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The Octave 5-in-1 Multipod Camera is a tinycam that can take photos, shoot video, record audio, and act as a webcam. Wait, that’s only 4 things…oh yes, number 5 must be the hella fun you’ll have if you strap this little camera to a fast remote control car or a remote control airplane or kite. Yes, that’s right – the image you are looking at is the point-of-view from the Octave, strapped to a Nikko remote control car that goes 20 miles per hour. Just wait till you see the action video we made with the Octave…
What’s in the Box?
The Octave 5-in-1 Multipod, the application/driver CD, the neckstrap pouch carrying case, and the flexible USB cable. (In case you were wondering, #5 in “5-in-1” is USB flash drive.)
What’s Good About It?
The Octave Camera takes surprisingly good video at 640×480 resolution and 30fps. The memory size on the Octave is 128MB, which can hold a surprising 6 minutes of video on the highest setting. Roughly 2000 640×480 images can be stored on the Multipod, images are stored in JPEG format. Audio on the highest setting (11 kHz audio) will record 55 minutes of audio on one battery charge, with a total audio storage capacity of 200 minutes. The other nice feature of the Octave is the internal battery which is Lithium-Polymer and holds a good charge, even after several months of use. (To charge the unit, you just plug it into a USB port – sweet!) Getting the unit to work as a webcam was tricky, but once I found the right drivers I was able to use the webcam in MSN Messenger as well as in any other Windows application.
Oh wait, I mentioned a video, right? Check this out:
What Could Be Improved?
A few things. First of all the still-image quality is a let down after you see how good the video quality is. The image above was taken in daylight, and is indicative the images you will get from this tinycam: colors are washed out, and objects have a rough and jagged edge to them. (There is no flash on the Multipod.) Video is stored in STJ format and has to run through a software convertor to get viewable ASF files. Strangely, the resultant output ASF file is almost the same size as the original STJ file. It would be nice if video could be pulled straight off the drive, software convertors suck. The flexible USB cable had a tendency to flop over every now and then, not all the time but enough to be annoying. The biggest area needing improvement, though, is the startup time. Meaning, it takes a full 15 seconds from the time you push the power button for the Octave to be ready to take photos, audio or video. For a camera that is designed to be a “carry-around, take photos at any moment solution” fifteen seconds is an eternity.
GadgetMadness Verdict: Watch out xXx, Here Comes “High Octave!”
My first reaction to this camera was to dislike it – I felt it was overpriced and gimicky. However, the more I started using it, the more I liked it. The Octave Multipod 5-in-1 is a jack of many trades, master of one (video), and cute as a button. If it isn’t apparent in our action video, we had a lot of fun with this camera, and you probably will too. It is important to note that this camera took a solid hit on pavement one of the times our kite crashed, and another time came detached from the kite and fell about 80 feet and hit dirt, hard. Neither fall affected it, which shows how tough this little camera really is.
More photos in the Image Gallery: Octave 5-in-1 Multipod Camera
Octave Mutipod Home Page
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