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;}