Some cameras, with best video article:
 

A co-worker of mine did that. He ran Doom (the game) on his old Kodak still digital camera. Ok graphics on the LCD and menu buttons used for controller. I did a double take first time I saw it.

Stephan,

I'm curious about the programming system, where ever it allowed full access to sensor control (frame-rate, binning, windowing and exposure) and frame output. Could you ask your friend?

Canon S2 IS
 

Hi Stephen,

Just thought I would add some more about the Canon S2 IS. I have had this camera for almost a year now and am happy with its performance. 5MP stills are good and the video capability was surprisingly good. Under auto settings the camera tends to fish a bit with the focus if light levels are low or subject contrast is minimal.

There are two notable drawbacks to video from this still camera:

1. Max video setting of 640by480 at 30fps eats up the SD card like a snack! I get a little over 9 minutes of video on a 1GB card. So taking video of any kind of event that lasts 15 minutes to an hour or more and this video solution has serious drawbacks.

2. Native file AVI format for the video frequently runs into compatibility problems with video editing software. If any one can recommend a suitable software package (reasonable price) for editing these Canon AVI files I would appreciate hearing from you!

The best use of video from the Canon S2 IS is production of short clips for download to computer and playback from the computer.

So now I am looking at buying a video camera to be free of the hassles just mentioned. Relying on one piece of equipment just doesn't work for me!

Don

avi format problems
 

I completely forgot to mention this.... I have similar problems. Vegas cannot rread the video created by my Canon S1-is. For whatever reason, it doesnt like the resolution / bitrate / ???. So all I get is sound when I import a video and play it back in the trimmer. My room mate used Quicktime pro to export the files as .dv and that worked (on his mac) but when I did the same thing with quicktime pro on my win system the pixel aspect ratio was all screwy with no apparent reason (yes I checked all the settings, which sema to be in order). I may have to change the settings to the oposite of what they should be in order to fool quicktime into outputting the correct settings.

jason

Hi Wayne,

It's this emulation layer:
http://digita.mame.net

It'll only work on these cameras which runs Digita OS:
http://digita.mame.net/reviews.htm

There's developers info here:
http://digita.mame.net/develop.htm

Basically, it loads the emulation layer like any OS would load a program. That emulation layer has nothing to do with controlling normal camera functions. It's only for playing video game on the LCD screen. I suppose one could write a program to custom control a camera, but that would entail lots of reverse engineering unless somehow the hardware specs or software libraries were open source.

Vivitar 8300S
 

<< In addition to outstanding still images, the VIVICAM 8300s also has movie clip capability with sound. These may be recorded at 640 x 480 or 320 x 240 at 24 fps until the memory card is full. >>

New CMOS sensor from Micron, 10 images per second at 8-megapixel resolution or 30 frames per second at a resolution of 2-megapixels. And get this, for $200 to $300 level digital still cameras.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12851321

I meant the OS layer and development system under it, but you mean your friend ran the application rather than he was one of the developers?

The pages are out of date, I wonder if it is useful on new cameras? I can't get links to the OS manufacturer.

Good find, Stephen.

Hi Don, thanks for the info. Your 2nd point makes a difference to me.

Sorry Wayne, my co-worker just ran the emulation application, not developed it. From the developers page, it mentioned vxWorks, it's an OS for embedded devices and it's by:

http://www.windriver.com

Actually, it is the DigitaOS that is used to control the device and run programs, but I think that product is closed now.