Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m always suspicious of anyone who buys nightvision gear and isn’t a member of any official military or law enforcement organization. But I’m sure there’s some legitimate reason why a civilian would need to be able to record video in complete darkness, and that seems to be this camera’s forte.

A ring of IR LEDs around the lens will illuminate your subject no matter how dark it is, and while the paltry 32 MB of storage allows you to record just 2 minutes of 640×480 resolution video, the storage can be upgraded with a 2GB SD card. The camera also works in regular daylight of course, automatically switching to nightvision mode when there isn’t adequate light, and is available from Firebox for ~$113.

[ NightVision Digital Video Camera ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I guess all their cameras can’t have cool names like the ‘Digital Rebel’ so this new vandal resistant mini-dome camera from Canon has been dubbed the completely unmemorable VB-C500VD. But if you’ve been trying to protect your property against hooligans or vandals you’ll want to take note. The camera features an 82° wide horizontal field-of-view with 2.4X optical zoom as well as a fast F1.1 lens giving it great low-light performance. A progressive scan CCD ensures crisp images even with fast moving objects, and Canon’s proprietary ‘DIGIC NET’ processing engine allows the camera to capture full color video even in brightness levels as low as 0.2 lux. A pretty important feature when police might only be able to ID a suspect based on the color of their clothing.

And of course there’s that vandal resistant housing which features a movable based and dome cover to absorb high-impact blows, and tamper resistant screws which can’t be removed with standard screwdrivers. The VB-C500VD will have an MSRP of $999 and will be available in mid-October, just in time to protect your home against toilet paper and smashed pumpkins.

[ Canon VB-C500VD ] VIA [ Fareastgizmos ]

By Brian Liszewski

The Medion S47000 is not unlike the Flip UltraHD we reviewed a while ago, except that it seems designed for x-treme sports enthusiasts, complete klutzes, or anyone who’s just not so good at taking care of their toys.

On the tech side it captures 720P H.264 MOV files, features a 2-inch LCD display and includes an SD/SDHC card slot which you’ll want to take advantage of immediately since the camera only comes with 90MB of internal memory. It’s also got USB 2.0 for transferring videos to a PC and an HDMI output for connecting it to a hi-def display. And on the ‘rugged’ side the camera features a loop on top for connecting it to… um… something, and is splash resistant. So I guess as long as your choice of sports keeps you well away from water, the S47000 seems like a viable option.

It’s available from Medionshop.co.uk for about $164.

[ Medion Life S47000 HD Sports Camera ] VIA [ Pocket-lint ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Need another reason to pick up the FlashBox digital video recorder I wrote about yesterday? Well here it is. The Phantom v12.1 CMOS-based high-speed digital camera is capable of capturing a whopping 6,933 frames per second at a resolution of 1280 x 720. According to Ben Cain’s HD CINEMA blog, the Phantom high-speed cameras where originally developed by Vision Research with the military in mind, but have been adopted by the film and TV industries for high-speed photography with great success.

Now shooting HD footage at almost 7,000 fps isn’t quite as easy as shooting with a consumer-level HD camera, but Ben has posted his recent experiences and successes with using the Phantom v12.1 on a high-speed shoot for Starz on his blog. Interesting tidbit, it’s apparently better to use massive 5K lights on a high-speed shoot instead of 2Ks because you can actually see the light cool slightly in-between the alternating current’s 60 cycles on the high-speed footage, causing flicker. 5K lights on the other hand burn hot enough that their intensity isn’t visibly reduced in-between cycles. Crazy!

[ Phantom v12.1 ] VIA [ HD CINEMA ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Yesterday Microsoft announced a new version of their LifeCam webcam known as the Cinema which boasts an ‘HD’ resolution of 720P, or 1280×720 at 30fps. With a price tag of $79.99 it’s definitely not the discount bin webcam you’ll find at your local computer shop, but for that money you get an aluminum housing, a real glass lens that’s harder to scratch than plastic, auto focus, a noise-cancelling mic and a Windows Live call button making it extra friendly with Windows Live Messenger.

And since HD video does require a bit of horsepower, the minimum requirements for the LifeCam Cinema is a dual core 1.6GHz processor system, though they recommend 3GHz, and 2GB of memory. But since it’s not scheduled to hit store shelves until September 9th, you’ve got plenty of time to upgrade.

[ Pocket-lint - Microsoft LifeCam Cinema goes 720p ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

By Evan Ackerman

Traditional video cameras tend to be really, really annoying in that in order to use them, you’re constantly looking through them and pushing buttons and stuff. So you miss what’s actually going on. Yeah, you’ve got it all on tape or whatever, but you’re missing the experience of the moment. This is why hands-free, wearable video cameras might be a good idea, and this one from Thanko stands out because of its compact size and ruggedness.

At only 2.5 inches long and weighing at under an ounce, this camera is seriously tiny. It’s small enough to wear around your head without noticing or, alternatively, duct tape to any number of things (an R/C car, a model rocket, your cat, etc.) to capture some unique footage. The camera is waterproof to an impressive 65 feet, and will record QVGA (320 x 240) vids without sound for up to 2 hours on 2 gigs of internal memory. The battery is integrated, and it both recharges and transfers data via USB. It costs $135, which is a bit much for such low resolution and lack of audio, but the serious waterproofing might make it worthwhile.

[ Thanko ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

By Evan Ackerman

Every night, farmer Bob tried to chase down those stupid little gray aliens with the big black eyes who were stealing his cows. And every day, farmer Bob’s friends would call him crazy. Until, that is, they saw the footage from his video recording flashlight with infrared LEDs. Knowing that aliens have deceptively poor eyesight, farmer Bob was able to sneak up to within 13 feet of them and use the 17 infrared LEDs on the flashlight to covertly illuminate the scene. Then, the integrated video camera captured the cownapping shenanigans in 640×480 video at 30 fps onto the 128 mb of internal memory, supplemented by a microSD card slot. Of course, it was easy for farmer Bob to find his way home later when he turned on the bright 3 watt white LED, and he could always look at the flashlight’s LCD screen to check on how much power was left in the 3 C batteries as well as the status of his recordings. All in all, farmer Bob was proud of his $399.95 investment, and it served him well, until one night, farmer Bob never came back.

So, let this be a lesson to you: if you go out stalking cow stealing aliens with a $400 infrared video recording flashlight, and your friends call you crazy, listen to them, ’cause man, you’re crazy.

[ Hammacher ] VIA [ Gizmowatch ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Planet Earth was a pretty mind-blowing nature documentary overall, but I particularly enjoyed the time-lapse footage of the bizarre plants and fungi on the jungle floors. Of course they had the benefit of professional HD cameras and talented cinematographers, but thanks to Hammacher Schlemmer, anyone can capture a time-lapse video of their own garden growing with this dedicated video camera.

The Brinno comes attached to a stake, making it easy to mount anywhere in your garden, and the lens can focus as close as 20-inches away from your subject, or it can capture a 54-inch wide field of view to get everything in frame. It snaps a photo at one of six preset time intervals, anywhere from every 5 seconds to every 24 hours, and the stills are compiled into a single 1280×1024 AVI file for watching on your computer. The camera’s housing is weather-resistant, which means you can set it up and forget about it, and it has a built-in light sensor that turns the camera off at night to extend the battery life. The 2GB USB flash drive it uses can store around 18,000 photos, and on a single set of 4 x AA batteries the camera will run for about 4 months when shooting once every hour.

At $159.95 it’s roughly the same price as a basic Canon P&S, but odds are you’re not going to want to leave one of those out in your garden for months at a time.

[ Timelapse Garden Video Camera ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You can think of the new Xcaster ST5000 from Pixavi as a really rugged webcam that’s not tethered to a laptop, allowing it to be used in a variety of in-the-field locations. It’s able to capture and stream high-def video and CD-quality sound over a number of different networking options including WiFi, WIMAX or even a satellite hook-up, and it will automatically encode the live feeds to a number of different codecs like H.264 and AAC.

It’s also built to survive a bit of abuse, with an aluminum body making it impact-proof and drop-proof even up to heights of 2 meters onto a concrete floor. And if that’s not enough, the company will be soon introducing a military-friendly version that’s also explosion proof. But at the moment you’ll have to settle with the ST5000 model which is expected to be available in May of this year for a reasonable $7,950. Oh did I say reasonable? I meant ludicrous.

[ PRWeb - Pixavi Releases Recession Proof Technology ] VIA [ Gizmo Watch ]