Technical Info on Fisher-Price Camcorder??
Curmudgeon
mess with UNIX (tm). He's doing some experimentation with video
recording techniques and would like to get some information about
the Fisher-Price monochrome camcorder.
He's inquired with F-P's customer relations dept. and they haven't
been very helpful. I seem to recall seeing some article in something
like the IEEE Spectrum or the EE Times a while back that had a fair
amount of information about the general desingn and a few of the innovative
things they did to make the thing work as well as it does at such a low cost.
If anyone can provide any general technical info on this thing, please email
to me and I will forward it, or send it by "hardware" mail to:
Dan Yerkovich
Physio-Control
11811 Willows Road NE
Redmond, Wa. 98073
Thanks in advance.
None of this has anything to do with Physio-Control, except that we both
work here and, well, there's this nice computer....
.............................................................................
Art Marriott
(backbone)!uw-beaver!tikal!phred!artm
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G.L. Zeiger
>.... He's doing some experimentation with video
>recording techniques and would like to get some information about
>the Fisher-Price monochrome camcorder.
Is this for real? Does this Fisher-Price camcorder *ACTUALLY* work?
I thought Fisher-Price made toys (ie. things that sort of resembled
actual items [like cameras, projectors, etc] but didn't really work
like the "adult" versions) for real small kids. Or have I been paying
tooooooo much attention to trying to graduate and not enough to other
worldly matters?
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Robert Halloran
>In article <24...@phred.UUCP> ar...@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) writes:
>>.... He's doing some experimentation with video
>>recording techniques and would like to get some information about
>>the Fisher-Price monochrome camcorder.
>
>Is this for real? Does this Fisher-Price camcorder *ACTUALLY* work?
>I thought Fisher-Price made toys (ie. things that sort of resembled
>actual items [like cameras, projectors, etc] but didn't really work
>like the "adult" versions) for real small kids. Or have I been paying
>tooooooo much attention to trying to graduate and not enough to other
>worldly matters?
They offer a unit called the PXL2000 (?) which apparently uses slow-scan
techniques to record on a standard audio cassette. It includes a small (5")
monitor to play back through. About $150., as I recall. Neat techie toy
for the kids, and given F-P's reputation, probably built like a truck.
Bob Halloran
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Mike Cauffman
>They offer a unit called the PXL2000 (?) which apparently uses slow-scan
>techniques to record on a standard audio cassette. It includes a small (5")
>monitor to play back through. About $150., as I recall. Neat techie toy
>for the kids, and given F-P's reputation, probably built like a truck.
It really works pretty good. (For a toy). But I saw one advertised the
other day that you hook up to your tv via an RF modulator for 89 bucks.
A much better deal.
I havn't seen this one work. (My comment was for the one with the 5" monitor.)
Mike
John E. Langbein
Tape.
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Jim Becker
> In article <24...@phred.UUCP> ar...@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) writes:
>>.... He's doing some experimentation with video
>>recording techniques and would like to get some information about
>>the Fisher-Price monochrome camcorder.
>
This was heavily advertized this time last year, I have not seen
it this year. What I heard about it is that the technology was fairly old,
but the time was right now!! The group that developed it was then bought
(ie. - hired) by Epyx computer games company. I don't know what has become
of them since. Epyx is in Redwood City, Ca. USA.
I have heard that it works as advertised, but have never seen one...
-Jim Becker
Matt Blemenfeld
> In article <24...@phred.UUCP> ar...@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) writes:
> >.... He's doing some experimentation with video
> >recording techniques and would like to get some information about
> >the Fisher-Price monochrome camcorder.
>
> Is this for real? Does this Fisher-Price camcorder *ACTUALLY* work?
Yes, indeed it does work! I'm pretty surprised that there hasn't been more
talk about this thing as an ADULT toy! In the local discount store it is selling
for $89 this week! For those not in the know, the Fisher Price cam-corder
uses cassette tapes (you get about 7 minutes or so from a 90 minute audio
cassette) instead of the expensive "real" video cassettes, and is
black/white only. I've seen one set up in the toy store and, although the
picture is a bit blurry when recording fast moving stuff, was pretty
impressed with the machine. I plan to give one to my daughter and keep one
for me, so we can swap videos with each other. (She lives about 1000 miles
from me.)
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John B. Nagle
OK, OK, here's what the thing is.
The Fisher-Price Camcorder is a black and white slow-scan system
which records slow-scan, low-resolution video on an audio caisette drive
run at high speed, and outputs a standard NTSC monochrome signal obtained
by running the slow-scan video through an A/D, frame-store, and D/A.
Four custom chips are used, marked FP1 through FP4. However, most of
the components can be obtained from Sanyo in commercial form. The
CCD image sensor is a Sanyo part LC9943, a 180x130 pixel sensor.
Other Sanyo parts are available to drive the sensor. Contact
Sanyo Semiconductor, 1333 Lawerence Expressway, Suite 109, Santa
Clara, CA 95051.
It's an ingenious little unit. It's only recording 4 frames per
second, but it outputs an RF TV signal to its display, which is just a
standard TV set. The frame store seems to be a single 64K RAM.
John Nagle
Burch Seymour
> techniques to record on a standard audio cassette. It includes a small (5")
> monitor to play back through. About $150., as I recall. Neat techie toy
> for the kids, and given F-P's reputation, probably built like a truck.
I've seen them around for about $90 on sale. I've actually held one and played
with it at the local Costco store. The resolution is rather poor, but it
does work. You can identify large objects, but thats about it, and forget
fast pans :-) It's an amazing bit of engineering, but my personal view
is that it was an idea ahead of it's time. The results are a bit *too*
crude to be really much fun to play with. But then maybe a kid would
feel different?