My son just got a Disney Pix-Micro camera for his birthday. The problem is that the thing is not being recognized by our Macs (even X.4). The install disk is for ME or XP only.
How can I make this stupid little thing be recognized by iPhoto?
If this can be made to work with iPhoto on a X.4 machine, my next question will be how to make it be recognized in Classic. The target machine is my children's OS 9.x machine, so being able to use this camera in Classic is a major plus.
TIA
--DDTM
Are there settings that can be changed on the camera itself? You might have to make it mass storage rather than (whatever the other mode is) Also, does any disk show up when you plug it into the mac? Anything happen when iphoto is opened? iPhoto has recognized every camera I have plugged in, even strange offbrand models, so I would expect it to auto recognize this disney one. Classic will be a little more difficult, most likely it won't work without os9 specific drivers and software.(check on sourceforge, maybe theres an os9 project for cameras?)
The camera only has two buttons, shoot and trash. It has an LCD indicator to tell how many of 40 possible shots were taken and that is it.
When plugged into an X.4 machine, there is no desktop icon appearing. Disk Utility cannot see the device as a hard drive. System Profiler does, however, recognize that a USB camera is connected, but the acknowledgement of a device connected stops there. When the camera senses it is connected, the LCD says "PC" to indicate that it see the computer.
BTW: SourceForge came up dry on this.
http://webcam-osx.sourceforge.net/
In addition to driving plain webcams it has some support for downloading pictures from some "dual mode" cameras. The Disney camera looks like it's probably the same OEM as a whole slew of other crapolla keychain cameras out there, some of which have at least rudimentary Linux driver support. (Which webcam-osx leverages for its own purposes.) You might get lucky.
Honestly I'd recommend pitching the thing in the garbage disposal. Kids deserve better then 352x288.
--Peace
Tried the app, it still did not recognize the camera (but thanks for showing me - it is pretty cool).
Parallel to my efforts here, I also had contacted the vendor. Their solution was to just connect and treat it like a mass storage device, transfering the photos to the Mac and then using the photo tool of my choice. Since my target Mac was to be a machine running Classic, this would work to my satisfaction. Well, the final word from the vendor is that the camera is just not supported and cannot work with a non-PC.
I must give props to the vendor (Digital Blue) for being quick to respond to my request for help, too bad their answers were not to my liking.
So my next step is one of the following:
The idea of buying a Windows XP computer just to host a $20 camera seems like sheer lunacy to me. ;^b
If you know anyone with a Linux machine (preferably an up-to-date Fedora or Ubuntu box) it could be worth a shot plugging it in and seeing if "gphoto" recognizes it. Linux supports a lot of real boat anchors (Like the infamous "Barbie Digital Camera"). Nothing by Disney appears on the latest "Supported Camera" list, but there's a chance it's a rebadged clone of something that is supported.
I'd *really* strongly recommend getting the kid a better camera, however. If they're old enough/responsible enough a used/refurb 2-megapixel camera with a flash would be a lot more satisfying. If not, Fisher-Price makes a nice indestructible model that comes with Mac software. It's expensive, but you can probably find it on sale.
--Peace
My dad recently got his MCSE and picked up some cheap wintel boxes to practice on. The XP machine would be one of his extras set up for the kids. Since it is offered as 'free' it must be considered, no matter how much I loathe the idea.
Nobody, but good to know.
This may be the route I go.
just seen this deep in the archives of google:
http://mkaz.com/ebeab/osx_blink.html
seems like somebody else has been having trouble getting a crappy camera getting recognised in iphoto.
hope it helps!
I have exactly the same problem, but with a different camera (Spiderman). And the Fisher-Price one is too babyish for my 7-year old son. Are there any other cameras out there for kids that will work on Mac?
http://www.ioxperts.com/, i was able to use a che-ez splash through their driver. you have to pay twenty bucks though. if not, there's a watermark in the bottom-right corner. i didnt pay and just cropped out the watermark.