Mobius requests

update: using the 720p reduced field of view gives an 'ok' exposure through the back window, much better than than using 1080p and the FoV is better for the back view. It doesn't compare to using a camera in the back window but until I get a power supply in the back it will do :)

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regards
Kev
 
Photosbykev said:
Finding a switched 12v supply in the back of the F30 BMW is a major pain and routing a supply all the way from the front of the car can be done but again is awkward
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I think you'll find that problem in all cars. I ran a 12v accessories switched cable down to the rear of my Kizashi from under the dash. The USB power supply is hidden under a trim piece next to the rear seat and then power runs around the rear window using a 3m USB lead. It took a bit of time to do, but the results are well worth it. (With your current set up you'd have trouble capturing any worthwhile footage IMHO.)

(I'm uploading some footage from my rear mounted Mobius onto Youtube at the moment. I'll post a link later.)

 
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murcod said:
I think you'll find that problem in all cars. I ran separate 12v switched cabling down to the rear of my Kizashi from under the dash. The USB power supply is hidden under a trim piece next to the rear seat trim and then power runs around the rear window using a 3m USB lead. It took a bit of time to do, but the results are well worth it. (With your current set up you'd have trouble capturing any worthwhile footage IMHO.)
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I think you're correct I just need to bite the bullet and run a 12v supply from the front and convert down to 5v local to the rear camera

Regards
Kev


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Blame Apple for the typos and me for the content
 
This one is likely too much to be practical, but....

The missing link in Mobius is GPS. Suppose you could use the USB port to accept NMEA data from an external GPS's USB, and write the location to the picture metadata.

This idea is full of reasons it can't work, primarily the size of the needed code, I'd guess. But if it did, it would be great.
 
Photosbykev said:
I think you're correct I just need to bite the bullet and run a 12v supply from the front and convert down to 5v local to the rear camera

Regards
Kev


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Blame Apple for the typos and me for the content
Click to expand...

YOu have a reading lights in rear. Tap in into that loom and using voltage converter you will get 5v ;)
In many cars reading light power, (in the loom ) has power cut off delay, so you even will have advantage of recording much longer after ignition is switched off and car is locked.
 
I am trying to use 1 min time lapse mode, but have found an issue. For some reason, my camera will just stop; leaving the rear LED on.. Why I'm working on but that's not my topic here.

The rear LED blinks off once per exposure, but in the once per 60 sec setting, you must wait and wait and wait... when it's stopped, the LED stays on.

I wonder how it could be changed so it's more obvious that it is recording, without waiting a minute or two...
 
I was playing with the still image timelapse mode, but there appears to be no way to set the camera to default to timelapse mode when powered up. I don't know how messy that would be, but it owuld be a nice feature for those wanting timelapse as default.
 
I think I found a bug with the firmware:

I record at 1080/30p (medium data rate) for several hours so that the memory is mostly filled. I'm using a 16GB card.
Shut down, then power up and switch to timelapse mode @ 0.25 seconds per picture.
The empty space in the memory fills and the camera quits recording,
Power down, power up and have the camera try to record in 1080/30p mode. The camera can't do it. In fact the only way out is to format the memory card.

There are 2 issues here:

(1) The timelapse mode does not free up memory as it records. This limits the ability of the camera to work as a timelapse security camera. My feelings are that it needs to free u memory so that people can use it as a set and forget security camera. The space has to be big enough to allow for any video that might be added later.

(2) If the memory card is full and the camera is recording video, the camera needs to free up space BEFORE it tries to record any more video.
 
BobDiaz said:
I think I found a bug with the firmware:

I record at 1080/30p (medium data rate) for several hours so that the memory is mostly filled. I'm using a 16GB card.
Shut down, then power up and switch to timelapse mode @ 0.25 seconds per picture.
The empty space in the memory fills and the camera quits recording,
Power down, power up and have the camera try to record in 1080/30p mode. The camera can't do it. In fact the only way out is to format the memory card.
There are 2 issues here:

(1) The timelapse mode does not free up memory as it records. This limits the ability of the camera to work as a timelapse security camera. My feelings are that it needs to free u memory so that people can use it as a set and forget security camera. The space has to be big enough to allow for any video that might be added later.

(2) If the memory card is full and the camera is recording video, the camera needs to free up space BEFORE it tries to record any more video.
Click to expand...
Loop recording does not work for time lapse photos. It is for video recording only.
In loop recording mode, if there is no more space available, video mode will delete the oldest files (photos and/or videos) and then create a new video file.

I can imagine the FAT would soon become corrupted if there are thousands of photos and loop recording was expected to work in photo mode. I can also imagine it would be difficult to implement in firmware because of the folder structure. As you are most likely aware, once the file IMAG9999.JPG is reached a new folder (101HDDVR, 102HDDVR, etc) is created and the file numbering starts again from scratch. Taking it to the extreme, the firmware would have a major time problem if it had to search a 64GB card for the oldest photo to delete every ¼ sec. It's already difficult enough to record a photo every ¼ second, let alone deleting older files. That's the reason there's no time-stamp on the photo or EXIF information in the file when the time lapse is set to less than 2 seconds.
 
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BobDiaz said:
I think I found a bug with the firmware:

I record at 1080/30p (medium data rate) for several hours so that the memory is mostly filled. I'm using a 16GB card.
Shut down, then power up and switch to timelapse mode @ 0.25 seconds per picture.
The empty space in the memory fills and the camera quits recording,
Power down, power up and have the camera try to record in 1080/30p mode. The camera can't do it. In fact the only way out is to format the memory card.
........
Click to expand...
Sorry, I forgot to reply to the above (in blue).
If there is no space available on the card the camera won't start recording, even if the camera is set up with loop recording enabled.
There must be enough free space available to start a recording. Once recording starts, the loop recording algorithm will kick in.
 
BobDiaz said:
I was playing with the still image timelapse mode, but there appears to be no way to set the camera to default to timelapse mode when powered up. I don't know how messy that would be, but it owuld be a nice feature for those wanting timelapse as default.
Click to expand...

Yes, I badly need this. It is a major issue to keep restarting time-lapse mode; camera upside down on the dash, using mirror to see what top err bottom LED color is, feeling for the buttons, etc.


Note: lack of memory is NOT my camera's issue. I have 24GB free and it still keeps shutting off on power glitches for sure, and maybe for other reasons.
 
To me it feels like the time-lapse mode came just a bit short of being very useful. IF I clear out the memory, the camera will record in time-lapse until the memory card is full. That's OK for doing a time-lapse video of our next drive to Idaho, BUT it won't work as a security camera looking out the front window that I can set and not worry about it until someone does something wrong.

In order to avoid the thousands of photos and loop recording corrupting the FAT would be to put them into a 1080p video. Where the video would play at 1080/30p but the photos would be recorded at 0.25, 0.5, 1, or ... per second. That way, the camera already knows how to deal with dealing with older files when loop recording.

Sorry, but that's one of my things for the wish list. :)
 
The 808#16 have a great feature of 720p or 480p recording at 5fps. When playing the video on your PC the playback speed will be 6 times faster, at 30FPS because the MOV or AVI video container contains this 30FPS info. In video editing programs you can use the original 5FPS.

enjoy.
Mtz
 
BobDiaz said:
To me it feels like the time-lapse mode came just a bit short of being very useful. IF I clear out the memory, the camera will record in time-lapse until the memory card is full. That's OK for doing a time-lapse video of our next drive to Idaho, BUT it won't work as a security camera looking out the front window that I can set and not worry about it until someone does something wrong.

In order to avoid the thousands of photos and loop recording corrupting the FAT would be to put them into a 1080p video. Where the video would play at 1080/30p but the photos would be recorded at 0.25, 0.5, 1, or ... per second. That way, the camera already knows how to deal with dealing with older files when loop recording.

Sorry, but that's one of my things for the wish list. :)
Click to expand...

Excellent idea Bob. I always assumed the time lapse function would loop.

My ideal would be for the Mobius to do normal 1080 dash cam video with the ignition on and then switch to time lapse with the ignition off. Battery life would be an issue though.
 
About the only way to do it would be to add the option of video time-lapse after externial power off. The camera could only record for 70 --> 80 minutes before the battery would be too low. That might work when you go into a store for a short time, but won't do any good for overnight parking.
 
For things like this can be used the future Motion Detect option which I expect to be introduced in the new firmwares.
My old 808#16 was always powered ON but in Motion Detect mode. It doesn't have auto-start and auto-stop and that was my solution to not start manually the camera every time. The camera was recording only when was motion and this is happening always when I drive the car. A G-Sensor can do better this job.

It is possible the battery to keep the camera in stand-by mode during night if no motion. But the battery will be too used and many times we are driving for short times and is not enough time to fully charge the battery. So we will have almost a not charged battery with enough power for long parking durations.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Isoprop said:
Credit goes to the developer, not me ;)
I'm only the poor guy who has to modify the Windows GUI and test the firmware every time the developer adds more features :eek:
Luckily, communication between the developer and a handful of other people associated with the Mobius project is excellent and we are always informed of the latest developments. Most of all, Tom Frank does an amazing job testing new firmware versions. We should also be grateful to therau2000 who keeps his Android app up to date. But most of all we should be greatfull to have such a dedicated developer who strives to keep the Mobius the most versatile camera available in this price range.
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any likelyhood of a Mac GUI anytime soon?
 
It would be nice to be able to select what mode the Mobius camera automatically starts up in. Having Video mode 1 as the default power on mode is fine for dashcam use but if the cameras were being used for unattended timelapse then it would be a nice option in the GUI to be able to select the default power on mode.

regards
Kev
 
Photosbykev,

I put in that request too, but it turns out that in photo mode, the camera can NOT delete older photos. When the memory is full, the camera stops recording photos. In order to work properly, the camera would need to record all the photos into a 1920x1080 timelapse video file.

I think it would be nice to be able to select video mode as:
( ) 1920x1080 ( ) 1280x720
( ) 60P ( ) 30p ( ) Timelapse

Where timelapse records to 1920x1080 at the rate selected by the still photo timelapse mode.
 
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BobDiaz said:
Photosbykev,

I put in that request too, but it turns out that in photo mode, the camera can NOT delete older photos. When the memory is full, the camera stops recording photos. In order to work properly, the camera would need to record all the photos into a 1920x1080 timelapse video file.

I think it would be nice to be able to select video mode as:
( ) 1920x1080 ( ) 1280x720
( ) 60P ( ) 30p ( ) Timelapse

Where timelapse records to 1920x1080 at the rate selected by the still photo timelapse mode.
Click to expand...

from a photographers point of view I'd much prefer to have the untouched jpg files to work with rather than a compressed video and I wouldn't expect to shoot more than 32Gb of jpgs in a timelapse session. Jpg quality is just good enough for a decent timelapse video after a reasonable amount of post processing like anti-flicker, colour balancing etc. A compressed camera generated video file has so much thrown away from the raw data that the quality is significantly compromised.

I have in the past had sequences of over 20,000 Canon raw files to work with using a Canon body connected to a laptop and external hard drive lol. Using custom firmware it is already posssible to shoot slow frame rate video timelapses with the Canon bodies but they are expensive as consumable items, the Mobius is cheap enough to just throw away if the situation warrents it.

I certainly wouldn't want any photographs to be deleted/overwritten and would simply schedule swapping out a card if the timelapse project needs it.

regards
Kev

edited to add more detail
 
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