can anyone tell me if it is possible to use my jvc digital photo camera as a webcam? if so, what do I need, and how is it done?

thank you.

-- ron van den berg (vandenberg@hotmail.com), February 18, 1999

Answers

Ron, I am attempting to do the same thing with my Casio QV10a. If everything goes as planned, I'm using a Snappy 3.0 with the Deluxe software package.(I have to upgrade for about $35)The deluxe package has Internet capabilities. Check out, www.play.com. Thats the Snappy site. If you don't already have a Snappy, It would probably be cheaper to buy a regular web-cam set up. But the Snappy is handy for other things, too. Hope this helps

Dan

-- Dan Fuger (dfuger@gstis.net), February 20, 1999.

Probably the biggest trick is keeping the camera from powering down - some will stay on forever if plugged into the wall adapter, others insist on shutting down regardless.

BTW, an excellent alternative to the Snappy is the ZipShot from Arcsoft - I think it has a few extra features and slicker software. (Besides, I know the Arcsoft folks, and they're nice people...) Find Arcsoft at www.arcsoft.com...

Good luck!

-- Dave Etchells (hotnews@imaging-resource.com), February 24, 1999.

I have a Toshiba PDR-M1 digital still cam, and it has the auto-shutoff feature. Any suggestions on disabling this? Also, is there any Mac software out there (68k) that will take NTSC video output and capture continuously? I assume I'd have to make an adapter to connect the video out (male RCA) to the serial input on the computer... (any data on the wiring scheme?)

-- Eric R. Bassey (ebassey@umich.edu), March 01, 1999.

The Toshiba PDR-M1 auto power-boff can be defeated by holding down the [EXE] button when you turn the camera on. (page 22 of the manual. RTFM, Read The Furthluvogodsumbuddyhepmepleezin' Manual! Okay maybe read is WAY too strong a verb. Skim it at least, anything more could cause permanent brain freeze. In fairness, the 75 pg. epic mini- series, er, manual could benefit from an index and this doesn't appear in the TOC.)

As for the rest:

Going from the NTSC video out to the serial input on a MAC is a bit more complicated than hacking a cable. You're talking about designing and building a serial output frame grabber. Kinda funny considering that even if you did, it'd take over 5.5 minutes per 1280x1024 frame (something under 90 secs. for 640x480) to transfer into a MAC at 115.2Kbaud. :-) I'd look for a mac based frame grabber and grab from the video out jack.

Do they have snappy's for the mac? Or perhaps a USB based frame grabber? I'd also suggest transferring images from the serial port, but that only works in PC-mode and doesn't allow you to keep acquiring images, AFAIK. Good Luck.

If anyone finds a way to frame grab from the PDR-M1 through the serial connection let us all know. It might be useful for some things. At 640x480 with compressed images it might not take quite forever to grab a frame.

-- Gerald Payne (gmp@francorp.francomm.com), March 01, 1999.