Spy Review

This handheld wireless receiver and digital video recorder is a bit of spy kit that has been on my wish list for a long time. Thanks again to Pakatak, I finally get to play with this lovely bit of kit! In a nutshell, the receiver allows you to receive any 2.4GHz wireless camera and then record the video footage into an MPEG4 format. There are many overt and covert video cameras that are compatible with this receiver, as it uses the standard video frequencies. This kit combines a receiver, 2.5 inch (5 cm) monitor and a video recorder in a single portable gadget.

This kit particularly lends itself to operations in the field. No bulky monitors, PCs or laptops to worry about when using this portable receiver. All you need is a battery, a camera and the receiver.

The handheld wireless receiver and digital video recorder comes with a standard pinhole spy camera, so there is no need to purchase that separately. The kit costs £200 including a 2GB SD memory card, or just £180 without an SD memory card. The kit without the SD memory card is pictured below. The complete package includes the 2.5inch receiver, a standard pinhole wireless camera, mains adaptor for the camera, PP3 battery clip for the camera, earphones, USB leads, phono leads (to connect to a TV), and a power adaptor for the receiver.

Handheld Receiver Kit
(Click to enlarge)

My first impressions of the receiver were very positive. The receiver feels robust but only weighs 180g. The blue LEDs add a cool factor to the unit without blinding you (as some blue LEDs are very bright). The screen itself is high contrast with strong colours, making it easy to look at in both bright and poor lighting conditions. The glossy fascia of the screen does look as if it could scratch easily, so you’d want to take some care that it doesn’t get knocked about.

Once I switched the unit on, I started messing around with the menu. The receiver can actually play MP3s and display photos as well as its designed function. The buttons for navigating the menu are relatively intuitive, but it took me a little while to work out how to use the buttons (I didn’t read the manual!). However, adjusting volume, switching to a different camera channel, recording and stopping recording is intuitive.

Handheld Receiver and Camera
(Click to enlarge)

Now I was happy playing with the receiver, I wanted to actually receive a video signal! So I flicked the Record/Play (R/P) switch to Record, and clicked the channel change button a few times until I saw video from the camera on the screen (my camera uses the 4th channel). Now I had the camera, I wanted to record the footage. So I pressed the Record (REC) button and lo-and-behold, I was recording! I hit the stop button, went back into Play mode, into the Video menu, selected a video file and hit play. I could see the recorded video perfectly.

So I had some video footage, now I wanted it on my PC. So I dug out the USB lead, plugged it into the bottom of the receiver and then into the PC. The receiver started recharging, the PC did some thinking, and then the PC detected the receiver without using any drivers. I loaded up the recorded video in media player and was surprised to see the quality of the video was excellent and in a large window (640 x 480 pixels).

Having had a play around with the settings, I discovered that hitting the menu button in the record mode allowed you to change the video resolution (640×480 or 320×240) and video quality (Standard, Better, Best). At the highest settings for both, I found it took up 2MB for just 3-4 seconds of video. Therefore you’ll want to use a large SD memory card if you intend to use the recorder at its highest settings. If you’re serious about having excellent quality surveillance footage, this kit will give you impressive results.

I won’t say too much about the camera, as it’s just like any other wireless spy camera. Since you can use any 2.4GHz wireless camera, the camera is not a limitation with this receiver kit. For most uses though, the camera is excellent and does have a built-in microphone. Since the recorder is capable of recording audio, you essentially get a bit of audio and video surveillance equipment rolled into one.

To show you the capabilities of the receiver, it does contain a sample MP3 music file, a photo and a sample video. These files take up space on the internal 64MB memory, so you’ll want to delete those if you’re not going to use a memory card when recording video from a camera.

So what did I think overall? It’s refreshing to get my grubby hands on a bit of spy kit that exceeds my expectations. The handheld receiver is capable of recording in three compression qualities, two different resolutions, provides audio support, uses an internal rechargeable battery lasting up to 5 hours, supports SD cards up to 2GB and comes with all the accessories you need to get cracking. This is a top-notch bit of kit, and easily ranks alongside the body-worn button camera as a must-have piece of video surveillance equipment.