Customer Reviews

Camball SG-20

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The CamBall is advertised as having motion detection, called the 'Power Save' function..........

WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP!!!

Like 2 other REAL reviewers noted, this product is a complete scam.

The first review is obviously a retailer who just typed what was on the box.

I am 100% positive that I have the most recent firmware upgrade.

I can't believe the blatant scams that go on nowadays.

This cam is advertised as a motion detection camera, but I have not been able to get it to do so no matter what settings I use. I agree completely with the other poster that claims the same thing.

The headphones that were claimed to be included were not.

The instructions seem contradictory in several places. What really annoying is that the setting are represented by a series of LED lights (off, red, green, or red/green), but the instructions you get cover more than one model. So you have to constantly decipher which code means which for your model.

This item is not sold by Amazon, your order will just be forwarded to another company and you will start getting emails from them (Spam and all).

There is a five star review above that says this cam is used for outdoor sports? wtf? The quality and range of this cam wouldn't never allow you to even fantasize in your wildest dreams of using this for sports. That review also seems to cover all the points of the cam that it's capable of including uploading to YouTube (which is on the box). Isn't it amazing that the 5 star reviewer used the cam to it's absolute max capabilities to include outdoor sports? Crazyiness...

THE MOTION DETECTION DOES NOT WORK AND THE BATTERY ONLY LASTS 2 DAYS! I could not get the motion sensor to work even once - it just burns up the memory with continuous video until it's full. The instructions are difficult to interpret - they reference screens, hardware and software that are not included. The actual settings on the camera are over-complicated - lots of buttons, colors, blinking lights, and indicators. I spent two weeks - trying to get this camera to function correctly. Not once did the video ever get the correct date or time despite having a tech walk me through the process with the software. Be advised, you can NOT see real-time video through this camera on your computer screen. You need a separate "monitor" with separate wires to view the live video. This makes it really annoying to test the camera and settings, before using it.

This camera is USELESS as a covert spy camera for any professional use, unless you like to switch out the SD card every 8 hours. I gave up after two weeks and demanded my money back.

I have that product for 2 months and I tried over and over again
to get its motion detection to work without success it keeps recording even without any motion
If you are palning to use it as spy cam ,it is useless
try something else

I bought the Camball some time back and use it mainly for mountain biking. It came in a surprisingly stylish box. Apart from the camcorder it contained a cable (interestingly they combined a A/V and USB cable, seems odd but quite thoughtful, as only one cable has to be carried), further there was a plastic case/holder, a wrist strap and software (only for PC!).

The Camball itself has the size of a golf ball and feels like a high quality robust product. There is a USB port, a Micro SD slot, 5 buttons and some LEDs at the back.

When plugged in, it installs in a few seconds and one can browse through the internal memory or the Micro SD card (I use a 8 GB card), similar as any other USB card reader or drive (PC and Mac). The software which comes along is required for changing the settings, updates and to upload videos to YouTube. However, as mentioned before the software runs only on a PC so I had to start boot camp to get it running on my Mac. Apart from that the settings can also be changed by connecting the camball through the AV cable to a TV.

Video Quality:
Obviously you cannot compare the quality to HD camcorders. However, keeping the resolution in mind and considering the size of the camcorder the quality is perfect and serves its purpose very well. Light sensitivity is good and there is a night mode as well. Recording in night mode increases the light value considerably, however, at the expense of reduced FPS. Therefore fast movements in night mode tend to look blurred, whereas rather static recordings are perfectly ok.

The file is saved as MPEG 4 which works with the Mediaplayer, Quicktime and a bunch of other players. However, so far I couldn't get it working with iMovie.

Audio Quality:
The audio quality is very good, I mean to say that the mic is very sensitive and records even if farther away and the mic is not directly pointed in that direction.

Battery and Recording duration:
There is an internal Li battery. It charges in approx. 1-2 hours. And is good for 2.5 hours of recording (video+audio) I have not tried it with audio only, but guess that it can record longer.

I have not managed to fill my 8 GB card so far. The manufacturer claims that it can record up to 24 hours. Which seems to be alright as I require around 300MB per hour (again video+audio, at 30 FPS).

Handling:
Now we come to the rather tricky part, the handling. There is no screen (which is basically okay considering the size and weight of the device), though there are 5 buttons and a number of LEDs. The handling becomes quite intuitive after some trial runs, but it really takes a few moments of high concentration. The LEDs indicate the status, like recording, audio, video, battery, memory etc. and P/S which apparently stands for power saving and is nothing else than the motion detection, one wonders why it was named 'power saving'. One interesting feature ist that there is a setting which disables the LEDs in recording mode, thus nobody can see that it is recording even if it lies in front of you on the table. Connecting to TV or PC is easy. There is one cable for both. On TV there is a onscreen menu for the settings and replay.

Other functions:
There is a motion detection function. Which works fine after I did the firmware upgrade, before there were some problems and it was not reliable. It detects motion through the camera device and starts recording. There is a time stamp option which imprints the date and time on the footage. The 'motion' detection also works in the audio mode, that means, if set to audio only, it will record only audio in case it 'hears' something.


Overall it is a great useful device. It is extremely small and light and I do not think that there is another full fledged camcorder out there smaller than this. I use it for outdoor sports and it serves its purpose very well. I guess it is perfect for YouTube size videos, if the contrast is good the resolution is sufficient also for bigger sizes.

In any case, nice gadget, good craftsmanship, lots of fun.