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Hardware Hacking Toys Technology

Disposable Camcorder 225

Posted by Zonk from the yay-toys! dept.
shamowfski writes "CVS Corp on Monday began selling a disposable digital camcorder. The $29.99 pocket-sized camcorder was developed by Pure Digital Technologies Inc., a San Francisco-based start-up company. The camcorder weighs under 5 ounces and holds 20 minutes of digital video and sound. It features a 1.4 inch color playback screen and an ability to delete video, and it saves video on a memory chip instead of tapes. Can't wait till they hack this one."
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Disposable Camcorder More

Disposable Camcorder

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  • Not new.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:47PM (#12752047) Homepage Journal
    My camcorder is already disposable.

    Its just really expensive to replace.

    • Re:Not new.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by TekPolitik ( 147802 )
      My camcorder is already disposable. Its just really expensive to replace.

      Damn it, you beat me to it. Seriously, I paid $900 for a major brand camcorder and a year and 3 months later it's kaput - repair price exceeds replacement price. The problem - a manufacturing defect in the processor. The warranty - 1 year. That's the last time I buy expensive crap from Sony.

      • Re:Not new.. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Skynyrd ( 25155 )
        Damn it, you beat me to it. Seriously, I paid $900 for a major brand camcorder and a year and 3 months later it's kaput - repair price exceeds replacement price. The problem - a manufacturing defect in the processor. The warranty - 1 year. That's the last time I buy expensive crap from Sony.

        I know many, many, many people with the same story - expensive Sony toy dies just after the warranty. They have all sworn off of Sony.

        I'm amazed at haw many times I've heard that.

        • Re:Not new.. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by pete6677 ( 681676 )
          It's a shame that this once great company is now running on fumes, clinging to an old reputation of high quality while they now pump out crap. I haven't had, or heard of anyone having, a good Sony experience in the last 7 years, the PS2 being about the only exception.

  • How to check this out (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:49PM (#12752066)
    I'm trying to checkout the CVS camera, but no luck:

    cvs co disposable_camera
    cvs checkout: No CVSROOT specified! Please use the `-d' option
    cvs [checkout aborted]: or set the CVSROOT environment variable.
    Can anyone help me check out the camera?

  • Now we will get "video" images from battlefields (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geomon ( 78680 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:49PM (#12752072) Homepage Journal
    With something so cheap and disposable, it is just a matter of time before these start to become part of the soldier's standard kit.

  • Has the prior digicam hack... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by robslimo ( 587196 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:49PM (#12752073) Homepage Journal
    been used much?

    I mean, how many people actually did the hack and got a cheap, reusable digital camera out of the deal?

    I'm betting it wasn't enough to have a large effect on sales.

  • Whee!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Grendel Drago ( 41496 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:49PM (#12752079) Homepage
    Yep, we're going to be seeing a whole lotta fresh amateur porn over at Livejournal from this. Man, I love PureDigital.

    --grendel drago
    • My first thought too. But it still has the drawback that kept still photo porn from exploding before digital came out:

      It has to be taken to a place to be "developed" onto a DVD. People aren't going to do that.

      • Re:Whee!! (Score:2, Interesting)

        by fishbowl ( 7759 )

        >It has to be taken to a place to be "developed"
        >onto a DVD. People aren't going to do that.

        You've never worked in a photo lab. Your assumptions about what people won't do, are wrong.
        • With a wire wisk and a vacuum cleaner.
          Really grose.
          -nB
      • I have several hundred shots taken with a Dakota Digital that say 'have faith, pervo-padawan'.

        --grendel drago

  • Nice (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I for one welcome our new Upskirt overlords

  • 20 minutes?!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:50PM (#12752084)
    That's enough space to capture the entire life-span of sexual escapades of most of the people posting to this thread.

  • Allready Hacked.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by luxis ( 240935 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:50PM (#12752093)
    http://cexx.org/dakota/pv2.htm [cexx.org]

    Might... get one myself..
  • I imagine this would be trivially easy to hack, but with only 20 minutes of what is probably lo-res video, why would anyone bother?

    • Re:20 Minutes? Why bother? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @09:07PM (#12753667)
      but with only 20 minutes of what is probably lo-res video, why would anyone bother?
      shoot it up in a model rocket

      keep it in your glove box in case of who-knows-what (Rodney King II?)

      take it mountain biking to get clips of your buddies

      on vacation when you forget your real camcorder

      as a kids' toy

      set them out on the tables at a wedding party for the guests to film each other and leave you advice

  • more info & the PV2 still camera with LCD (Score:5, Informative)

    by morcheeba ( 260908 ) * on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:51PM (#12752099) Journal
    As pointed out yesterday on engadget [engadget.com], these cameras have been out a few months -- it's just that the press release came out recently. Yep, it's from the same company that made the hacked still camera.

    The community working on hacking this new camcorder is located at:http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/viewforum.php ?f=13 [forumer.com]

    These cameras seem to have an external program memory, so it might not be too hard to hack. The forum above also has dissection pictures.

    BTW, last summer PureDigital came out with a still camera called the PV2. Unlike the one that was previously mentioned on slashdot, this new one has an LCD post-view screen and it's based on a completely different chipset. It has also been hacked [maushammer.com]. I figured out the authentication mechanism on this and most of the communications. [maushammer.com] Others got the camera to work with standard drivers and are figuring out the proprietary raw format. I wrote a disassembler [maushammer.com] and have published commentary on the built-in firmware, but you'll need a camera & firmware file to make sense of it. The firmware is protected by a checksum, but that was easy to find and correct.

    main pv2 forums [forumer.com]
    PV2 FAQ from the forum [forumer.com] - a great starting place
    my FAQ's [maushammer.com]
    unofficial devkit [sourceforge.net] for writing your own programs.
  • I think it's a great idea for motorcylists. I like to go crusing alot. I can give one of these to my biker babe sitting in the back so she can film the rest of the posse without worrying about losing an expensive camcorder.

  • Expensive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:54PM (#12752141) Homepage Journal
    So if you play by the rules - you spend 30 bucks to rent it, then another 13 to get the burned dvd. $43 for a 20 minute DVD. Seems a bit steep in my book.

  • Just another stock scam? (Score:3, Informative)

    by infolib ( 618234 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:58PM (#12752175)
    Remember the disposable cell phone? [slashdot.org]

  • waiting for the hook. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JVert ( 578547 ) <corganbilly@hotmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @05:59PM (#12752193) Journal
    This is not feasable. I'd pay $20 for a 1.4" color screen to play with on its own. There has to be a deposit to make sure they are recycled by the right people. So the $20 includes the ability to get the data back out? Pay $80, get $60 back when you turn the case in, that I can see happening.
    • The PV2 still camera I mentioned above would be great for that. It's $18 and you can send images to it over the USB. sample image [maushammer.com]. The firmware beeps for each new picture and requires a button press, but I modded it so it is silent and operates like another screen. The only drawback is a about a 1/2 second refresh time. The firmware can be optimized to eliminate the slow double-buffering, but you're not going to be able to play asteroids like that. (maybe on the built-in firmware). Of course, a text-only in
    • I don't know why you would pay twenty bucks for a 1.4" LCD when you can get an LCD and the rest of the camera for about twice that.

      My "carry along" camera is a cheap 3Megapixel SiPix I paid $100 for almost a year ago and that wasn't exactly a bargain bin price even then. It accepts up to 256MB flash chip which is good for several minutes of 320x240 AVI video. Now you can get equivalent cameras for fifty bucks or so. And yes, it will fit in a pocket.

      It takes good pictures only when you coax it, but I have
      • I don't know why you would pay twenty bucks for a 1.4" LCD when you can get an LCD and the rest of the camera for about twice that.

        I suspect that they mean that they would pay $20 for an LCD to play with just the LCD - not to have a 1.4" LCD camera...

        When the PV2 (the earlier disposable LCD still camera, which morcheeba is referring to) came out, I did the same thing; picked one up, disassembled it and removed the LCD to play with. Only thing is, I've subsequently been too busy to touch it - and it does
    • Well, that would kind of defeat the point of it being disposable, so it would be a really stupid idea. I'm sure that they aren't losing any money on them at $30 each (+13.00 processing fee if you return it). Not that many people are hackers, you know. I'd be surprised if more than 1000 of those actually got bought by hackers.

  • This will be dead soon... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sterno ( 16320 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @06:00PM (#12752198) Homepage
    Realisistically, how long before the average cell phone has basic video recording capabilities? Most phones now have still cameras, and the main limitation on video is just storage capacity. So, I should think that within 5 years, video cell phones will be standard and then this device is totally irrelevant.
    • how long before the average cell phone has basic video recording capabilities?

      I doubt I'll ever get a cellphone that has a camera, let alone video, built in. Cellphones already have too many battery-hungry features as it is.

      Give me bluetooth devices I can use WITH my phone instead.
      • Cellphones already have too many battery-hungry features as it is

        Because, of course, the camera uses battery power when not in use.

        There are several good reasons for not wanting a camera in your phone, battery life is not one of them.
        • Because, of course, the camera uses battery power when not in use.

          It uses at least 2cm of space that could otherwise have been used for the battery. So either the phone is bigger (bad) or the battery is smaller (bad).

          Features are not free, and features always seem to end up sucking battery life one way or the other.
      • You'd likely feel different if you had a child. Mine's 16 mos, and the cameraphon gets used all the time.
    • The real question is when will the bandwidth of a mobilephone be large and cheap enough so that I can just stream the video for recording to my server at home in realtime? Who needs local storage if there is floating enough free storage around on the net? All it needs is a fast enough way to access the net. If mobile phones fail to provide that, maybe free WiFi access points will cover it at least for the more public places. Who knows, will certainly be interesting when you see the first 'my whole life 24/7

  • not disposable... recyclable (Score:3, Informative)

    by mabu ( 178417 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @06:28PM (#12752464)
    Technically, the camera's batteries and its packaging are disposable, but everything else is recycled, so it's more a "recyclable" than a "disposable" unit.

  • WOW! (Score:4, Funny)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @06:44PM (#12752618) Journal
    First disposable condoms and coffee enemas, and now this! Truly we are at the dawn of a great age. What's next? Clean hookers? Quick somebody grab Dvorak! I need to know.

  • Perfect uses? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by timothy ( 36799 )
    This looks great (as someone else has linked to in this thread) for aerial photography, whether by kite or rocket -- the sort of thing that you don't want to risk an expensive camera with.

    What other things would you use this for? Underwater robots? Car-attached home-made action shots? Glued to back of pet turtle?

    There have to be some cool applications for which a $30 video camera would be perfect ;)

    timothy
  • Seems kind of pricy. sure $30 camcorder is cheap, but you don't get to keep it (it's disposable). Really what they do is take the device back, wipe it down, put it in a box and sell it again. And they charge so much to burn a movie to dvd to keep the initial cost of the camcorder low (impulse buy). But really I would prefer that CVS admits that they want $43 for you to make a short video of your vacation, birthday party, buddies at a party.

    I think I'll stick with a still camera and use the money left over

  • Non-disposable equivalent on sale at Target (Score:3, Informative)

    by StefanJ ( 88986 ) on Tuesday June 07, 2005 @07:52PM (#12753203) Homepage Journal
    (Note: I have no financial or emotional connection with the company that makes the products mentioned below. I just want to point out that for a little more you can have to keep a far more flexible product.)

    This week, Target is selling for $97 the non-disposable equivalent of this gimmick, the Aiptek "IS-DV."

    The IS stands for "Image Stabilization."

    It records to internal memory or a SD stick. A 256 mb stick holds about 60 minutes of MPEG4 video.

    It is also a still camera (5 mp, but with a non-adjustable lens), voice recorder, and MP3 player. It comes with a tripod, A/V cable, headphones, and USB cable.

    I've had an earlier version, the DV4500, for about six months. It's a great little toy. I bought it so I'd have a cheap camera I wouldn't be afraid to carry around everywhere. The image quality is pretty good:

    http://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/valley_view_ wide.JPG [comcast.net]

    The video quality is "OK." Note that this film was done under less than optimal lighting conditions:

    http://home.comcast.net/~stefan_jones/kira_jumps_h oop.asf [comcast.net] (3.3 mb ASF video)

    I bought a IS-DV so I can give the DV4500 to a relative.

    Stefan
  • like wedding receptions, instead of disposable still cameras.
  • I see the right use for this is situations where you want to capture something and it stands the chance of getting damaged.

    Attach it to your RC ariplane or car, dangle it from a kite, take it white water rafting or into the mosh pit...

    The frame rate and resolution may not be great, but if the camera is trashed you won't be out much.

  • My first thought. . . Wouldn't this be fun to launch on a model rocket? It's solid-state, so it should handle the acceleration fine. 20 minutes is long enough to prep the rocket and fly it, so you don't have to worry about rigging some gadget to trigger recording at launch. And it's not too expensive to risk crashing or losing it.

    At five ounces, it would have to be more of a mid-power rocket, I suppose. . . and I haven't seen a photo yet, so I'm not sure how big the payload compartment would need to
  • I assume CVS will refurbish the camcorder for resale after you turn it in for processing.

    Will the value of the color screen and the memory be worth more than $30? If so, wouldn't people buy them all up and take the parts for resale?

  • As expensive as phone sex! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famous@ya h o o .com> on Wednesday June 08, 2005 @01:11AM (#12755051) Homepage Journal
    The "one-time-use" camera sells for $29.99. When you're done shooting your 20 minutes of video, you return it and pay $12.99 to get the video transferred to DVD.

    That's $42.98 per use... $2.15 cents per minute... not including sales tax.

    Though people talk about hacking it, the people who could hack it are not the target market for it, as they can figure out how to use their camcorders and DVD burners.

    - Greg

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