Resolved, within twenty minutes of posting this plea I cracked it - and it's not in the manual !
Should anyone else buy a Victure HC500 trail cam and need a kind word I'll be very happy to help.
Well, I think we all found out this companies manuals have a lot to be desired. Just about everything is undocumented and one has to find out by fire.
That said, I can't link anything yet, but a manual I found online, shows victure cams can use up to 128 gigs, which I believe to be true as I've used them on an older victure.
The manual in the box always says 32 gigs. Which I believe is a safe nofault card amount to cover victure's butt.
BUT... All manuals state to format the card with fat32. This may also be a safe default. I will test the modern file system ntfs and report back.
The modes of the HC500 are just three. Photo only, video only or photo plus video. Photo just takes like 8 count max at a time then resets to the delay interval till next trigger event - movement. Video only records a video per resolution you set from 10 sec to 3 minutes, stops per time set and waits next trigger event. Photo+video mode is when movement triggered the cam takes one photo to how many you set first then automatically records video per your length setting, regardless if movement stops. Then awaits next trigger event.
What I'm not sure of with victure, and of course no manual mentions this, is the software capable of stopping shooting in any mode if no movement is detected into the timed period.
Other brands do have this ability, and I find nowhere on victure's website or manuals an answer. I also don't know about the blue tooth and wifi functions as I have no intentions of using that ability. The thought of my trail cam wifi active and trained on my camping tent showing me getting up at 4am in my underwear to relieve myself in the woods isn't something I want port scanned across the internet. And believe it, a wifi/internet cam can be found.
One thing I have found out, is that almost 80 percent of these brands are made from the same one or two japanese or chinese firms and rebranded to a mess of different companies, victure being one of them. Which may explain why our manuals are so bad. Japanese/Chinese engineers (Engineers should NEVER write user manuals) writing the the instructions, only to be translated by east indians into Dutch and French, translated into German, who translate that to American. We never stood a chance.
Another thing, one MUST format the media card in the camera AFTER formatting on a windows computer. This establishes the base system file system. You MUST set the proper real time as well. And I found that these models don't seem to save the time settings when changing batteries. Always set the time when changing batteries.
Since I'm a photographer and have been using all sorts of controllable cameras, these trails cams are beyond frustrating for me because they're so lacking features. But I got use to it. What does catch people who don't do photography for a living or hang around nerds, when they correctly have the camera set to record, timer or not, and turn it on ready to go and then look at the media the next day and wonder why nothing was recorded? Believe or not, nothing triggered the camera that night. No bears, mice ... just a nothing night. It happens a lot and people start doubting themselves in setup.
Here's how you solve that. Because this will help you learn the basics of programming aggrevating trail cams and have confindence you are completely capable of setting these cameras as well as all the VCR's still in your house. And I am guilty of not doing this. Set the cam on your table, turn it on to record with motion (if that's even a setting) and then ... walk around in front of it about 20 feet out. First do this in the daylight, make sure you set the time for that time of your test. Then check the media, either by looking at it in camera playback or computer and if everything is set properly, you should see your silly self goofing around in your living room. Now the next test is important for people who like to night time surveillance or animal stuff.
Again, set the time or start it right away at nighttime sitting on your table, make sure it's running then turn out all the lights and jump around or walk slowly again 20 feet out. But THIS time pull out your smart phone, or digital camera and in video record mode face your camera at your table in the dark. You should see at least ONE led lit up looking right at your phone or camera lcd, if not then your trail camera has the newer dark leds. I think the HC500 may have those too. Now walk around facing your trail cam and pointing your camera at the camera on the table. Now your media should show you moving around waving your phone at nothing in particular like you're trying to record ghosts. Your phone camera is also great at checking if your tv remote or any IR remote is working by aiming the remote at your camera and you should see a little purple kind of light coming from the remote. That means it's still working. <---free tip, lol.
I'm ordering a HC500 tonight and will report back to this thread when I test it out. I will try 64gig cards at least, or even a 128gig. I will also test the file system format on the new camera.
The larger the card size the possibility of file reading slowdowns, which is typical of any device that uses media cards. I will also try and research which dc power supply can run this camera in lieu of batteries. This would be handy for when I set up my cam in the basement to see which critters are getting in and knocking over my beer bottles and eating my snacks left over from my dart games.
Hope this helps you and other trail cammers. More later.
Stay safe.
