| Author | Message | ||
     Reepicheep |
Somebody asked a while back about a cheap onbike video rig... I found a really cool solution. CVS drugstore is selling "disposable" video cameras. They were, naturally, hacked within about 18 hours of appearing at the stores  So it is not possible to get the camera for $29 retail ($25 with your CVS card) and build a special cable (or use a normal USB cable and solder 4 joints) to extract the video, effectively making the camera a multi use camera. I will post all the details if anyone is interested. It is about as simple a hack as you will ever find. The camera is very small, very light, very durable, and stores 20 minutes of QVGA video. It runs off 2 AA batteries. At $25 each, you can get an extra just to leave in the riding jacket or tail bag until you need or want 20 minutes of video. I have not settled on a mount yet, the following link is a video shot with the camera clipped to my riding jacket with one of those big binder clips. A better mount will do much better. http://media.putfile.com/cvscamerademo Let me know if anyone is interested, I have all the information about the software and cable needed for the hack. The kids love them as well... and I am not afraid to give them one of the cameras and telling them to go nuts. Or duct taping it to the kids bikes. Or putting one in a zip lock bag and chasing fish around the aquarium... You get the idea. | ||
| Reepicheep |
BTW, that is the Odie Special Ops pipe you hear. | ||
| Spike |
Reep- That is exactly the type of setup I was looking for. You are my hero. (for the next few minutes, anyway) Post away with those details. If I get one of these setups I'll be sure to post videos on a regular basis. BTW- I've recently been having trouble viewing videos on putfile.com and the like. They'll play, but the colors are way off. Everything shows up in red/yellow/orange, almost like a negative image. Any ideas? Thanks again, Mike L. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Nice discussion of the hardware to get oriented... http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/08/how_to_cvs_vide_1.html Current state of the art including hacks to bring it to 640x480 resolution... http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/08/cvs_camcorder_u.html Windows self installing driver you will need to unlock camera and extract data... http://www.robogumby.com/cvs/ And the XVID codec (GPL) that you need to play back the native camera data... http://www.wmplugins.com/ItemDetail.aspx?ItemID=614 It's not bad at all. Build the cable (or solder a USB connector straight to the camera). Then install the "Saturn" self installer, which puts on all necessary drivers, and follow the readme in there for getting the drivers associated with the camera when you first hook up the USB. Then use the "Saturn" utility to manage the camera (find camera, unlock camera, download all videos). It's really easy. I will try and get some pictures up this weekend. Apparently there is a new version of the camera out at some CVS stores, but I don't t hink you will have much trouble finding the old one. The only part you can see through the packaging at the store says model 200 on the bottom, don't know if that changed for the new version. | ||
| Jackbequick |
Reep - Thanks for the tips, this is probably going to get a lot of good video clips going here. Is there a way to save the video clip (as a *.wmv file or whatever) from the putfile link? I'd like to add that to my video clip collection. Jack (Message edited by jackbequick on September 02, 2005) | ||
| Reepicheep |
Dunno, but I have the original. Can your email handle a 4meg attachment? Or do you want a google mail invitation (that will handle it)? I have probably 70 megs of video from various experiments on the bike, nothing too exciting, it was more about getting the camera and mounting system debugged. Send me a PM and I can either email you the video, transfer it to some other useful location, or must mail you a CD. Let me know. | ||
| Jackbequick |
Reep - I can handle anything, I get about 3600kbs down on my cable access. One thing I figured out the other day was that I can't send an email attachment bigger than 10mb. I was trying to send that m2lunch clip to Chasespeed and it was too big at 42mb. I'm going to mail it to him or something. Thanks! Jack | ||
| Reepicheep |
Update... the arms race continues. There is a new firmware of the camera out now, and the encryption is done right. Congrats to them for that much. Of course, without physical security around a computer system, there is no security around a computer system: http://camerahacks.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=1577 So it is now possible again if one is so inclined. I found the following pictures on a computer somewhere, they may help. Here is how to wire it up  Here are the raw parts  Here it is coming together   And the solder joints where there used to be a connector.  I'm switching my family to buy all our stuff from CVS from now on, FWIW. | ||
| Wiegs |
I just made one of these! It's pretty sweet...I might just have to cobble together another one, and package it for better on-bike video... |
