how long do u haft to charge it the first time? because i bought it a couple days ago and i plugged it into my computer and nothing happend, no light or anything.. help?
Hi, well i have the same mini dv cam, but when i record (home) it basically lags a little and when i point camera at my computer monitor the camera gets more fps and less light. Do you know what can i do to make it not to pick up any light?
I have a Mini DV D001 (NOT the MD80! these are DIFFERENT cameras! they only look similiar) and when it's charging the red light is on and the blue light is flashing slowly. When it's fully charged both lights (red and blue) are on and they are not flashing. BUT the original USB cable is a shit. I can't charge it with this cable, it records only for 10-15min and never becomes fully charged (both lights on). I use USB cable from a Canon camera and it's great and it becomes fully charged quickly
sorry if dim question, but just been given one of these as present, but I have mac using OSX 10.6. I've plugged it in but it's not recognised. It only states supported by pc;s but can it be made to work? Thanks for you time.
@bigazza7 I don't use a MAC (PC and Linux) so I can't test the MiniDV with one. Do you have a card reader for your MAC? You can simply remove the MicroSD card from the MiniDV and insert it into a card reader.
@skater1on1 I thought the same thing. It kind of reminded me a little of Texas chainsaw massacre. Hey, all due respect to deeringdeluxe, maybe somebody would say the same thing about my neighborhood ( looking depressing that is ).
@deeringdeluxe does this camera work in not so great lighting? For example I was planning on using this in a deminstration. I would have to have the camera inside a chimney for a demo tape for a chimney sweep company. Would this work?
I've noticed that the D001 will just turn itself off during the VOX mode. This is after I've had it connected to the charger for 24 hrs. I set it up and put it in VOX mode but then I have nothing to show but the few videos it captured during the setup. It's supposed to be on standby for up to 200hrs or something.
hi, could somebody please twell me how to not use the voice recording system that only takes 2 min at a time (vox) I have a doo1 model. I think it is you turn it on and press the white button on top and it will do it, bt how do i tell if it is recording? can someone please help me?( up untill now i have been pressing the mode button to start it recording)
3. The MiniDV will automatically start recording when it senses sound & will record for 2 minutes. If no sound is present after 2 minutes it will go on standby.
Hope this doesn't break your heart, but it doesn't take stillshots. =( I've heard the real MD80 does, but it cost twice as much as the D001.
@deeringdeluxe of course the D100 takes stills, just press mode button (short press), red light goes on, press top button to take a pic (red light blinks once). Press mode again to go to video mode again.
To start vox rec, press and hold mode button for two seconds, then release. Red light will flash rapidly.
I use Linux, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7. The vids will play on any OS as long as you have the correct codec. The MiniDV uses the MJPEG codec. Try installing the popular K-Lite Codec Pack (Basic or Standard will do) and see if that helps.
Excellent! I just downloaded virtual dub and the filter, but it has a bit of a learning curve. I'm not much of a video geek. Looking forward to view the results =)
Yeah, the fact that it flickers is aggravating. The main reason I want it off is so I can use Virtual Dub and Deshaker (or similar app) to stabilize some of the shaky vids.
And yes, you can crop, but then you loose a few precious pixels from an already grainy vid!! AAAHHH, there has to be a way!!
One more thing: Since the cam shoots 720x480, you will notice objects appear slightly stretched (see truck at 1:38 ). This is because this particular framerate is used for TV (rectangular pixels) not computer (square pixels). Resize it to 640x480 to fix this. You won't lose any quality or edges.
Google "best practices for encoding adobe" for more on this subject.
It looks stretched because the cam shoots in fullscreen & I processed it as widescreen to help fill up the black bars YouTube puts on fullscreen vids. I don't normally do that, but I just wanted to see how it would turn on once uploaded to YouTube. The lady @ 3:35 looks a little chubbier than she really was. The original vid doesn't look stretched. The truck @ 1:38 was an ex-cab ex-bed so it looks a little longer. =)
Thanks for the comments. Now if we could just get the date stamp off!!
Actually, the stretching effect is created even in the original videos. I have the same cam, and also the AEE MD90 which does 640x480, and have compared footage side-by-side; it is minor, but there.
I normally view the videos taken with this cam by setting the framesize to 640x480 in the media player.
Great review! In my experience, the cheap knockoff outperforms the original AEE models (I own the MD90 which does 30 fps). It produces more natural color and doesn't suffer from exaggerated contrast. The resolution also creates clearer videos (appear more zoomed -in) with less "etching".
My datestamp flickers too. I doubt it can be removed unless there is a firmware update.
alright, i just got mine, and i saw heath's comment about the date thing. has you or heath figured out how to remove the date yet? i'm trying to use this camera for fun little videos and the date is very distracting
Same here Tokyo, no go on removing the date as of yet. Does the date flicker on your vids? It does sometimes on mine and that can be annoying, but I just remind myself how cheap the cam was and try to overlook the few negatives the cam has.
Interesting test video. I was thinking of getting one of these. The picture quality seems quite good. How do you find the sound recording quality for things like normal conversations in and outdoors?
I personally think the audio is fairly good (comparable to video quality or slightly better). It has an omnidirectional mic, so it picks up everything around it. One thing I've noticed about when I'm wearing the cam & accidentally bump it (with hand or clothes) is sometimes there's a "pop" and/or the audio limiter lowers the volume & can take several seconds to release the volume back to normal. Not a deal breaker, but is sometimes annoying. Just have to make sure nothing bumps the cam.
Thank you for your reply. It seems like a pretty good little camera. I'll order one and have a play 8-) I have one of the 'gum' type mini camcorders and the audi and low light performance with that iis quite poor.
Do some searches on eBay for "MiniDV 8gb" and you can find the cam w/8gb card for $50 w/free shipping, that is if you want the 8gb card. =) In hinds sight I wish I would have got the 8gb instead of 2gb since the vids take so much space. 8gb should give abt 2 hours +/- of recording.
How long does a fully charged battery last when set on voice activated recording but never actually triggered? The manual says 260 hours on standby mode.
My manual also says 260, but it also says it uses 1gb per 40 minutes of video, but in reality I only get about 25min of video out of my 2gb card instead of 80min. So, not to be pessimistic, but I have my doubts about the battery lasting 260 hours in standby. That's just shy of 11 days. Just my 2 cents. Does anyone want to leave theirs on VOX and see how long the batt lasts? =)
I have tested mine leaving both of them on VOX but never triggered recording, they shut themselves off around 15 to 20 minutes. Turn them back on and they shut off around same time again. The battery finally went dead after about 5 to 7 times. I am wondering about other experiences with VOX feature and battery usage.
I got one a couple weeks ago and use it mostly indoors. I noticed the contrast is no longer very good and the video looks washed out. I took a video of the same thing I did when I got it and the latest doesn't look good.
Has this happend to anyone else? It was getting worse just a little at a time but when comparing it to a video from 2 weeks ago, it was obviously bad now.
I also can't turn off the time/date stamp. You could turn that off on the older md80 that was 640X480.
Have you tried pressing the reset button on the side of the MiniDV? Also, make sure the lens is clean. I had a old cam that was acting up like that. Turned out there was a film of dust on the lens that was causing the image to be washed out and blurry.
Driver CD contains a file called TAG.TXT that needs to be copied to MiniDV, or you can create a text file called TAG.TXT & add the following lines: (make sure to leave a "space" after "[date] " & "2009/10/14 " so MiniDV will recognize it.
[date]
2009/10/14
12:30:00
1. Save TAG.TXT to root directory of SD card.
2. Next time MiniDV is powered on, it will read TAG.TXT & update date/time, then it will delete TAG.TXT from SD card.
I'm not sure if you can disable date/time. That would be nice.
Thanks deeringdeluxe for replying... I sorted the date thing but would love to be able to get rid of it completely... One last question...How do i know when it is fully charged.. The mains adapter has a red and green light but when charging the green never light up only the red from start to finish. I cant see any obvious sign of full charge from camera led`s..
On mine, the red LED comes on when I plug in the adapter and the green LED comes on when I plug in the MiniDV on, so both LED's are on during charging. No indication of full charge on mine, either. I'm still watching to see if there is any indicator of full charge.
Memory consumption per one minute (~70MB) is to big for me. 8GB = ~2h and no loop record function available. I using this camera in my rc airplanes and car :) Battery life is to short (~20 min recording). Have defect?
The video does take up a lot of space. Bitrate on my vids have been 9,900kb/s - 12,950kb/s for video & 352kb/s audio. That's more than twice the average bitrate of a DVD. But a DVD is encoded in MPEG2, & the MiniDV is encoding to MJPG (motion JPEG) which takes little system resources to encode, but requires a lot of space to save.
Battery life should be much better that 20 minutes. They're supposed to last up to 2 hours. I've never used mine more than 40+ minutes at a time tho.
how long do u haft to charge it the first time? because i bought it a couple days ago and i plugged it into my computer and nothing happend, no light or anything.. help?
knutsson97 2 months ago
Now when someone cause a wreck and tries to blame you, you can be like "Busted!"
thor333us 8 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
good job and good video! check out my home page video video on how I set up the MD80 as a bicycle camera!
harrymedan 10 months ago
Hi, well i have the same mini dv cam, but when i record (home) it basically lags a little and when i point camera at my computer monitor the camera gets more fps and less light. Do you know what can i do to make it not to pick up any light?
chiter200 1 year ago
I have a Mini DV D001 (NOT the MD80! these are DIFFERENT cameras! they only look similiar) and when it's charging the red light is on and the blue light is flashing slowly. When it's fully charged both lights (red and blue) are on and they are not flashing. BUT the original USB cable is a shit. I can't charge it with this cable, it records only for 10-15min and never becomes fully charged (both lights on). I use USB cable from a Canon camera and it's great and it becomes fully charged quickly
5Dale65 1 year ago
sorry if dim question, but just been given one of these as present, but I have mac using OSX 10.6. I've plugged it in but it's not recognised. It only states supported by pc;s but can it be made to work? Thanks for you time.
bigazza7 1 year ago
@bigazza7 I don't use a MAC (PC and Linux) so I can't test the MiniDV with one. Do you have a card reader for your MAC? You can simply remove the MicroSD card from the MiniDV and insert it into a card reader.
deeringdeluxe 1 year ago
man that place looks depressing. thanks for review tho lol
skater1on1 1 year ago
@skater1on1 I thought the same thing. It kind of reminded me a little of Texas chainsaw massacre. Hey, all due respect to deeringdeluxe, maybe somebody would say the same thing about my neighborhood ( looking depressing that is ).
surfmcgoogler 1 year ago
genius just done it cheers
sandysteve97 1 year ago
where was this?
desperateado 1 year ago
@desperateado Outside Corpus Christi, TX (HEB, car wash, etc).
deeringdeluxe 1 year ago
@deeringdeluxe does this camera work in not so great lighting? For example I was planning on using this in a deminstration. I would have to have the camera inside a chimney for a demo tape for a chimney sweep company. Would this work?
TheSaraheverett 7 months ago
I've noticed that the D001 will just turn itself off during the VOX mode. This is after I've had it connected to the charger for 24 hrs. I set it up and put it in VOX mode but then I have nothing to show but the few videos it captured during the setup. It's supposed to be on standby for up to 200hrs or something.
Anyone familiar with this issue?
amexred 2 years ago
hi, could somebody please twell me how to not use the voice recording system that only takes 2 min at a time (vox) I have a doo1 model. I think it is you turn it on and press the white button on top and it will do it, bt how do i tell if it is recording? can someone please help me?( up untill now i have been pressing the mode button to start it recording)
elstupdo10 2 years ago
hi...could you tell me how to operate this thing?
on the package it shows that it is compatible voice activated..but there are no intructions...also..how do you take pictures?thank you.
capderama 2 years ago
Yeah, the instructions aren't too great.
To use VOX:
1. Power on the MiniDV
2. Press the "Mode" button which activates VOX
3. The MiniDV will automatically start recording when it senses sound & will record for 2 minutes. If no sound is present after 2 minutes it will go on standby.
Hope this doesn't break your heart, but it doesn't take stillshots. =( I've heard the real MD80 does, but it cost twice as much as the D001.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
@deeringdeluxe of course the D100 takes stills, just press mode button (short press), red light goes on, press top button to take a pic (red light blinks once). Press mode again to go to video mode again.
To start vox rec, press and hold mode button for two seconds, then release. Red light will flash rapidly.
Dimension13XYZZY 9 months ago
That made me feel travel sick... Ive got one on its way........!
jordannewcastle 2 years ago
What operating system do you have? I bought one of these and I can't make it play on my computer. I don't think it works with Vista.
jaws10k 2 years ago
I use Linux, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, and 7. The vids will play on any OS as long as you have the correct codec. The MiniDV uses the MJPEG codec. Try installing the popular K-Lite Codec Pack (Basic or Standard will do) and see if that helps.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
@deeringdeluxe I'm on Mac OS X 10.6 and the .avi plays back natively in QuickTime Player just to add to your list of compatible os.
bluemint 2 years ago
Thanks, never had tried it on a Mac since I don't have one (not enough moo-la lol).
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Excellent! I just downloaded virtual dub and the filter, but it has a bit of a learning curve. I'm not much of a video geek. Looking forward to view the results =)
nisargafan00 2 years ago
At least they could have used a less ugly font instead of this big 1980s type one LOL. The flickering is really distracting too.
I guess the best option for now is to trim out the bottom portion using video editing software.
nisargafan00 2 years ago
Yeah, the fact that it flickers is aggravating. The main reason I want it off is so I can use Virtual Dub and Deshaker (or similar app) to stabilize some of the shaky vids.
And yes, you can crop, but then you loose a few precious pixels from an already grainy vid!! AAAHHH, there has to be a way!!
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Does anyone know how to shut off the date/time stamp?
old64goat 2 years ago 2
One more thing: Since the cam shoots 720x480, you will notice objects appear slightly stretched (see truck at 1:38 ). This is because this particular framerate is used for TV (rectangular pixels) not computer (square pixels). Resize it to 640x480 to fix this. You won't lose any quality or edges.
Google "best practices for encoding adobe" for more on this subject.
nisargafan00 2 years ago
It looks stretched because the cam shoots in fullscreen & I processed it as widescreen to help fill up the black bars YouTube puts on fullscreen vids. I don't normally do that, but I just wanted to see how it would turn on once uploaded to YouTube. The lady @ 3:35 looks a little chubbier than she really was. The original vid doesn't look stretched. The truck @ 1:38 was an ex-cab ex-bed so it looks a little longer. =)
Thanks for the comments. Now if we could just get the date stamp off!!
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Actually, the stretching effect is created even in the original videos. I have the same cam, and also the AEE MD90 which does 640x480, and have compared footage side-by-side; it is minor, but there.
I normally view the videos taken with this cam by setting the framesize to 640x480 in the media player.
nisargafan00 2 years ago
Great review! In my experience, the cheap knockoff outperforms the original AEE models (I own the MD90 which does 30 fps). It produces more natural color and doesn't suffer from exaggerated contrast. The resolution also creates clearer videos (appear more zoomed -in) with less "etching".
My datestamp flickers too. I doubt it can be removed unless there is a firmware update.
nisargafan00 2 years ago
alright, i just got mine, and i saw heath's comment about the date thing. has you or heath figured out how to remove the date yet? i'm trying to use this camera for fun little videos and the date is very distracting
JoeTokyo 2 years ago
Hi JoeTokyo, I think the date has to stay. It is really distracting but as of yet I have not found a way to switch it off.
Heathfloors 2 years ago
Same here Tokyo, no go on removing the date as of yet. Does the date flicker on your vids? It does sometimes on mine and that can be annoying, but I just remind myself how cheap the cam was and try to overlook the few negatives the cam has.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Interesting test video. I was thinking of getting one of these. The picture quality seems quite good. How do you find the sound recording quality for things like normal conversations in and outdoors?
Thanks,
Peter
urbanimage 2 years ago
I personally think the audio is fairly good (comparable to video quality or slightly better). It has an omnidirectional mic, so it picks up everything around it. One thing I've noticed about when I'm wearing the cam & accidentally bump it (with hand or clothes) is sometimes there's a "pop" and/or the audio limiter lowers the volume & can take several seconds to release the volume back to normal. Not a deal breaker, but is sometimes annoying. Just have to make sure nothing bumps the cam.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Hi again,
Thank you for your reply. It seems like a pretty good little camera. I'll order one and have a play 8-) I have one of the 'gum' type mini camcorders and the audi and low light performance with that iis quite poor.
Regards,
Peter
urbanimage 2 years ago
Do some searches on eBay for "MiniDV 8gb" and you can find the cam w/8gb card for $50 w/free shipping, that is if you want the 8gb card. =) In hinds sight I wish I would have got the 8gb instead of 2gb since the vids take so much space. 8gb should give abt 2 hours +/- of recording.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
How long does a fully charged battery last when set on voice activated recording but never actually triggered? The manual says 260 hours on standby mode.
aunguy 2 years ago
My manual also says 260, but it also says it uses 1gb per 40 minutes of video, but in reality I only get about 25min of video out of my 2gb card instead of 80min. So, not to be pessimistic, but I have my doubts about the battery lasting 260 hours in standby. That's just shy of 11 days. Just my 2 cents. Does anyone want to leave theirs on VOX and see how long the batt lasts? =)
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
I have tested mine leaving both of them on VOX but never triggered recording, they shut themselves off around 15 to 20 minutes. Turn them back on and they shut off around same time again. The battery finally went dead after about 5 to 7 times. I am wondering about other experiences with VOX feature and battery usage.
aunguy 2 years ago
I got one a couple weeks ago and use it mostly indoors. I noticed the contrast is no longer very good and the video looks washed out. I took a video of the same thing I did when I got it and the latest doesn't look good.
Has this happend to anyone else? It was getting worse just a little at a time but when comparing it to a video from 2 weeks ago, it was obviously bad now.
I also can't turn off the time/date stamp. You could turn that off on the older md80 that was 640X480.
chrisdfw 2 years ago
Have you tried pressing the reset button on the side of the MiniDV? Also, make sure the lens is clean. I had a old cam that was acting up like that. Turned out there was a film of dust on the lens that was causing the image to be washed out and blurry.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Hiya... I`ve just bought the same minidv cam.. Is it possible to turn of the date and time? if not how do I set correct time and date...
Cheers
Heathfloors 2 years ago
Driver CD contains a file called TAG.TXT that needs to be copied to MiniDV, or you can create a text file called TAG.TXT & add the following lines: (make sure to leave a "space" after "[date] " & "2009/10/14 " so MiniDV will recognize it.
[date]
2009/10/14
12:30:00
1. Save TAG.TXT to root directory of SD card.
2. Next time MiniDV is powered on, it will read TAG.TXT & update date/time, then it will delete TAG.TXT from SD card.
I'm not sure if you can disable date/time. That would be nice.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
Thanks deeringdeluxe for replying... I sorted the date thing but would love to be able to get rid of it completely... One last question...How do i know when it is fully charged.. The mains adapter has a red and green light but when charging the green never light up only the red from start to finish. I cant see any obvious sign of full charge from camera led`s..
Heathfloors 2 years ago
On mine, the red LED comes on when I plug in the adapter and the green LED comes on when I plug in the MiniDV on, so both LED's are on during charging. No indication of full charge on mine, either. I'm still watching to see if there is any indicator of full charge.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
have you figured out the date thing yet?
JoeTokyo 2 years ago
Memory consumption per one minute (~70MB) is to big for me. 8GB = ~2h and no loop record function available. I using this camera in my rc airplanes and car :) Battery life is to short (~20 min recording). Have defect?
FoHsi 2 years ago
The video does take up a lot of space. Bitrate on my vids have been 9,900kb/s - 12,950kb/s for video & 352kb/s audio. That's more than twice the average bitrate of a DVD. But a DVD is encoded in MPEG2, & the MiniDV is encoding to MJPG (motion JPEG) which takes little system resources to encode, but requires a lot of space to save.
Battery life should be much better that 20 minutes. They're supposed to last up to 2 hours. I've never used mine more than 40+ minutes at a time tho.
deeringdeluxe 2 years ago
I have tested both of my cameras and get similar result. A fully charged battery with 4 gig card can record around 70 minutes of video.
aunguy 2 years ago