Transcript
A Complete Guide To Hacking the CVS One Time Use Camcorder Note: If you need help, or find problems in this guide, contact me at
[email protected]. Also, it is important to stress that I did not come up with this, I just wrote the tutorial. The nice folks at Camera Hacking wrote the software. 1. The first thing you need to do is obtain a CVS One Time Use Camcorder. These are available now at CVS, Rite-Aid, and Target. If you cannot find them there, or do not have a store near you, people are also selling them at eBay. 2. Now that you have your video camera, you can obtain information about it. “Vulcan nerve pinch” your camcorder by holding down the Record and Delete buttons while pressing Power. You should see information about your camcorder, most importantly, the Firmware version, or FW-VERSION. If this is 3.xx (3.40 through 3.76 or so), your camcorder should be able to work on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. Otherwise, it might be able to work on other operating systems, but this is not guaranteed. 3. Next, you need to construct a cable, with which to connect the video camera to a computer. There are two ways to do this: the temporary way, by soldering half of a USB cable to the camera, and the better way, by constructing a removable cable for your camera. 3.1.
Soldering a temporary USB Cable. Warning: This method can screw up your camcorder. I strongly recommend building a removable cable (see 3.2). With a cable attached like this, it is very difficult to record vide, as you will have a USB cable dangling from the top of your camera.
3.1.1.
The only things you need to have to solder a USB cable to the camcorder are a USB cable, a soldering iron, and a small Phillips head screwdriver.
3.1.2.
Cut the USB cable in half. Strip each of the four wires on the USB cable.
3.1.3.
Open the camcorder with the screwdriver.
3.1.3.1.
Open the battery compartment by sticking a pen in the hole on the bottom of the camera and pulling the latch. Then slide the cover off. Take the batteries out.
3.1.3.2.
Peel off the corners of the sticker above the battery compartment (the one that surrounds the screen). Unscrew each of those screws.
3.1.3.3.
Completely remove the sticker on the top of the camcorder that discusses returning it for development. This will expose the data port and solder pads for the USB cable.
3.1.3.4.
Pry off the plastic case. I find it easiest to start at the data port at the top and work down.
3.1.3.5.
Unscrew the two black screws at the bottom of the circuit board, and pop the circuit board out, so that you can easily access the solder pads.
3.1.4.
Using the diagram to the right, solder the four wires of the USB cable to the solder pad. Warning: Be gentle - you can lift the pads from the circuit board with overzealous soldering, which will ruin the camcorder.
3.1.5.
Double check everything to make sure that there are no shorts, and that the result resembles the diagram. Then, re-assemble the camcorder.
3.2.
Constructing a Removable cable
3.2.1.
To construct a removable cable, you need several things: a Palm m100 HotSync cable (any kind will do - serial or USB), a USB cable, and a soldering iron. I am familiar with the serial Belkin m100 cable, available on eBay, and will be discussing that version.
3.2.2.
Once you have the cable, vigorously sand down the top of it, as shown in this illustration. When the cable fits snugly in the data port of your camcorder, it is done. Note: you want a tight fit.
3.2.3.
Using a butter knife or similar tool, separate the two halves of the connector. Move the yellow wire on the far left over a pin, by soldering and desoldering it. Make note of the colors
of the wires, in case they are different from the diagram. When you are done, it should look like the image on the right. 3.2.4.
Cut the cable in half, and strip the six wires of the side that connects to the camera.
3.2.5.
Cut the USB cable in half, and strip the four wires of the side that connects to the computer.
3.2.6.
Solder these wires together as shown in the image (ie, the color that corresponded to each pin, should go to the labeled color on the USB cable) Should colors differ on your m100 cable, you’ll need to solder differently.
3.2.7.
Double check to make sure there are no shorts and wrap the connection up in electrical tape or heat shrink tubing.
4. Now, you need to install the drivers on the computer, and get it set up. 4.1.
For Windows:
4.1.1.
Download and install the CamcorderKit from here. Install libusb as well. That version of Ops has CronusKey installed in it, which makes it much easier to unlock your camera. However, new versions of Ops do not, due to some legal threatening by Pure Digital, the manufacturers of the camera. If you have a 3.xx camcorder you can unlock it without CronusKey. If you do not, you’ll need to do some messy hardware hacks, which are beyond the scope of this article, or use CronusKey. Note: CronusKey is currently available only for Windows, so you will need a Windows computer to unlock your camcorder. However, once it is unlocked, it should be able to work on Mac OS X and Linux.
4.1.2.
Plug the camera into the computer. It should say “Found New Hardware: Saturn”. If it does not, check the cable, and make sure that everything is connected and nothing is shorted.
4.1.3.
In the installation wizard, choose to search for the driver in a specific location.
4.1.4.
Then choose, “Do not search, I will select the driver from a list.”. Scroll down to USB Bus Controllers, and select that.
4.1.5.
Press “Have Disk”, and select the driver that should be in C:/Program Files/CamcorderKit20/drivers/bin/saturn.inf, or if you installed CamcorderKit in a different location, where you installed them.
4.1.6.
Drivers are set up on the computer!
4.2.
On Mac OS X, just install PureTool.
4.3.
On Linux, you’ll need to have libusb installed. Then, install Ops-For-Linux 0.13.
5. Now, you can get to the fun part – downloading and viewing your videos. 5.1.
With Ops (Windows or Linux):
5.1.1.
Open up Ops 0.20.
5.1.2.
Click “Open Camcorder”, then “Unlock Camcorder”.
5.1.3.
If you have a non-3.xx camcorder, press Settings, and check the box Clear Challenge Keys. This will make it so that your camcorder can be unlocked by applications without CronusKey, such as those available for Mac OS X or Linux. Press okay, and accept the warning. Click Open Camcorder and Unlock Camcorder again.
5.1.4.
Use the button “Download All Movies”, to download the movies from the camcorder.
5.2.
With PureTool (Mac OS X):
5.2.1.
Open PureTool.
5.2.2.
Click “Download All”.
6. There are several modifications that can be done to the camcorder, to make it record better quality video, and customize it. On Windows, you should now update the version of Ops you have, by going to Sourceforge.net. Note: This version does not have CronusKey, so you cannot unlock your camcorder with this. 7. Before doing anything here, back up the file USP.BIN. In Ops, Update Directory Listing, and scroll to p3. Click on USP.BIN and then Download File to somewhere safe. In PureTool, go to Configuration, then Advanced. Then click on Partition 3, and USP.BIN. Press download, and save the file. 7.1.
Changing the Resolution: With either Ops or PureTool, you can change the
resolution of the camcorder from 320x240 to 640x480. In Ops go to View/ Change camcorder settings, in PureTool go to Configuration, and press Get Config, then change the resolution, and press Set Config. 7.2.
Changing the Bitrate: You can also change the bitrate, from the default 128 or 256, to anything as high as 1024. In Ops go to View/Change camcorder settings, in PureTool go to Configuration.
7.3.
Changing the inactivity timer (the inactivity timer turns the camcorder off when you haven’t been using it. In Ops 0.20, if you downloaded it above, you may not need to do this. Instead, go to the View/Change Camcorder settings page. This modification requires manual changes to the USP.BIN file, and can ruin your camcorder, though it is fairly easy to do. This hack only works on firmware version 33.19 and above.
7.3.1.
First, download a hex editing app. For Mac OS X, I recommend Hex Edit. For Windows, there are several apps available, Google for Hex Editor.
7.3.2.
Next, you need to download your USP.BIN file. You may remember how this is done from the backup stage. In Ops, reload the directory listing, and brows for USP.BIN in p3. Then, click the “Download File” button. In PureTool, go to Configuration, Advanced, Partition 3, USP.BIN, and click Download.
7.3.3.
Open up USP.BIN in your hex editor. Scroll down to 0x01B0, and you
should see 152D. If you want the timer to last longer before turning off the camera, change it to 15FF. That will give you 4 minutes and 15 seconds before it shuts down. Any hex value in between 01 and FF should work. Do not change anything else in this file. 7.3.4.
Then, save your modified USP.BIN, as USP.BIN. Go into the file browser in Ops or PureTool, click on USP.BIN, and press upload file. Choose your modified USP.BIN file. When it is finished uploading, restart your camcorder.
8. There are also several hardware modifications you can do, however, discussing those is beyond the scope of the guide. Here are some examples: stereoscopic images, infrared imaging, and macro photography.
