The MD-80 Mini DV Spy Camera is a great low cost camera, don’t expect it to be a replacement for your HD camcorder which cost you a 5 hundred bucks though since it can be found in many places for less than $20. Considering the price you get a ton of technology packed in a small device. The first thing I noticed with mine is that it has a time stamp with the wrong time.
To change the time stamp all you need to do is place a file called TAG.TXT in the root directory with the following content.
[date]
2011/10/19
01:28:00
I am surprised that there is no way to turn the time/date stamp off though. I have never seen a video camera that didn’t have a way to turn off the stamp. I guess considering the price of the recorder one could just look the other way but the guys at US Water Rockets have taken some crazy steps to remove the Time Stamp from a MD-80 Mini DV Spy Camera. They love these tiny cameras for recording the flight of their rockets. It isn’t exactly easy though since it involves removing the F16-100 serial memory chip and using a TI Launchpad to reprogram it.