 2011]
You can see some sample videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/RodMacPherson
Videos after #8 are done with this HD keychain. From #13 on though they will not have Date and Time. I got the camera just a little bit wet in the rain a little while ago, and the clock has been "overclocked" ever since, counting seconds almost as if they were milliseconds. A clock that is always wrong is worse than no clock at all so I flashed it with one of the clock-less firmwares from the RCgroups.

[UPDATE April 7, 2012]
As some of you may have noticed, some of my helmet cam videos don't have a date stamp at all. You can remove it with firmware from the nicce people over at RCGroups.com

[UPDATE April 17, 2012]
Also... to add a little to the confusion with dates (as pointed out by E in the comments) The RC Groups firmwares that do leave the date on seem to use a different format for the txt file than the one that came on my camera. Now they expect it in YYYY-DD-MM HH:MM:SS instead of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS as before so, if your time is right and the year is right, but it always seems to have the wrong day and month try this:
@echo off
set YEAR=%date:~6,4%
set MONTH=%date:~0,2%
set DAY=%date:~3,2%
echo %YEAR%-%DAY%-%MONTH% %TIME:~0,8%> timeset.txt
echo "808 #11 keychain camera date & time have been updated in the timeset.txt file."
That should fix it. Of course, use E's suggestion if you are using a different date/time format on your computer.

Don't have a spy camera/dash cam yet? get one at DealExtreme.