CineFlea & RunCam Split HD

Brief history… bought a CineFlea (aka Cine8) kit from UMT with the intention of gutting it and adding HD vtx. I added a Vista unit and it flies really nicely. I tried a RunCam Thumb Pro to capture some nice stabilisable footage but it was just a wee bit too much for it tbh. I think wind resistance as much as the extra weight was the main issue and it wobbled all over the place.

So, I switched it out for a RunCam Split HD, not realising the latency issues that I’ve now read all about. And, to be completely honest, I’m either a crap pilot or am not pushing it as fast as others as I genuinely have not seen any problems with latency at all, certainly not any thing that would affect how I fly (badly! :laughing:)

It’s not GoPro quality, and is never going to be. But getting video of decent sharable quality (2.7K@60FPS) from something that weighs in at 109g and can be flown anywhere ticks a lot of boxes for me.

I’m no freestyle pilot, but this thing is great for some nice swoopy proximity type of flying… and makes everywhere a playground. :sunglasses:

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And no kids were hurt in the making of this video :smiley: :+1:

Great flying :clap:

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Nope… little sods were all still in bed :laughing:

Do you know if you could use a Runcam Split HD as a pure DVR, ie, don’t send the video back. For a while i wondered if I could fly on analogue, but record in digital. Been looking for a Caddx Turtle for a couple of months. Now I see these Split HD’s are available, just wondering if you could wire it to a spare uart and use that to trigger recording, but still fly using analogue. I have no money for digital and would go to Walksnail if I did. But as a stop gap for recording better quality 16:9 footage, I was wondering if one of these could rigged in some way.

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Yup - completely possible… with a few caveats (as with everything FPV!) - I’d even thought of doing this myself when I realised people said the latency was so bad but, as mentioned, I’ve never noticed it.

So, the camera that comes with the Split HD is melded on and cannot be changed. This was one hmm for me, but the included camera is ok. You don’t have to connect the Split to the vtx and it will run as a stand alone unit. You can also wire it to a UART so it can be operated from a switch on the controller. I’ve even seen a YT video of someone who made a 3D printed ‘naked’ version and mounted it all in a case - but tbh, this looked like a lot of unnecessary faff to me!

The absolute key for me was weight and size. If you want something to go on anything bigger (2.5" probably, anything over 3" definitely) then the RunCam Thumb Pro has all of the above options but is 4K@60FPS and is 19g compared to 16g so this may be a better option. I bought the RunCam Thumb Pro direct from RunCam as the V2 is a fairly major improvement and no UK sellers had the V2 at the time.

Both the Thumb Pro and Split HD come with gyro logs… so I also learnt a bit of GyroFlow along the way too which was another new adventure for me. (With massive help from @Jase_MK it must be said!)

Hope that helps…

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Wowsers, that was awesome, especially through the tunnel! Great stuff… :grinning:

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Thx! - Yeah, I only had to crawl in the tunnel to recover it on… a few occasions. :grin:

(Even with crash flip enabled! :man_facepalming:)

Is a very fun little whoop spot though… and often completely deserted so it’s a pretty perfect location.

So I used to run a Runcam Hybrid 4K on my 5". It worked well (except when I broke it, but then Runcam sold me a new board for it)… The only real issue was the complete lack of gyro and that’s where the more normal action cams come in.

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At the minute I have a couple of those Runcam DVR boards that do 480p and they are ok for what I need since I fly at the same resolution, but it would be nice to get a clear DVR image, while still having a really slimline form factor that isn’t catching the wind every which way when I fly. My annoyance, if you want to call it that, is the fact that you strap a camera to a quad it’s like strapping a large flat surface to it. The Thumb Pro is another option I guess, but the Split HD is smaller, lighter and a tad cheaper. Need to think more on it.

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Yup, for the CineFlea the catching the wind part I think was the critical bit. The Split HD form factor is well thought out and can just be added to the stack. You’re still carrying the extra camera, but this is way smaller than anything else, even the Thumb Pro. Also 2.7K vs 4K… it’s a close call on YT imho. If you’re watching full screen on a laptop the difference is noticeable but for me when watching on mobile its often hard to tell them apart. Overall the Split gave me a $79 solution which I’m dead happy with.

Worth noting, I don’t think it sold well due to the reported problems with latency, but that’s immaterial here. However, RunCam now have sold out so once current stock is gone I suspect that will be it.

UMT have some in stock at the minute, so maybe, but if no spares are available it presents possible future problems.

I might just stick to the SD Runcam DVR. They are like £18 at HobbyRC and are ok for what I need. I don’t upload much footage on YT or Vimeo, just the odd recording here and there. It’s more for me to watch. Nor do I spend any time faffing with the recordings, I just convert them to x264 and upload them.

Eventually, later in the year I hope to get into the WS Avatar system and then it will be moot.

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