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I have written some instructions for my Chinese MD80 camera copy. I’ve put them up here as numerous people find that they either don’t get the MD80 camera instructions or get them in Chinese. Even the English language ones aren’t particularly good, hence I decided to re-write them. Buy MD80 camera if you have got one already!
I admit that these are pretty basic, but there isn’t really much to know once you get the hang of things.
The MD80 camera has a built-in Lithium Polymer battery that is supposed to last about two hours. This is charged using the Mini-USB port on the bottom of the camera, either from your computer’s USB port, or using the mains adaptor usually supplied. It is recommended to charge it fully before first use. I have yet to discover how it lets you know it is fully charged. Though the battery is soldered on, various people have added larger capacity batteries. Check out the MD80 Camera Useful Links page for more information. I have also heard reports that if you hold down the Record button while plugging in a USB cable, it will run from the USB power without going into Mass Storage mode or Webcam mode.
The MD80 camera will not operate without a microSD or microSDHC card in place. More information on suitable cards can be found my MD80 memory cards page and if you need one in the UK, I’d recommend you buy it from MyMemory.
There are three buttons and two LEDs (lights). The three buttons are pretty straightforward, as they are helpfully labelled with ‘Power’ and ‘Mode’ on the side buttons, and some symbols by the top button. The symbols appear to be the standard Stop (a square) and Record (a circle) symbols. On my camera, the LEDs are red and blue.
Both lights are on when charging.
Steady blue light appears to be ON. Will go back to standby (turned off) if not activated within 45 seconds.
Pressing the mode button alternates between Normal and Sound-activated recording modes. You can tell that Sound-activated mode has been chosen as the red LED flashes about twice a second. It is not recording in either mode at this point.
To record: press the button on top in Normal mode, or a noise over a certain level (claimed to be 60 dB) will start it in Sound-activated mode. In either mode, recording is indicated by the red LED flashing about once a second. It appears that the button can also be used in Sound-activated mode, but this often causes confusion as recording will stop after two minutes without further noise activation.
I have temporarily turned off comments due to the quantity of spam.
good info mate
but can it take an 8gb 16gb card maximum
e-mail me.
thanks mark
Thanks for the info. I just provided the info in the manual as I don’t have a bigger card to try!
Great set of instructions. Seen lots of comments about the cameras not working when purchased which is a shame as they are good little cameras for the money.
I have also published some info on these cameras and how to set the time and date. I hope you don’t mind me adding the following link for further info.
Cheers.
Laurie
No problem!
Mine takes a 16g card and works fine.
Thanks for writing this, i’ve been trying to get mine work for days! sorted now, cheers!
Nice info! I put a link to here on my blog where I compared a few of these micro DV cams – hope you don’t mind:
http://nastyevilninja.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/cam-study-keychain-spycam-md80-and-veho-muvi-pro/
I use mine mounted inside a helmet or on a motorbike. After a year it’s still going strong!
Glad you found the info useful, and thanks for the link!
Cheers,
Dave
Great someone is trying to sort out the Chinese/English instructions for these little cameras. I admit I’m surprised at the quality of the picture from such a tiny device. I’ve managed to sort out most of it, but do you know how to sort out the anoying date which insists it is 2008. I have put the TAG.TXT file in the root directory of the SD card (using the SD adaptor and loading it directly from my PC) but despite having put the new date in the field and deleted (I think) the 2008 date file it still insists its 2008 but the time counter works. I’d be happy to delete the date altogether, any suggestions?
I must admit I haven’t experienced this issue. Are you formatting the TAG.TXT correctly? It’s the only thing I can think of I’m afraid.
If anyone has anything they think could help, please respond!
See Micro Mart magazine published today Thurs 3 Feb 2011 (covers the week 3-9 Feb) for a full article on MD80 clones including how to set the time/date stamp. Hope it helps?
I’ll have to see if I can find a copy. Is there anything in there that would be worthwhile putting on this website that I haven’t covered already?
I think I’ve found out when the battery is fully charged.
When charging there is a red light that stays on continuously and a blue light that flashes every second.
When it is fully charged the blue light stops flashing and just stays on like the red light.
The red and blue light both stay on without flashing.
I have a camera MD80, was trying to get the date but in the process caught everything and now is no longer recording video. What should I do? Looking forward …
Thanks for this! Looks like I got the same camera as yourself, where the manual mentions red, green and yellow lights, yet the lights are blue and red. I was having difficulty making sense of the chinglish, especially having eyes old enough to need a magnifying glass. I only got it today, off ebay, and the video in the house is crap. I am hoping I get better video outside where focus will be less of a problem. Need some warmer weather to take it out on the Suzi tho’.
Anyone know where I can download a driver for md80, mine won’r run
Try here.
Just to clarify card size…
I use an 8GB card in mine and it works fine with that!!
Cheers!
Hi
I’ve managed to change the date & time, thanks for all the advice on this and other things. My problem is I cant play back the movies I make on my PC. They open ok and the sounds perfect, I just get a black screen. If I upload the movie to YouTube it seems to work fine, so i can only assume its my software. I’m using Windows 7 64bit and using windows media player to play the movies back.
Any advice regarding this would be appriciated
Thanks
I’ve not been a Windows user at home for some years now, but I’d either recommend downloading a codec pack from somewhere safe/reliable, or downloading the most excellent VLC Media Player which will play everything you throw at it. There is always the possibility that it needs the Quicktime codec but I would never install that bloated Apple filth on anything I intended to actually use.
Hi. Excellent simplified instructions, many thanks. I had the 2008 date problem and googled “MD 80 date” and in response got several scripts. The TAG.TXT file needs to be in the first (root) camera directory. On mine, putting a “return” between lines in the text didnt work but using the space-bar did it. Also, 8 gigs is the max SD card it will use (because the battery’s 2-hours if-you’re-lucky is finished by then) so theres no point paying for a larger one. Hope this helps.
Hi
I have the chinese version of this camera(md80) and trying to set it up as a webcam. I can get video with no problem but the audio is not working. I am using Windows 7 as a OS. I have also loaded the driver for the camera.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance
Hi Jack,
I have exactly the same problem as you (video ok ,but no sound in a webcam use) . My OS is Windows XP.
Did you find out a solution ?
Regards
PAscal
are there any other cameras out with the same price range and tiny as the md80.? that come with instructions that are in english, not complicated, and take quality pictures?
who has good instructions in English of the 916 Button Camera with vibrating
button feature, please post or send to me if you can, thanks from Memphis
I set up the time/date TAG file as follows:
[date]
2010/11/30
14:00:06=
Copy that onto the memory card, not in a folder, it worked fine for mine.
my md80 will freeze up when charging, i will unplug it from usb and the blue light will remain on and pressing any buttons will do nothing at all, and there is nothing i can fit in the reset hole, a sharp pin would damage it i think as i tried doing that but it would not reset the device, so do not want to break it, any suggestions?
Hi hope you do not mind me advertising this, but this is a guide on how to remove the time stamp for anyone interested, hope this is cool with you admin http://kevincampbellsblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/md80-camcorder-instructions-for-removal.html
No problem! I’ll link to you on my Useful Links page too if you like!
thanks that would be wonderful
Thanks Couldn’t get my MD80 to work only playing back audio. Instructions great and downloaded VLC player and bingo! Hope the video quality is better outside – just off to try and get rid of the date stamp. Thanks again
Glad you found the site helpful! They do seem to work better in brighter light as I think it lowers the frame rate to compensate in lower light
Hello,
60 dB to starting recording i think is to much noise.
Is « there » a firmware or a tag that change this to a lower value like 15 or 20 dB or other value?
Thanks in advance
Joao
did i hear right that these can be set to record in a constant loop just overwriting the same file when its full so you always have the last hour of footage?
Thanks for the info, very useful. Have an MD80 and a Keychain 808 cam version 7 ( the latter of these has been mounted on an RC aircraft with some great results using a Lexar 8GB High Speed micro SDHC card) Video is not perfect but quite acceptable for what it is. Have just started to test the MD80 which also has a Lexar 8GB card so it will be interesting to compare the two, (also will be mounted on RC plane) An interesting amount of work on small 808 cameras has been done on this site, – http://www.chucklohr.com/808/ some of which may be applicable to the MD80 cam if you are interested.
Regards
I bought one of these last year, worked great until today. When I plug it into my PC all that happens is the blue light turns on (solid) and then a few seconds later the red light turns on (solid). None of the buttons do anything, I can’t turn it on/off or start recording.
If I unplug it and leave it on for a couple hours it eventually shuts off (possibly out of battery?), it won’t turn back on and if I plug it back in it does the same thing over again.
Any thoughts?
Hi, I’ve got two of these and they both stopped working just after a year. They are doing the same as yours Ryan, even resetting with paper clip hasn’t sorted it. I will try and find a cure will let you know. In the meantime, I decided that memories are worth more than £10 and invested in a laser-cam with 720p recording.
Curiosity and being a cheapskate means I will find the answer to this problem.
watch this space.
I’m under the impression that they die due to the battery failing. I think it was something to do with leaving them uncharged for a long time but can’t be sure.
Hi, knowing about lithium polymer/ion batteries from R/C planes, I can attest that letting one of these batteries (in this case a cell) go to too low a voltage could and probably would kill it. All I can tell you is that the two of these cameras I had suffered from the lens adrift problem, and twice they stayed on until the cell drained down, I subsequently dismantled them re-fixed the lens and re-charged them and hey presto they work again! One will now not record sound, but I think that happened before the lens problem. Looking for an answer to that one at the moment.
There seems to be a consensus that the lens has come adrift, I saw this guy’s fix and am going to try it, another guy on You Tube mentions gluing the lens back in my re-melting the glue around it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcP7RoAJwmw&feature=player_detailpage
I think I’ve ended up with the Chinese clone of the MD80.
Only just getting to play with it but I’ve ended up cracking the CD that came with it.
This contained VLC – no problem here
Storm3-10.04.08 – Haven’t got a clue what this is.
STK02N 2.3.exe – The driver for the cam.
Not sure if there was anything else on the disk and can’t read it now
Can anyone tell me what Storm3 is and more importantly send me or tell me where I can find a copy of the driver?
What little I can find says it was written by Syntek Ltd but can’t find them on the web!
Thanks Jon
My problems were sound no video, video with sound for about 4 min on another sd card,3 sd card nothing, I was using4 & 8 gb sd card class 4, didnt realise that there were different class of cards until I read this post re cards. Bought 2 x 4gb class 10, hey presto no more probs. Most of my video sound problems were with rubbish sd cards, however for normal use in cameras games ect the other class 4 work fine.
Thanks for educating me re sd class, otherwise I would proberbly just bought more junk/counterfeit cheap cards.