Detailed Hardware Specs

• Maximum weight of camcorder or DV camera: 3 lbs

• Minimum weight of camcorder or DV camera: 1.5 lbs - if your DV camera is lighter than 1 lbs, use a regular remote control base instead.

• Maximum angles of rotation: 160 degrees pan and 110 degrees tilt

• Maximum speed of movement: 53 degrees per second

• Optical zoom control available for Camcorders that use an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) interface and support the zoom command set (eg. Panasonic NV-GS70, Canon ZR in US, Canon MV in Europe - see examples here)
  Unfortunately Sony has put their optical zoom control into their proprietary LANC interface rather than follow the IEEE 1394 standard. We cannot control the zoom of that camera from our software at this time. We are considering adding hardware to our USB circuit board to control Sony cameras. Whether we do it depends on demand.

• Digital zoom available for all camcorders.  Zoom ability from 50% to 300%

• Base Interfaces to your PC via USB port

• Camera video interfaces separately via Firewire, USB, or a video capture card

• Powered by USB port or by optional power supply

• Camera mounts/unmounts easily with an included quick-release camera shoe.

• DVdriver needs to be purchased separately but make sure you really need DVdriver.  This heavy duty base comes with the software application which can control a heavy duty digital cam-corder base and receive digital video from a camcorder.
  
  Customers only need to buy DVdriver if they want one of the following features, which only DVdriver provides:
  
  --ability to use the camcorder's video stream in multiple applications simultaneously
  
  --ability to control the optical zoom of certain camcorder's via software.
  

Camcorder Requirements

• Camcorder over 1.5 lbs and under 3 lbs in weight.

• Standard camcorder tripod (you need to mount the Base to a tripod)

• Standard 1/4" #20 mounting thread screw on camcorder

• Firewire or USB or video capture card interface between camcorder and PC

• Optical zoom:
  Control available for Camcorders that use an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) interface and support the zoom command set (eg. Canon ZR in US, Canon MV in Europe - see examples here).   
  Unfortunately Sony has put their optical zoom control into their proprietary LANC interface rather than follow the IEEE 1394 standard. We cannot control the zoom of that camera from our software at this time. We are considering adding hardware to our USB circuit board to control Sony cameras. Whether we do it depends on demand.

• Digital zoom available for all camcorders.  Zoom ability from 50% to 300%

Minimum System Requirements

• Windows® 98SE, ME, 2000, or XP.

• Genuine Intel® Pentium^TM, Pentium II, Pentium III, AMD® K6, AMD K6-2 processor running at 133 MHz or higher; for best performance, 200 MHz or above is recommended

• 32MB RAM

• Available USB port

• CD-ROM drive

• Display adapter capable of 24 bit color at 640x480

• Windows compatible sound card and microphone (for voice command features)

• Modem or LAN access to the Internet at 28.8Kbps or faster required (for video conferencing)

• Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer^TM 4.0 or higher, Netscape Navigator^TM 6.0 or higher

• 20MB available hard disk space 

•  

• ZOOM:  Unfortunately Sony has put their optical zoom control into their proprietary LANC interface rather than follow the IEEE 1394 standard. We cannot control the zoom of that camera from our software at this time. We are considering adding hardware to our USB circuit board to control Sony cameras. Whether we do it depends on demand.

• Sometimes laptops/notebooks need additional power supply (click here for more information)

Misc questions from customers:

From Customer:  We are using a usability recording software called MORAE (techsmith.com) and it requires that the recording equipment (camera in this case) be connected to the participants computer. The observer computer is located in another room. Because MORAE does not allow us to view the live recording of the participant during recording mode (interesting, huh), we have to find a way to send the camera via two outputs. We need a camera that has both usb (or firewire) and s-video/composite video outputs. Camcorders have these and will do the trick. We happen to have a Panasonic DV camcorder, but it shuts off after 5 minutes (no good for usability recording). A web camera with both USB and s-video/composite would probably be better because of that. Do you have such a camera or know of one? We might be able to use your camcorder pod if we got a different camcorder. Any recommendations on camcorders that work the best with your pod and don't have auto standby? 

From Tech Support:

If I understand the user's needs correctly, they can solve the problem without buying any hardware. 

Just run RemoteControl Base/TrackerCam software and use to view the live video from the webcam or capture the video to the hard drive for later viewing.   Run the MORAE software on the same computer and in whichever dialog within MORAE you use to choose the webcam to use, select "TrackerCam Capture Driver," which appears as one of the choices while Tracker Cam is running. This sends a duplicate video stream to the MORAE software. 

Note to Canon owners: If your camcorder uses Firewire (IEEE 1498) for video output, you can use our regular PowerPod to control the camcorder's optical zoom via Firewire

RemoteControlBase-IR