Blackvue SC300 Sports Camera product reviews

I recently found myself in the position of needing a compact camera that was capable of shooting in 1080p HiDef, but also allowed me to see what it saw in order to frame the shots. I have a camera that will do 1080p but doesn't have any way for me to see what it sees in realtime... I have a camera with a backscreen that lets me view the shot live, but it won't do 1080p. What to do, what to do... and then I stumbled across this camera.

Priced at an affordable point in the market, it offers a range of features sure to please. The ability to record at 1080p, 720p and 480p at very high frame-rates, time-lapse mode, WiFi interface that allows you to get a live feed from the camera - perfect for those times when you need to see what's going on from a distance or in in my case, the times when I have the camera on a pole up in the air, or I am playing both interviewer and cameraman at the same time - plus up to 32gb of microSD storage.

The only issue I had was the time-lag between power-up and the ability to activate the WiFi - there is a 30-45 second dead-zone after powering up the camera during which WiFi will not activate. Turning the camera on a little time ahead of needing to view a live-feed is an easy work-around though so while this is a little frustrating on those rare need-it-now times, it isn't really a major functionality issue. Also, when you consider that this unit in particular is actually aimed at motorists, once the camera is set up and installed, you really don't need the WiFi link much at all so it's a non-event in it's normal mode of operation.

The resulting footage is great, with minimal fish-eye distortion over most of the screen, and it's really only significant right at the outer edges of the frame. A little cropping, and you've got almost perfect optically-stable footage as a result. While I haven't edited and uploaded any footage of it at the time of writing this review - mainly because I just haven't had time to sit down at the editing suite yet - I will be able to show off footage soon. Watch the comments section below for a link when I do have it done.

Battery life - pretty important. Charging is as simple as plugging it into any USB port with the supplied Mini USB-B cable - a 2amp wall-charger will give you far faster recharge results than a PC will, but even a half-amp laptop port will do the job in a pinch. Times will vary of course, but overnight is a safe bet across all options. Usage - The specs state 140 minutes at 1080p @ 30fps. I got a solid 155 minutes with some battery to spare running it with WiFi off, so I would say bank on 2 hours easy, unless you want to watch it live-feed, in which case trim that to no more than half an hour to be safe, and anything beyond that is gravy.

Of course, in the basic kit there's a cigarette-lighter charge cable supplied, so if you are planning to mount it in your vehicle as a dash-cam, forget about the battery and just leave it plugged in. It's hell on the battery, but you'll run out of memory-card storage space well before you have any power issues.

Overall, this is a very nice unit - easy to use, feature-packed and provides excellent footage with much less distortion than some units with larger price tags. While the case I got for this trial wasn't waterproof because it was missing the cover for the side hatch, under normal circumstances the fresh-out-of-the-box kit comes with a screw-on side hatch that seals the case against rain or immersion up to 40m. An assortment of mounting brackets and options come in the basic kit as well, allowing you to mount the camera at almost any angle. They even throw in a microSD card so you don't have to get anything extra in order to get started. A range of accessories are available if you want to boost up the kit, so it's worth checking them out before you make your order, so you can get everything you need in one shot.