Disposable camcorder

[Ryan Lee]

this may sound stupid but to get it to connect to the usb what wires do i need and what part do i open. i just dont want to go taking it apart only to find i cant put it back together .

thanks

[Edwin Hernandez]

Is it 720 x 480 @29.97 fps? Or is it like a webcam? Because any of us can use one of those for a short trip or to have in your car for any situation (perhaps, scouting!)

-EDWIN

[Evan Strobel]

I would assume if their burning the content to DVD it would at least be watchable on a TV, unless of course.... they're retarted.

[James Emory]

I think it's a great idea but I also think they are going to lose their asses on this project! These cameras had better be reeeallly tough. I'm talking dropped from 3-4 ft and left in hot cars tough. I think we all know how typical consumers can treat electronics. I think these things are going to come back beat to hell and back. We'll see....

[Matt Champagne]

Originally Posted by James Emory

I think it's a great idea but I also think they are going to lose their asses on this project! These cameras had better be reeeallly tough. I'm talking dropped from 3-4 ft and left in hot cars tough. I think we all know how typical consumers can treat electronics. I think these things are going to come back beat to hell and back. We'll see....

Haha you are absolutely correct. I worked in a one our photo lab at a drug store before, and I can definately attest to the fact quite often I got disposable cameras back in such terrible conditions. Sometimes it looked like they ran over it with an airplane. Usually though the film would survive, and the only bad thing about it is I had to open the camera in the dark box (which usually lead to me being shocked by the enormous capacitor). I would really doubt they could make video ccds that durable though.

[Steve Nunez]

TechTV has a show called "Attack of the Show" which showcased this CVS camera and even how to hack it to make it reuseable. The image quality isn't too good- probably similar to what you find with low end still digicam videos.

Here's the page for the mods- I'm probably gonna pick one up just to hack it and give it to my daughter, she loves taking pictures and videos:

http://www.g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/...S_Camera_.html

[James Emory]

I am not familiar with the terms of these disposable cameras, film or video. Is it actually yours when you initially buy it but you have to surrender it to get the store to process film or export video? In other words, are you actually renting it and if you don't return it, are you charged a higher purchase rate to cover the camera?



There's a demo of the video quality at the link in the post below. Once at the external page scroll to the bottom for the demo. It's a little better than video from a digital still camera.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....2&postcount=15

[Sean McHenry]

There is a relativly new magazine calle "Make" that just covered adding USB cables and hacking the systems to turn one-time-use digital still cameras into multiple use cams.

My question is, what is the frame size, rate and format of the digital video these things make. Also, what is the total MB capacity of these things? Some folks on other boards are claiming 30fps, 640x480 footage lasting up to 50 minutes.

Sean