Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Got the cameras in and upon first inspection, these are extremely well made pieces. The mounts (pro mounts as the standards were out of stock) are all aluminum. The only bummer is there is no lens cap. The controls are a little confusing (until you read the instructions! Ha ha! which happen to be on the card that is supplied with the camera.) and the mic input button is super tiny. I hooked one up to my Samsung 55" LED TV and the hdmi out works perfectly. The room was a bit dark and tungsten lit so the picture was grainy and way out of color balance. This wasn't a surprise as the design is for outdoors.
There is virtually no lens distortion and absolutely no vignetting.
Can't wait to get these outside to see what they can really do. Gut says they are going to be very similar to the image from Gopro and contour just in a different form factor. They are smaller than the contour and the mounts are easier to deal with.
More as I dig into them in the next few days!

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Robert,

Is it waterproof?

Ron

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Specs say water resistant. I won't be submerging mine!

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Thanks Robert look forward to your first test run.

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Wow. I was looking at the gopro, but this might be a better option (if I can record straight to my nanoflash for car exteriors and the like).

Has anyone had a chance to test the hdmi output with an external recorder?

Is it possible to change the battery in the field (or are you stuck with one sealed battery)?

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Under advanced settings it looks like you can select the following frame rates:

25 / 50
30 / 60

Replay XD1080 Advanced Settings

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Did a little test today with mixed results...

Mounted using the 1/4-20 standard mount to utilize my heavy duty clamp mount on the trailer hitch of my minivan. Did exactly what I expected...virtually no shake and very stable image. The 110deg field of view is nice without any distortion. Color is good.

Now the not so good...with a disclaimer!
The camera defaults to a low-res mode that simply stopped my heart upon first glance at the footage. Grainy and mushy details. Plus the auto exposure was pumping very badly.
QT details said the video was a 7.5 mb/s which is extremely low.
Then the ligtbulb went on and I remembered you can adjust a bunch of settings. Unfortunately it's not in the manual and I had to contact Replay to get the instructions. Turns out it's super easy...
In the top folder on the card there's a text file. Open it, change the numbers and save!
Once that was done the bitrate almost doubled to 14.2 mb/s and I also changed to average rather than center for the auto exposure.

YAY!!! Now the footage looks great! (well...as good as a POV cam usually can look)
Why they ship the camera with less than the best quality settings is a mystery to me. Seems they would want these things to rock right out of the box.
And they really should emphasize that there are quite a few settings that can be tweaked.
More testing this week and who knows, maybe I'll have to get an external recorder. The picture from the HDMI to my Ikan 7" monitor was spectacular! They need to make a back end screw cap that locks the hdmi in place and seals it from the elements. Then there's a useable solution for external recorders!
Might be something to this little camera!

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

"Now the footage looks great! "

Thanks! Now we like to see some short, native footage :-)

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Great! ;-) Thanks for url.

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

more playing around today...

pointed the camera out the window of my studio and hooked it to my Sony 32" LED TV. even though it's a bright sunny day, still got a fairly noisy image...color and exposure were very good though. Then hooked it into my Matrox MX02 to record a bit of Pro Res 422 into FCP. Same overall impression. Significantly better image than off the card though! Not worth posting any vid as it was a static shot out the window. Once my mounts get here (UPS says tonight) the real fun begins!

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Can you upload any kind of native files from this camera to the internet (rapidshare etc.)? I would like to analyze this files...

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

me too! thank you

Re: New POV camera: Replay XD1080
 

Here are a few on YouTube with it.
‪ReplayXD - Touge battle on Mulholland HWY Aprilia RSV4 APRC vs Nissan GTR PART II‬‏ - YouTube
‪ReplayXD - Touge battle on Mulholland HWY Aprilia RSV4 APRC(On-board Cam) vs Nissan GTR‬‏ - YouTube
‪ReplayXD - Touge battle on Mulholland HWY Aprilia RSV4 APRC vs Nissan GTR‬‏ - YouTube