This great, tiny 720p30 DVR uses a wide angle fisheye lens, meaning straight lines don't appear straight, but you can post-process the footage using a VirtualDub filter, meaning the DVR records this:
But after processing the video with the debarrel filter it comes out like this:
The AviSynth script I use to do this 'magical' transformation is this:
I use directshowsource() instead of avisource() because I found when I directly loaded the video into VirtualDub and use the debarrel filter there, VirtualDub's internal MJPEG decoder didn't read the full luminance range, meaning loss of detail in the darkest and brightest areas of the picture.
Without the addborders() command, edges of the image would be cut off. To preserve the detail I scaled to 1920x810, and
you can throw in a sharpen(0.1) if you want a bit more detail to show up, especially for YouTube uploads which they
butcher the bitrate when re-encoding.
To use it, copy & save that script as a .avs file, then load it into VirtualDub, the specific Barrel Distortion Correction filter can be had here: http://emiliano.deepabyss.org/
Points of note about the Cyclops 3
It's freaking tiny! The board size is 18mm x 18mm by 20mm deep with the lens.
Only weighs 4.5 grams.
When a microSD card is inserted you see a number on the analogue output showing how much recording time is available in white, the text goes red when recording showing time elapsed. This doesn't show up on the recorded footage.
It gets quite warm during operation, like some AIO cam+VTX units do.
You can insert/remove the card whilst its powered without issue, but the card could come out in a hard crash, so maybe tape it up or something.
The recorded video format is 1280x720 30fps MJPEG AVI with 11khz mono PCM audio from its onboard mic, which isn't very sensitive, probably on purpose because they know it's going to be near loud motors. One recording test I did the rate came out at about 162MB/min, so you're looking at about 3 hours on a 32GB card.
The analogue output is a direct copy of the footage that's recorded, the 1280x720 image is scaled to the 720x480 NTSC resolution, and the framerate is 30fps full-frame not the usual 60fps interlaced video you usually get from NTSC FPV cameras.
There is noticable latency on the analogue output, seems to be around 80-100 milliseconds, which is why I use a different camera for FPV flying and use the Cyclops 3 just for recording the footage, like a miniature GoPro.
The button serves one purpose as far as I can tell, start & stop recording. The LED stays on whilst powered, and blinks when it's recording.
Pressing the button when the card is full makes it display "Memory Full" on the analogue output.
The pinout on the board labelled "IO" is directly connected to the onboard button. If you want to put a more accessable button on your craft you simply wire it to the "IO" & "GND" pins.
If you remove power whilst its recording it loses the current recording - so don't forget to press the button to stop recording before removing the battery.
Where mounting the camera with access to the Micro SD card could be a problem, a Micro SD extension cable might be the solution if your craft has the space.
RikkTheGaijin has made a 3D printed mount for the Kingkong ET115 which should fit the ET100 and ET125 - https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2781380 - and here's his video of it:
