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For this month's issue, we will let our readers take a breather from their microcontroller education to look at a lighter, consumer or user-level topic. This time, for example, we'll talk about a new miniature digital video camera, the ViCAM Digital Video Camera by Vista Imaging Inc. Next time, we'll continue our examination of Atmel's AVR series of microcontrollers.
THE ViCAM
The ViCAM Digital Video Camera by Vista Imaging is not a portable snapshot camera. It is a tethered model intended for stationary applications, such as video-conferencing, security, Web broadcasting, and the like. I tested it on a 180-MHz Pentium Pro system with 64 Mb running under Windows 95 OSR2. The ViCAM has a suggested retail price of $199.95.
The camera installs easily. Plug one connector into a parallel port, the other into a keyboard port (for power), load the software from the included CD, and go. Both port connectors are passthrough types, and the kit includes a PS/2 to DIN keyboard adapter. The installation program is really a shell for several sub-installation programs; it would be clearer and more convenient to integrate all setup options into a single program. By the time you read this, Vista will be coming out with a USBversion.
The ViCAM comes with three main applications: A bitmap editor, a movie editor, and a trial copy of a face-recognition engine. The bitmap editor, PhotoSuite SE allows you to take snapshots, touch them up, add special effects, and so forth. It also provides some...