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Disposable Camcorder

Posted by Zonk on Tue Jun 07, 2005 04:45 PM
from the yay-toys! dept.
Hardware Hacking Toys Technology
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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  • Not new.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by PopeAlien (164869) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @04:47PM (#12752047) Homepage Journal
    My camcorder is already disposable.

    Its just really expensive to replace.
    • 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.

      • 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.

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

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 07 2005, @04:49PM (#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?
  • 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, @04:49PM (#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, @04:49PM (#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.

  • 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, @04:50PM (#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, @04:50PM (#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, @08:07PM (#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, @04:51PM (#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, @04:54PM (#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, @04:58PM (#12752175)
    Remember the disposable cell phone? [slashdot.org]
  • 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.

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

    by sterno (16320) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @05:00PM (#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.
        • 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.
    • 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, @05:28PM (#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, @05:44PM (#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.

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

    by StefanJ (88986) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @06:52PM (#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
  • 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

    • Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Informative)

      by YrWrstNtmr (564987) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @04:52PM (#12752107)
      TFA is misleading. Not disposable, but instead reusable.

      Take your video, return the camera to CVS, and they burn it onto a DVD for you. Erase the card, and sell(rent) it to you (or someone else) again. Just like the 'one use' still cameras.

      This WILL be hacked to allow home retrieval of the video. Wonder what the resolution is?

      • It would be better called a "one time use" video camera: like the cameras, both film and digital of the same name.

        I worked at a major camera-store chain (rhymes with 'zits') a while back, right when they first came out with one time use digital cameras. We were actively discouraged from calling them "disposable," because in reality they were anything but. In order for the company to make a profit, each one had to go out and back at least twice, I think. Probably that number went down as they made more of t

    • Re:Wait a second... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ReverendLoki (663861) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @04:54PM (#12752129)
      I believe they mean it has a memory unit, capable of storing about 20 minutes of video, hardwired into the internal workings of the machine, not readily accessible from the exterior. This would be similar to other disposable still cameras, anyways. You can delete some video and re-shoot it, but can't hold more than 20 minutes at a time. In the lab, they have their own means of accessing the data, which they then burn to a DVD for you.

      I can't help but think that, since I imagine they will re-use everything, including the memory unit, that people will find out not only how to get the data form the chip itself, but also will be able to read what was recorded on there by previous disposable camcorder owners. No chance of that going wrong at all...

        • Re:Battery Life? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ReverendLoki (663861) on Tuesday June 07 2005, @05:37PM (#12752556)
          Probably not easily accessible (at least no more accessible than the memory), but even if it's not accessible, it should surely be replaceable. I'm starting to think that, when these get hacked, I might have to pick one up.

          Hell, pick up several - I think this one could catch on more than the disposable digital stills. Attach one to your RC airplane and play CIA with it... even better if you can hook up a wireless feed! Or use a ziplock bag to make you're own underwater camera. I know there's a lot of things I would risk doing with this that I'd never use our expensive "real" camcorder for.

    • Disposable like "disposable" printers. Where you use it until it breaks (fairly quickly, of course) and it's replaced with little thought to the price.

      I know people that buy inexpensive new printers when they run out of ink because new printers come with new cartridges - and are usually cheaper ($35) than replacement cartridges (~$45).

      Of course, some of us just buy off-brand replacement cartridges or refill kits. We're the kind of folks that would hack a $30 camcorder...
    • Article's not too clear. My guess is that you can't get to the card directly, and they use some sort of super-secret connector to actually get the data from the camera to their computer at CVS, then they burn the video to a DVD for you.

    • A camcorder that records onto a digital card is disposable...how? Does it just die after 20 minutes? Who needs a camcorder like that?

      It means that the memory card in the camera is good for 20 minutes before it is full. I had a video camera that, with a 512mb compact flash, would be good for about two hours at low resolution and about 75 minutes at VHS resolution. Then you need to either use another memory card (where the card is removable) or that's the amount of material you can put on it.

      I just pur

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