hacking the CVS "one-time" camcorder...

Okay. Has anyone successfuly preformed the hack to download movies off of it? If so how did it go, and what guides/resources did you use? I just bought one and I was wanting some feedback. I've seen the articles on make and hackaday, but they are somewhat confusing. Any feedback? Thanx!

Hmm, I thought you were gonna tell us. )

Yeah, I thought this was possible, but never looked for instructions. Which were the articles you mentioned?

the articles are...
http//www.hackaday.com/2005/08/03/cvs-camcorder-download-alpha/
and
http//www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/08/cvs_camcorder_u.html

Within the next few days, i'm going to be doing this i guess. I'll let you know how it goes. lol. i mainly wanted to do this beacuse my Make mag has an article on hacking this and putting it in a model rocket. SO AWESOME! Haha.

EDIT
The Make article says to also try these sites...
http//www.camerahacking.com
and
http//www.makezine.com/07/camerarocket/

Cool. I may do this at some point. )

But isnt the quality on the camera crap? If you wanted to use it for a model rocket, and only want to record like a minute of video, just get those cheap video camera/digital camera. It'll take the hassle out of hacking the camera.

it's not all that bad. you can even change the firmware to record at a higher quality. lol. they have so many limitations. i hope i have a version that's still hackable though P

hackaday has it pretty spelled out


www.i-hacked.com has it too....a little more user friendly instructions

wow how big is the thing and is it really worth it in the end ?

the thing is a tiny bit taller than the size of a rectangle waklie talkie minus the antenna (that's the only comparison i could think of P) and if I can hack it, i think it's a good deal. a fairly decent quality video camera for only $30

UPDATE So, I wanted to try the cheapest way to do this by using things I already had, so I tried just soldering a usb female onto the correct ports (which was REALLY HARD, i must add, i need a smaller soldering iron. lol) and then hooked it all up to the computer. I must have done most of it right, because it started up and windows knew [ibad62818e4]something[/ibad62818e4] was there, but the program used for this camera, "OPS" wouldn't recognize it. wierd. I guess i'll try to make a cable for it. I'll update again at next attempt...

UPDATE So the palm connector cord came a few weeks ago. I couldn't start it right then though, because I didn't have a torx t-5 screwdriver to open the cable's end. lol. So, I bought one at Sears today for $3, and after cutting up an old USB cord and painfully soldering the right connections to the tiny ports, and then installing the drivers and getting it to unlock, I've got it working!!! It's pretty cool. With the homebrew software you can even change the time limit from 20 minutes to whatever you want, I chose 40 minutes. I just thought I'd let you guys know P If you guys want sample videos or pictures of the cord, I'll take some, but unless you want some, I'm not taking any. Haha.

Sample Videos Please. I read about this last year and was hoping on doing it, but yea, let me see the videos before I try and do it. Thanks!

Samples please also, I wanna try this out too

Also was it difficult to find the specific palm dock?

p1cz plz.

kthx.

I hacked mine quite some time ago. It was cool and I did it just to really say I did it. The quality is worse than a digital still camera but better than a cell phone. Since I am god awful with a soldering iron it took me about 45 minutes to properly solder my connector right.

I'll most likely do this once I see the pics

Okay. I'll just send you the link to the tutorial I used to make the cord. It'll show the same thing as if I showed you my own personal cord, with more documentation... (this is for a different one time use camera, but the cord is the exact same)
http//www.rkawakami.net/dakota/index2.html

If you want to see some sample videos, here are some of the forum dedicated to this camera "hacking"

http//camerahacks.10.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=16

It was really easy to build the cord and easier to set up the drivers and software.... With the software you can even change the time limit on the camera and the resolution!

Where'd you order the palm cord. I'm going to do this

I bought it off of ebay... This one will work
http//cgi.ebay.com/NEW-PALM-HOTSYNC-CABLE-FOR-M100-FAST-SHIPPING_W0QQitemZ190050975544QQihZ009QQcategoryZ108646QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem