Cheap shot

Starting about a month ago, drugstore chain CVS began selling a digital-video camera for the paltry sum of $30. The product of digital-imaging specialists Pure Digital Technologies, the bare-bones device probably will serve most often in emergency roles—such as when dad forgets to charge the battery for the family camcorder. On the other hand, the camera is so simple to use that it could develop a fan base. The buyer shoots the 20 minutes of footage the camera can store, takes it to a CVS, pays an additional $13, and minutes later receives a DVD. But how can CVS sell the camera at such a cheap price? Our Prying Eyes staff didn't have to skip many lunches to buy one and find out.

We didn't turn our camera in to CVS and have a video made. Instead we ripped it apart. We can't tell you about the quality, although most reviews rate it as acceptable in a pinch. (If you would like to read a couple of reviews of the camera check out the consumer-centric one that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle and the video-expert-centric one from Camcorderinfo.com.)

Because the business model for the camera requires the buyer to return the unit, the camera does not need removable memory. The pc board includes a Samsung 256-Mbit DDR SDRAM IC and a 1-Mbit NAND flash chip from Hynix or Samsung. A nonstandard connector that's hidden under a sticker on the top edge of the camera provides the access that CVS needs to connect via USB and retrieve the video. According to several hackers, the integrated flash chip uses the SD Card file structure.

Simplicity is the name of the game when it comes to operating the CVS camera. The back of the camera contains the LCD and a grand total of four buttons: power, playback, record, and delete. The delete button simply deletes the most recent recording session. So although you can sequentially delete all sessions, you can't selectively delete an earlier session. For example, say you had recorded three sessions. You would have to delete the third and then the second before you could delete the first.

The Zoran COACH chip has impressive autoconfiguration capabilities, so the camera adapts to light levels. But for $30, don't expect focus or zoom capabilities.

The presumed CMOS image sensor and lens reside on a 1×1-in mezzanine pc board alongside the microphone. Although some vendors sell sensor/lens modules, the mezzanine connection scheme and the way the lens and pc board come apart suggests that Pure Digital designed the sensor pc board in addition to the main board.

Power comes from a pair of AA batteries that are concealed under a plastic door at the bottom rear of the camera. The access door does not have the typical opening latch. There is what appears to be some sort of recessed latch on the bottom edge, but you don't need to tinker with that to open the compartment; simply applying pressure on the door and pressing downward will pop it open.

The camera design includes a Richtek RT9902 dc-dc converter chip, a device that would potentially allow the camera to receive power from different sources. The four-channel converter can support both battery power and, say, power via the USB interface.

The camera packaging warns, "High voltage inside. Do not disassemble camera." We don't expect that warning to dissuade many hackers. In fact if you're interested in hacking one of the CVS cameras, you will find quite a few like-minded folks out on the Web. A site called Maushammer includes detailed pictures of the internals of the camera. The engineer/tinkerer that runs the site removed the flash-memory chip from the pc board and was able to load video into a PC by placing the flash chip in a custom fixture. The site also includes details about the camera firmware and hacking the USB connection.

The Camerahacks site and forum also has a ton of information. There you can find out how to build a USB cable to fit the nonstandard connector, and the denizens of the site just announced and posted a Windows-based program to download video from the camera.