Friday, March 14, 2014

Review: Sony Action Cam HDR AS30V's PlayMemories Mobile App

Currently top of the line model for Sony's Action Cam, the HDR AS30V offers two purchase options. With, or without the Live View Remote, which allows you fingertip controls with the wrist lcd monitor. That would set you back a $100 more when purchased together with the nifty gadget. 

I figured I wouldn't need the Live View Remote as I could utilise Sony's PlayMemories Mobile App for live view. So I purchased the standard package as revealed in previous post. 

The PlayMemories Mobile App is available in both itunes and google play, free of charge. Downloading was simple. Setting up my action cam was simple too. 

As the live view is enabled through wi-fi connection, the most important thing is to turn on wi-fi on my action cam. Go to 'set up' > 'wi-fi' > 'on'.

After which, to set up the connection with your phone, turn on your phone's wi-fi and connect it to the action cam's ssid with the given password. The password sticker can be found on your instructions manual. Password is unique to device, so it's alright to share mine here. In case you lost the sticker, you can set up a usb connection from the action cam to your computer to retrieve the information from the device itself.


Once the connection is secured, open PlayMemories Mobile and wait a few seconds for it to search and connect to device. Tried a few times, connection was stable and load time was minimal for me. App was stable.


After which, you will be brought into an interface which resembles that of your camera's. Three modes are available for shooting: Photo, Video and interval recording.


There's also the settings button on the user interface located on the bottom left corner. It offers you simple but useful options to transfer existing data on the action to your phone, save options, and as well as the timing of image review.


The save option is on by default thus all the videos and photos captured during the said usage is automatically added to my phone's library. It saves me the time to re-import later on. I also like it that I can choose a few certain files and transfer seamlessly to my phone from the action cam. 


One notable takeaway from Sony's PlayMemories Mobile is that although the live view and instructions are built upon the wi-fi connection, however, there is no noticeable lag in the transmission, which I experienced on my colleague's GoPro the other time. Video recording at its max capacity was not jumpy as well. 


Low light performance for the AS30V exceeded my expectations though photos could be noisy at times. My photos are set at 170 degrees for wider coverage, that is why both ends look warped or concaved.  


Last of all, just turn off your action cam and it will be automatically disconnected with your phone due to broken wi-fi connection. 

This feature is easy to use thus rendering my action cam, so far so good.

2 comments:

  1. Currently top of the line model for Sony's Action Cam, the HDR AS30V offers two purchase options. With, or without the Live View Remote, ... asonycam.blogspot.com

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  2. Currently top of the line model for Sony's Action Cam, the HDR AS30V offers two purchase options. With, or without the Live View Remote, ... iactioncam.blogspot.de

    ReplyDelete