Chotto Shot USB Camera Utility Script and Bug Fix for Mac OS X and the PSP

This page provides some information on my recent acquisition and experience with use of a Chotto Shot  camera for the Sony PSP. You'll also get a short description of the camera, its features under my current [3.10] firmware, and a short script to get around a nasty iPhoto import bug.

The Chotto Shot Camera for the PSP

The Chotto Shot, although supported in the system menu of U.S. Sony Portable Play Station users, remains unavailable at the time of this writing - hardware 'vaporware.' This is very frustrating, as the device is quite useful and a lot of fun. More frustrating is that a recent PSP price drop to US$169 may portend a new PSP model, and could also spell the demise of any hope of seeing this useful $49 accessory on the U.S. market! (perhaps Sony will include a built-in camera in a new 'PSP2'?)

Fortunately we live in a global economy, so acquiring the camera from a U.S. importer was not a problem. The camera arrives in a yellow box containing a VHS-sized white box (marked 'PSP-300 x'). A small carry case for the camera is included, along with a PSP-sized software box containing a UMD with Japanese software. The shelf box is marked "FOR JAPAN ONLY," but don't worry - the camera is not region-encoded (are you slipping, Sony?), and is supported by US-PSP firmware via the 'Camera' menu item under the system's Photo menu. I still have the UMD in its shrinkwrap, as i'll never use it.

Here are the specs on the Chotto Shot (taken directly from the included Sony documentation):

1.3 megapixels
28mm f2.8 (35mm equivalent) lens
focus 15.8" to infinity
or 2.8" in macro mode
digital zoom
records in JPEG/Motion JPEG
mono microphone

Attach the camera by pushing it into the PSP's USB connector. Next, tighten a thumb-screw on one side. The camera flips up and over so you can use the PSP like a 'real' camera instead of just taking goofy head shots.

I haven't screwed around with taking movies.  But apparently, the only limit is the amount of flash storage (as the recorder shows 'time remaining' as calculated by disk space), with about 40MB or so per minute of video in 'Fine' mode. Videos appear under a menu 'Digital Camera Recordings' item under the Video menu. Interestingly, the videos appear under the same folder as pictures, and end in .AVI (but aren't?). Pictures appear under a top-level 'DCIM' in a folder named 101MSDCF. Files are sequential, such as DSC00001.JPG, and so on.  You can set the sound of the shutter click, name and location of folder, and numbering of images.

After you navigate to the Camera item under the Photo menu, press the PSP's 'X' button. The camera will be recognized, and you'll be in standby photo mode. Unfortunately, the default startup setting when first using the camera is 480x272. You'll need to tap the PSP's triangle button to access the camera's control panel settings menu; i leave the camera set for the highest resolution possible. Possible Image Size settings are:

320x240
480x272
640x480
1280x960 (about 350kB per picture)

The menu items are detailed in Sony's online PSP manual, but it interesting that the PSP firmware supports White Balance settings - a feature lacking in similarly priced digital cameras on the market - including Sony's own offerings!

Movies played just fine under VLC under Mac OS X, while mplayer had bad sound. QuickTime 7.1.5 also played movies just fine, and reported the file type as Apple OpenDML JPEG 480x272, 16-bit (Little Endian), Mono, 22.050kHz, 30fps, 6116.95 kbits/sec data rate.

Bug in PSP or iPhoto?

My problems started when i attached my PSP back onto my 10.3.9 system after using the camera for the first time. Apparently OS X looks for a digital camera folder (named "DCIM" on the PSP) under any removable media. iPhoto 4.0.3 launched immediately, attempted to import the Chotto Shot JPG files, then barfed miserably, reporting the images as an 'unknown data format.'

What a crock of you-know-what!

BTW, GNOME gThumb and Goog's Picasa work with no problems under Ubuntu.

If you're a Mac OS X-only user and don't really care about iPhoto, here's a great solution that just works: Kodak EASYSHARE. Download the software and install, setting the software to launch when a device is connected. You don't have to set up an account. Take some snaps on your PSP, then connect your PSP to your OS X system. EASYSHARE will launch, and you can import your photos straight from your PSP - it just works!

Back to iPhoto:  Updating Quicktime to 7.1.5 provided no relief. All this despite that the OS X Preview client opens, reads, saves, exports and prints the Chotto Shot files! Since it would be a cold day in Hell before Sony or Apple listened to the problems of a single miserable user for the non-US import product, here then, is my solution:

1. copy the pics off the PSP

2. using ImageMagick's convert command, convert the files to .tiff, then back to JPEG

3. then import into iPhoto.

Here's the script:
#!/bin/sh
# psp2ip - prep PSP Chotto Shot DSC*.JPG files for use in iPhoto
#
# Version 0.1
#
# Usage: psp2ip pathname_to_JPEG_files
#
# Example: psp2ip photos/vacation/surfing
#
# This example will convert all PSP DSC*.JPG files in the designated
# directory for use with iPhoto by converting to .tiff then .jpg.
#
# This script is in response to a nasty bug in which iPhoto will not
# import PSP DSC*JPG files after the PSP has been connected to a Mac OS X
# system. In testing, it appears that either:
#
# 1. The [current] PSP's firmware creates weird JPEG files
#
# or
#
# 2. iPhoto 4.x under 10.3.9 is horked and not reading all JPEG formats
# (most likely, as iPhoto is now mostly iCrapWare - i.e. 'give me money')
#
# To top off the dilemma, 10.3.9's Preview reads the PSP JPG files with no
# problem. This script simply saves some manual conversion effort. No thought
# is given to retaining JPEG quality during the conversion.
#
# Bugs: no error checking
#
# convert DSC*JPG to tiff
for file in $1/DSC*JPG
do
convert $file $file.tiff
rm $file
done
# remove JPG from filenames
for file in $1/DSC*tiff
do
mv $file ${file%JPG.*}tiff
done
# convert .tiff back to JPEG
for file in $1/*.tiff
do
convert $file $file.jpg
rm $file
done
# rename files
for file in $1/*.jpg
do
mv $file ${file%tiff.*}jpg
done

The result will be a directory of the JPEG files you can import into iPhoto. Really Apple, what's the problem here?

Suggestions? Mail them to:

main(){int j=-1;char t[]="rfnqyt?%ggfqqEyz}3twl\n";
while(t[j]!='\n'){putchar(t[++j]-'\05');}return 0;}