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Old December 4th 11, 02:28 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware
Frederick[_2_]
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Default AOL Photocam Plus Digital Camera DC-620?

On Sun, 04 Dec 2011 02:17:10 -0500, Paul wrote:

Hi Paul
How do you know all this stuff? You are a bundle of knowledge for
sure. For which I thank you.


Here is a manual.

User Manual

http://web.archive.org/web/200407272...tocam_Plus.pdf


I downloaded it and have scanned it.

Your best bet, is to transfer photos via using a CF card. Doing
so, saves on battery life, and also cluttering the PC with more
bad software.


I found no mention of a CF card in the pdf file. The camera 'menu'
does mention such a card, but as yet I see no 'format'. The camera
has a female slot some 1.5" to 2" wide on its bottom. Do you know if
this is where a CF card would insert? I would buy a cheapee just to
try one, if I were sure it would fit. Tell me what I should buy? I
have never used a CF card.

Frederick



1) Insert CF into camera. Shoot photos.

2) Turn off camera. Pull CF, and plug CF into USB-based card reader
(some card readers accept as many as 57 different kinds of
storage media). Or use a dedicated USB to CF dongle (some photographers
do it that way).

3) Using the card reader, the CF will appear as a mass storage device,
and you can transfer off the images that way. Be careful where you
"format" the CF, as some cameras only accept their own formatting.
Hopefully, the camera has a menu item to format the CF media.
(Check that manual.)

The camera is 640x480, so don't expect miracles.

You can stop reading right here :-)

*******

The Win2K driver for the camera, mentions "TWAIN", but I don't understand
the reference. Methods of transferring off photos include USB Mass Storage,
PTP, MTP. Whereas things like TWAIN (old) and WIA (new) are methods for
transferring a live image from the thing as far as I know. (On checking
Wikipedia, TWAIN may do more than that. If so, the issue would be,
no WinXP version of driver. Presumably it hides the details of the device.)

There are driver sites offering a driver, but they also install...
you guessed it... Ask Toolbar.

For some reason, the camera has the same digital identification over
USB, as Polaroid pdc 700. But Polaroid went out of business long ago.
Links like this will no longer work. (The form factor of the DC-620
is different than the PDC700, but the electronics inside could
be virtually identical - same chip and sensor.)

http://www.polaroid.com/en/service/s...ain_driver.exe

I ended up here.

http://web.archive.org/web/200207010...ain_driver.exe

The file sizes and contents are very similar to the DC-620 driver.
The AOL driver installs DCCamera.sys and the Polaroid installs PDC700.sys
and while the file sizes aren't exactly the same (173,920 versus 173,576 bytes),
I expect they're the same type of driver. They even use the same
ClassGUID 6bdd1fc6-810f-11d0-bec7-08002be2092f

So if you want to pour junk into your OS, you could try the
pdc700_twain_driver.exe . (But you say you've already installed
the one for the DC_620, so I suppose there is no point now. You're
as ready as you can be right now, at the TWAIN level.)

I tested the driver installer in WINE under Ubuntu, just to be able
to look at the files is spews out. I don't like to install the
drivers in my regular OS.

With the TWAIN driver loaded, you still need application
level software. There is a description here, of some of the
things TWAIN can do.

http://www.eztwain.com/twain1.htm

"If appropriate, the application may transfer multiple images until it chooses
to stop, or until the DS signals that no more images are available."

Perhaps that's how the camera software would have worked. You
need an application that understands TWAIN, and will transfer
out the images over USB. The application was probably separate
from the driver, and written by a different company, and "AOL"
bundled the two items on their enclosed CD.

Paul

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