Samsung's Linux-based Diskless Camcorder

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has a story about the Samsung Miniket, a digital camcorder the size of a pack of cards that also works as a portable MP3 player, webcam, voice recorder, storage device, and more. The Miniket (annoying Flash and sound) will be available in February or March in the US, for $600-$700, with a rugged 'sports' model to follow. The device runs Linux, boots in under a second, and is the first of several products from Samsung that will run a new variation of Linux called 'ARM-no-MMU.' LinuxDevices also has a whitepaper about Samsung research that shows the new Linux variant to be faster than normal Linux."

Comments

For those not in the know

[Anonymous Coward]

MMU stands for memory management unit. It is a component used to protect parts of memory from being accidently overwritten, for example.

Re:For those not in the know

[Anonymous Coward]

And those who really didn't know should not be on /.
So go away, and leave your membership badge on the way out. Thank you.

Request for clarification on Diskless technology.

[sanityspeech]

I'm somewhat unclear on how this device classifies as a "diskless camcorder."

From the article:

The Miniket is available in three models, with internal storage capacities of 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB.

How can a "diskless camcorder" have internal storage?

From the gentoo diskless HOWTO:

A diskless machine is a PC without any of the usual boot devices such as hard disks, floppy drives or CD-ROMs. The diskless node boots off the network and NEEDS A SERVER that will provide it with storage space as a local hard disk would.

(Emphasis mine.)

Can anyone reconcile these statements?

C'mon

[pploco]

Wheres the HD? Dump the "diskless" name and put a 40G in that thing.

Re:C'mon

[bugbeak]

Adding data into flash storage is significantly faster than adding data into a HD. Certainly, you don't want the damn thing to stop recording just so you can write into the hard disc first, then continue?

Re:C'mon

[Mikmorg]

Yea, some guys a while back figured out how to fix that. S'called RAM. Cheap 256M RAM stick would fix all of that unhappiness.

Re:C'mon

[athakur999]

What type of Flash memory is significantly faster than a hard drive?

The highest end Flash memory I see at Sandisk's site writes at 20MB/s. This is on the lower end of what 2.5" notebook hard drives are capable of and well below what a 3.5" drive could do.

Re:C'mon

[wild_berry]

TFA tells us that the processor can deal with up to 8MB/s of video. What need is there for an HD, apart from capacity?

Re:C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding data into flash storage is significantly faster than adding data into a HD. Certainly, you don't want the damn thing to stop recording just so you can write into the hard disc first, then continue?

Geez, and all this time I thought my MythTV box was recording video onto a hard drive. I guess it turns out I was just hallucinating or something. Boy, do I feel stupid now.

Re:C'mon

[halfelven]

Last time i checked, doing a huge bunch of small things (such as creating many small files, etc.) is faster on Flash than on regular hard-drives, while writing a constant stream of large data (such as capturing video) is slower on Flash than on hard-drives.
I did the tests by the end of 2004, using off-the-shelf components (mobo, HDD, flash).

Re:C'mon

[gbdc]

I am sure the seek time on flash memory is superior to that of harddrives because it doesn't have to turn the platter. Since, seek time would be more imporant for accessing numerous yet relatively small files than transfer rate, I think flash is the better choice.

Re:C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time i tried to create 30.000 files on my flash it was the last time i used it ;)

Re:C'mon

[Tombstone-f]

This article is about a camcorder.
Where are these numerous yet relatively small files?
With a camcorder there will most often be very few very large files.

Re:C'mon

[i41Overlord]

I am sure the seek time on flash memory is superior to that of harddrives because it doesn't have to turn the platter. Since, seek time would be more imporant for accessing numerous yet relatively small files than transfer rate, I think flash is the better choice.

We're talking about a camcorder. Seek time wouldn't be nearly as important as sustained throughput.

Re:C'mon

[Anonymous Coward]

Three words:

No seek time

Can make a very large difference depending on the application.

Re:C'mon

[gbdc]

it's also a digtal camera and mp3 player. Camcording is just one of the functions.

Re:C'mon

[athakur999]

I doubt its digital camera can take pictures fast enough that the seek time has any effect on it. And unless you're switching tracks on the MP3 player every few milliseconds, it's not going to matter there either.

Re:C'mon

[HerbieStone]

I once considered replacing my Harddisk with a flash drive, because I thought flash would be faster.
I checked the specs and found out they are slower, more expensive, smaller and so on.

But Flashdrives have a better "spinup" speed. On your regular PC the hardware and memory-check will be slower than spinning up you harddrive. But on a embeded device the harddrive spinup will be the slowest part. So putting the OS on a flashdrive for a fast boot does make sense.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Roguelazer]

They probably mean diskless as in no MiniDV disks.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[limpdawg]

It likely uses a solid state memory device. Thus diskless. It doesn't mean that it boots off a network. Your second link is irrelevant to the product.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[jersey_emt]

My guess that it uses some sort of flash memory, which is technicially not a 'disk'.

GSM please

[Anonymous Coward]

Now if they could only squeeze a GSM fone into that, it would be perfect.

Re:GSM please

[mboverload]

That was supposed to be a joke

Re:GSM please

[Anonymous Coward]

That was supposed to be a joke

Hopefully....

*shrieks*

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[greechneb]

The Miniket boots from 128KB of NOR Flash, and includes 16MB of SDRAM. As noted above, various models offer different amounts of user file storage, which is based on a single internal NAND Flash chip. The 128KB NOR Flash is only used for bootloader functions; all other system software, including the kernel, is stored within the much larger NAND Flash.

I think diskless means no CD/DVD/floppy

Of course it's faster... no managent...

[datastalker]

Since it has no MMU. Without the overhead of actually having to manage the memory, it's got to be faster.

Re:Of course it's faster... no managent...

[poot_rootbeer]

Or maybe it's "no" as in the Japanese possessive modifier? "MMU of ARM"?

Re:Of course it's faster... no managent...

[Waffle Iron]

Without the overhead of actually having to manage the memory, it's got to be faster.

If you remove the ability for hardware to virtually remap memory pages in real time, the software may have to physically move large blocks of data around to make room for new allocations, and many algorithms might need to be tediously written to explicitely relocate data if memory space becomes too fragmented. It might not be too long before the software overhead of a MMU-less system to outweigh the hardware overhead of a system with an MMU.

Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[eyeye]

Build a mobile phone and pda in it and then my pockets wont be so full.

Theres still the thorny problem of my keys and wallet though :(

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush and Blair killed 100,000. Bin laden killed 5000. Say no to ALL terrorists.

You, sir, are truly an idiot.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Bush and Blair killed 100,000."

That nice, round, ominous number has been regurgitated since the war started. I don't suppose you can provide any facts to back that number up, can you?

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that the best response you could think of mr coward?

I think it is :)

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Anonymous Coward]

What was wrong with that response? Concise, accurate, and to the point... Seems reasonable.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Anonymous Coward]

do you know better? how many actually is it? 30,000 ? 40,000 ? Its at least 20k as that has been admitted by the US. I wouldnt be surprised if 5000 CHILDREN have been killed never mind adults.

So the point remains the same, either you support death and murder or you dont. If its wrong to kill 3500 as in the WTC then its wrong to kill ten or twenty times as many people isnt it?

Or is it a matter of colour for you mr anonymous coward.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Total_Wimp]

There have been about 1,500 US soldiers killed and about 10,000 injured in Iraq. Presumably the US killed the enemy at a higher ratio than 2-1. Don't know what the ratio is, but the better you think our troops are, the more interesting it gets. If it's 2-1 (unlikely) then that's 4,500 killed and about 30,000 injured.

But wait, what about civilians? No good figures here (I have however, seen a lot of really shitty estimates that have every flu victim in the war zone counted as a KIA for Bush) but the figure would just about have to be at least 1 to 1 for US soldier's dead. No, I don't have anything to back that up, but I seriously doubt anyone really believes less than that got killed.

Ok, tally it all up and we have about 6,000 dead and about 40,000 wounded in a VERY concervative, no facts estimate.

That's a whole lot less than 100,000. But who cares? It's a shitload of people who've had their lives seriously affected or cut short by the war.

So my question for you is this: Even if 100,000 dead is a pure fantasy number, are you comfortable with 6,000 dead and 40,000 injured? If you are comfortale with those numbers, at what point do you start feeling uncomfortable?

TW

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Trolling4Columbine]

"but I seriously doubt anyone really believes less than that got killed."

That's not good enough. You (and many others) put that number out there, and I want you to back it up. You can't just debate-by-driveby like that and expect people to lend you credibility. If you are going to espouse a point of view, you should at least know enough about it to be able to defend it.

"at what point do you start feeling uncomfortable?"

When politicians suggest accepting defeat and pulling out before the mission is accomplished. What's worse than thousands of people dying? Thousands of people dying for nothing.

I'm not one of those stereotypical Bible-thumping, shotgun toting, redneck Bush supporters you guys love to hate, and I do have my problems with how the war is being conducted. But I also have a problem with people whose arguments against it rely entirely upon inflammatory rhetoric and made-up statistics.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Trolling4Columbine]

"So the point remains the same, either you support death and murder or you dont."

You are too myopic to participate in an honest debate if you cannot distinguish between an attack aimed squarely at civilians, and a military operation that bends over backwards to avoid civilian casualties.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Total_Wimp]

That's not good enough. You (and many others) put that number out there, and I want you to back it up. You can't just debate-by-driveby like that and expect people to lend you credibility. If you are going to espouse a point of view, you should at least know enough about it to be able to defend it.

That's a debating tactic. It's designed to make a point rather than to say how you really feel. Do you really feel the numbers I put out were unreasonable, or just that I don't have any "proof"?

A lot of people got killed and seriously hurt in Iraq. It's a very significant number. My point isn't that 40,000 got injured or that 100,000 got killed. My point is that a lot of people have suffered or outright died to make this happen.

Further, my point is that that number is high enough that people should probably be feeling somewhat uncomfortable about the situation. It's kind of like when that stock you bought is way down and you're trying to figure out if it will bounce back or whether it was really a bone-headed decision in the first place. You may say "stay the course", and a lot of financial advisors will say that about a lot of investments, or you may say, "why send good money after bad." Maybe that decision doesn't even have anything to do with the amount of the loss, but with the inherent strengths and weekness of the company.

But you don't ignore data just because the only available data is incomplete. You come up with the best numbers you can and make a decision.

But I also have a problem with people whose arguments against it rely entirely upon inflammatory rhetoric and made-up statistics.

I don't think I used inflammatory rhetoric, but I did make up the numbers. I told you I made them up and I told you how I made them up. I made them up the way I did because I thought that whatever side you were on you were likely to see them as concervative minimums. Do you really think my numbers are inflated? If not, then why can't you just look at them and tell me how you feel about that many people being killed and hurt? Personally, it makes me feel like crap.

Whatever we achieve in Iraq will need a measuring stick, and those numbers are probably a good minimum place to start measuring. Will the good we do outweigh the lives lost? Will the good we do make up for all the people with missing limbs and brain damage? Why don't YOU stick a number on it and measure it? Why don't YOU tell ME how we measure up? That's not rhetoric; that's evaluation.

It's high time conservatives start helping out in the evaluation. It's not disloyal to say "we fucked up." It also doesn't mean you're saying we should pull out and leave them in an even worse situation than when we started. Conservatives admit there were no WMDs and they know people have died (well, SOME amount has died, haven't they?) so how come they have such a phobia about pulling out the scales of justice and weighing the good vs. the bad?

Put another way... put the way I said it originally: At what point do you start to feel uncomfortable about what we did? I wouldn't be complaining if only 1/2 dozen guys were dead. Even you would be complaining if it were a million. What point in between gives you a queasy stomach? And do you, in good faith, think there's a chance we've already reached it?

TW

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Agrippa]

"I don't think I used inflammatory rhetoric, but I did make up the numbers. I told you I made them up and I told you how I made them up. I made them up the way I did because I thought that whatever side you were on you were likely to see them as concervative minimums."

You made up numbers in a highly emotional debate and then have the gall to defend yourself as having some noble purpose.

Have you considered running for Congress? You'd be perfect for either party. You'll find lots of made up numbers and even more heartstrings to tug at using them.

.agrippa.

Re:Convergence? YES PLEASE :)

[Total_Wimp]

If no one has real numbers that are trustworthy, what numbers to do you use? Do you at least try to come up with something based on what you already know? Is the fact that I was honest and open about my process the entire time not a mitigating factor?

What do you do when you don't know the answer and dont have any good place to look? Do you put your head in the sand or do you just do your best to solve the problem with what you have? More to the point, when others are trying to solve the problem do you just blast them for doing it wrong or do you join in and try to help them do it right?

If you have some better numbers we could use, I'd be happy to listen. If you have some actual critsism of my process then I'd be happy to listen. But don't blast me for making an honest attempt to try to bridge the gap. Come help me bridge it better.

TW

I am still not converged!!!

[TheNarrator]

camcorder the size of a pack of cards that also works as a portable MP3 player, webcam, voice recorder, storage device, and more

Now if only this thing was a phone, a GPS and a PDA with 802.11 and GPRS internet access. Then maybe I'd consider buying it.

Re:I am still not converged!!!

[Lumpy]

Yuck!

add in a Sirus or XM sattelite reciever as well as 802.11g and bluetooth and you might have something.

Oh maybe add a money clip and a credit card holder on the back.

Flash cards?

[elid]

Using flash cards for video might not be the best idea, considering the price of high capacity cards.

Re:Flash cards?

[raitchison]

Especially since it uses Memory $tick for capacity expansion.

While TFA sasy that MS is "slightly" more expensive than other kinds of flash memory as someone who's owned a Sony digital camera I can say that only counts if you consider 20%-40% more expensive to be "slightly"

Still an interesting idea, and could be a lot more viable if the cost of flash memory drops significantly. One would think that not having a HD might improve battery life. (shrugs)

Re:Flash cards?

[w42w42]

1GB CF for $69 at pcmall.com. Doesn't sound too bad to me - especially when you knock the price down on this camcorder if they offered a version w/o internal memory. I wish they'd just make a digital camcorder that used an open standard memory device (CF or SD), so as to lessen the costs. Being able to store only a limited amount of video if you're say on vacation and away from your computer is a limiting factor in my mind. They say you can use the Memory Sticks, though I own nothing else that uses that form factor - and they're pricier anyways.

Remember, you'd also most likely re-use your cf cards anyways, and use your computer (or CD/DVDs) for permanent storage. Not having to buy camcorder tapes will save some money in the long run I'm sure.

But will it play ogg?

[Anonymous Coward]

And will it have the blue starwipe of death and clippy like the MS version.

But does it work with Linux?

[sepluv]

But does it run^Wwork with Linux?

Re:But does it work with Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently... NO! :)

Re:But does it work with Linux?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

From TFA:

The Miniket encodes and compresses video using a codec included in the MPEG4 standard. Its video files can be played back using Windows Media Player 6.4 or later, or on Samsung's DVD recorders, the company says.

and:

Photos can be played back on the device's tilt-and-swivel color LCD, transfered to removable storage cards, or copied to a PC over a USB mass storage device connection. USB mass storage support also allows the device to be used for generic data storage.

WMP 6.4 is positively ancient in Windows terms, and the codec is included in the MPEG4 standard, so it's not proprietary in that sense. And USB mass storage is about as universal as USB interfaces get. If this thing doesn't work with Linux, its only because you're not trying hard enough.

Imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

..a Linux cluster of these things. It would simulate the compound eye of a bee!

Market penetration with HD

[Tibor the Hun]

Would it be possible to release a Linux-based HD camcroder for home use?
With iMovie coming out within a few months it would be a perfect opportunity to release an affordable home use HD camcorder and make it linux based.

But I'm guessing the OS is not the driving factor behind the cost, but rather hardware...

Re:Market penetration with HD

[Ironsides]

Hardware generally is the driving cost as it takes a lot of processing to do decent real tiem encoding. TV stations pay a lot for equipment (though a chunk of it is for reliability). HD content would require more processing power to accomplish. As is, this camcorder falls into the "decent" level for recording quality. Recording 1 hour @ 1 Gig translates to about 2.25 Megabits/second. That is way below broadcast quality and what DVDs can achieve. (NOTE: I know DVDs can go below 2 Mbits, but software encoders do a better job than realtime hardware encoders.)

In short, Recording at Full D1 resolution is a great accomplishment. However, it's going to look like shit unless they can up the bitrate to at least 4 Mbps, even if they are using MPEG-4.

Re:Market penetration with HD

[Randy Rathbun]

iMovie has been out on the store shelves a week tomorrow. Those of us that pre-ordered got it a week ago today.

Re:Market penetration with HD

[Tibor the Hun]

oh yeah,
well where are the torrents?!

ARM-no-MMU the same as uClinux?

[updog]

Samsung that will run a new variation of Linux called 'ARM-no-MMU.'

Isn't ARM-no-MMU the same as uClinux? If so, it's hardly new - uClinux started in 1998.

Re:ARM-no-MMU the same as uClinux?

[soramimicake]

The 'white paper written by Samsung' mentioned in the submission is titled 'Context Switching and IPC Performance Comparison between uClinux and Linux on the ARM9 based Processor'. So it is indeed uClinux.

Re:ARM-no-MMU the same as uClinux?

[kry10]

Check out the bottom of the article:

"The Miniket runs a uClinux/ARM 2.6 kernel based in part on the uClinux/ARM 2.6 project, which Choi leads. According to Choi, the project used the Samsung S5C737x SoC as its primary target processor, and all the GPL'd parts of the kernel used in the Miniket are available for download from the project site. The Miniket is the first of several Samsung products that will be based on an "ARM-no-MMU" uClinux kernel."

oh...

[ArmenTanzarian]

I thought ARM-no-MMU was like handsfree, but without arms...

nothing new?

[PW2]

I bought a little camcorder from HSN about 8 months ago for $140 that records to SD. It did voice recording / MP3 playback / still / MP4 video recording. -- it's a little larger than a stack of 40 credit cards.

Re:nothing new?

[Anonymous Coward]

And we all know just how high 40 creditcards are off the top of our heads.

Re:nothing new?

[Anonymous Coward]

And in other vague references....My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead. Wait here for 80 moments and I'll be right back. The reciever ran 50 fathums for the touchdown.

Re:nothing new?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the brand and model?

Re:nothing new?

[buckminster]

For those of you who aren't aware 'credit card' is a standard unit of measure on HSN.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[viperblades]

Camcorder != computer

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[updog]

There's thousands of products which are "diskless devices" that don't require a server!! This is simply an embedded device - everything it needs is on flash memory.

Woah

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to decaf, buddy.

I wonder...

[vought]

If this is using something like Portal Player's 5002/5003 chips? Those "media chips" were based around a dual ARM core.

diskless?

[Anonymous Coward]

ok good.. i just misread that a little

Not necessarily

[pslam]

Since it has no MMU. Without the overhead of actually having to manage the memory, it's got to be faster.

This is not necessarily true. The difference in speed you'll get with a properly arranged MMU will be negligable. I hate SoC manufacturers who fall for this line of thinking and miss out the MMU "because it's not needed". It just makes development and debugging 10 times harder for a mostly negligable speed and power consumption gain.

Any SoC designers out there: please stop producing high spec CPUs without MMUs! You aren't doing anyone a favour.

Re:Not necessarily

[Brane2]

This is not necessarily true. The difference in speed you'll get with a properly arranged MMU will be negligable.

Only if you have MMU onboard, but don't use it. Otherwise, changing from user adress space to kernel's and back should cost you something in terms of cpent CPU cycles and cache trashing.

If all processes share same address space, many things in kernel become faster and easier.

Re:Not necessarily

[noidentity]

As a quick summary, an MMU basically adds a logical address space on top of the physical address space (the actual memory), divided into pages (often 4KB each). The pages in the logical address space can be arbitrarily mapped to physical pages. Optionally a low-level exception can be raised for various conditions (read-only, execute-only, page written to, etc.).

In the MMUs I've studied, the memory cache is physically mapped to avoid MMU overhead for the most common case, and there is also a translation cache which keeps recently used mapping entries cached. For every memory access (even ones in the cache), the translation cache is queried so its result will be available without delay if the access misses the local cache and thus requires a bus transaction.

Re:Not necessarily

[pslam]

Only if you have MMU onboard, but don't use it. Otherwise, changing from user adress space to kernel's and back should cost you something in terms of cpent CPU cycles and cache trashing.

On many processors (ARM included), kernel and user space have the same address mappings, and switching priveledge levels can be done in a few clock cycles. There are no tables to switch, or caches to flush. System calls on ARM are ludicrously fast - a "SWI" instruction takes only a few clocks, and you emerge in the system call handler with supervisor priveledges.

A well designed MMU (such as on ARM processors) incurs a negligable penalty.

If all processes share same address space, many things in kernel become faster and easier.

Process switching is usually the only thing that's expensive, because it changes address mappings and needs a cache flush (on ARMs with a VIVT cache, which is most common). In an embedded environment, you generally don't have much process contention, or even multiple processes for that matter. I've never found the MMU to be the cause of any measureable performance hit on any ARM-Linux based work I've done.

Re:Not necessarily

[pslam]

In the MMUs I've studied, the memory cache is physically mapped to avoid MMU overhead for the most common case, and there is also a translation cache which keeps recently used mapping entries cached. For every memory access (even ones in the cache), the translation cache is queried so its result will be available without delay if the access misses the local cache and thus requires a bus transaction.

This is the wrong way around: physically mapped caches are usually less efficient than virtually mapped. For every single memory access, the physical address needs to be looked up in the MMU first before accessing the cache, which adds a clock cycle of latency. In virtual tagged caches, the memory address is used directly to index a cache line, and the TLBs are polled concurrently.

Virtual tagged caches are always faster in a system where aliasing isn't a problem.

Windows Media Player?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's running linux, how come the flash site shows it running windows media player to play back your videos?

Re:Windows Media Player?

[halfelven]

There are many Windows apps that run just fine on top of Linux, by virtue of various emulation techniques such as WINE, etc.

Re:Windows Media Player?

[Stevyn]

I remember reading about how Microsoft was considering/going (I can't remember) to port WMP to linux specifically for embedded devices. I wouldn't be too surprised however if this was a goof by Samsung's marketing department. They may have meant that these MPEG videos will play on WMP when transfered to your computer, but internally they play using their own software. That's just a guess though.

Solution:

[Mikmorg]

For keys: Use keyless entry doors, figure out a way to add an RF transmitter in the thing.

For wallet:

• Cash: Who needs it?
• Credit: Hmm.. still thinking. Maybe a lil gadget that lets you program a slide-out thin strip for different codes, storing each credit card's info appropriately? I'm sure theres a cool thing we could figure out.
• Pictures: Done.
• ID: eh... ok you might have to keep that on you... till the country decides to allow digital ID tags somehow... give that a few years, they'll prolly have embedded chips in everyones' arms or something. Technology + Gov't = limitless + crazy.

Re:Solution:

[eyeye]

I agree those are good solutions, the problem is that keys are issued by different people, the apartment I rent, my keys for where I work, my car keys are all the way they are because of the purchasing choices of the people involved and I end up carrying the ragtag bunch of different keys around with me all with different shapes etc.

Your credit card idea has actually been invented I think, tbh though credit cards arent so much of a problem to me though - keys are my main bugbear as they poke me when I sit down and jangle when I walk.

but is it Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you go through the flash animation and look at the "Easy Playback" option, there is a Windows Media Player shown in the LCD screen. So is it running Linux or Windows?

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no need to reconcile those statements, they are not in conflict. What is wrong is your assumption that all internal storage requires a disk. I also don't see how the gentoo diskless howto for setting up a diskless PC applies to a Samsung device.

Probably Not *natively*

[reality-bytes]

I notice on the site it says it captures clips in an MPEG-4 QVGA format for playback with 'Windows Media Player'.

So it is probably using a proprietary Windows media codec for with there is no 'official' support under Linux.

You will, of course be able to play back / manipulate the video using 3rd party tools such as Mplayer/Mencoder which provide this sort of interoperability.

Re:Probably Not *natively*

[onrop]

Actually, the site says: "Normal tapeless camcorders feature MPEG4 movie quality of QVGA size at 15fps, but Samsung's Miniket boast of the best MPEG4 movie quality (720x480) at 30fps." QVGA is not a codec. It is an abreviation for "Quarter VGA", or essentially 1/4 of the resolution of VGA. IOW, 320x240.

I have not had luck with Samsung during dry winter

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Hi,

I don't know about you but I haven had luck with samsung. I own a samsung minidv camcorder and a cuircuit board blew up within 18 months of owning it. The LCD and viewfinder screens have no video, just backlight is on. It charges, and plays, but that's it. If samsung would take my old scd80 and
send me one of these new digital camcorders running linux I would forgive them and buy other samsung products... but for now i would not buy another samsung product because I am not convinced that they last.

How long

[Anonymous Coward]

till i get this functionality on my cellphone ?

i can already record video clips as it is (1gb card p910i) but the resolution is terrible at the moment, of course that will get better with time
while a cellphone based video cam will never replace a pro-sumer (interchangable lenses 3ccd etc) for your home movies i can see more convergance into the cell'media'device

-AJS

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a diskless camcorder, not a diskless workstation, you moron!

Idiot

[jpardey]

NEVE say linux cluster. If you want to keep with the troll program, it is A BEOWULF CLUSTER!

Re:Idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, it's been so long that I forgot the correct line. Anyway, my Beowolf cluster gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it.

Damn Proprietary Memory

[Analogy Man]

Why don't they used Compact Flash or Secure Digital rather than the damn Sony proprietary junk?

Re:Damn Proprietary Memory

[DrWho520]

Why don't they used Compact Flash or Secure Digital rather than the damn Sony proprietary junk?

My sentiments exactly. I alread have a number of SD cards as my existing digital camera uses them. Thought I would not call memory stick proprietary junk, they are more expensive per MB in larger sizes than CF or SD. I was also a little put off by their statement of exporting the media files to WMP or a Samsung DVD recorder. It is an MPEG4 based codec, so I will assume it is playable else where. Finally, where is the firewire? Come on, Samsung! I guess more people have USB 2.0 than firewire. Oh well, pretty neat device all told. I will not be picking one up, but still pretty neat.

Re:I have not had luck with Samsung during dry win

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to ask, what's with the "during dry winter"? Your subject line sounds like a spam header.

Video to SD cards in Panny now

[swb]

The 3CCD consumer camera from Panny one up from mine will do MPEG4/WMV to SD memory. Since it's not my model, I forget if its crippled to 15FPS or not. But with a big enough card it would be meaningful.

Faster, better OS

[Anonymous Coward]

I have posted a few times on slashdot about using a safe, object-oriented language for the operating system. This lots of advantages, like that the OS code can be very much simpler (most of the complexity in the UNIX kernels is getting memory correct and using procedural approaches for problems that it shouldn't be used for (ie, network stack for example). Or that user programs can run in the same memory space as the kernel without any problems. Or that you can get microkernel-like safe device drivers without the performance penalty. Or that a rich API with callbacks into apps from the kernel are possible (like having Java standard library as the OS).

So I tell people this could actually be faster, and some lamer always posts a reply saying basically "moron". Never mind that I have done lots of kernel programming on bsd and some on linux.

Now this comparison says that by turning off the MMU they got 5x better performance on a FIFO benchmark and 2x better performance on a pipe benchmark (context switch time in 10x faster).

So take that, anonymous nay-sayer. An object-oriented, safe language used to make an operating system would make a faster, simpler, and better OS.

Re:Hurry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry - it just pisses me off to picture some dork plugging into an XP box not knowing a damn thing about whats going on inside either machine.

Am I to presume, then, that you are a certified expert with regards to every machine you have ever touched before? Like your car, you don't have to understand how every piston, gear and circuit works in order to use it effectively.

Excellent trolling, though.

Poor choice for memory card

[DigitalDragon]

Memory Stick! Bleh.

I wonder what made them make such a poor choice. The right choice would have been to go with Compact Flash or SD, if you want smaller.
Memory stick is still a Sony bound product (I know that now there are other manufacturers) and underperforms other cards, since there's no such fierce competition.

I see this as a big minus.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[Kenja]

Its a speed issue. Sony designed the memory stick format to be able to handle 160Mbps sustained with the intention of using it for video. While Secure Digital can get up to the same speeds it is a burst speed used for saving single files fast rather then for streaming data.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[kldavis4]

The reason is that they have a business partnership http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/EJ08Dh01.html

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is exactly why I purchased Panasonic's version which uses SD. Even better I can record a show off TV and watch the following morning on the way to work. No more missing Futurama for me! http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servle t/vModelDetail?displayTab=O&storeId=11251&catalogI d=11005&itemId=68138&catGroupId=17169&modelNo=SV-A V50S&surfModel=SV-AV50S

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[kelnos]

What *is* the sustained read/write rate for CF or SD? TFA says that the CPU in this thing can handle 8MB/s of video (64Mbps), so as long as CF or SD can handle that, it should be fine. Probably the real reason is what one of the other replies to the grandparent says: it's because Samsung has a business relationship with Sony.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[Kenja]

"What *is* the sustained read/write rate for CF or SD? TFA says that the CPU in this thing can handle 8MB/s of video (64Mbps), so as long as CF or SD can handle that, it should be fine. Probably the real reason is what one of the other replies to the grandparent says: it's because Samsung has a business relationship with Sony."

It varries from manufacturer to manufacturer. So I would guess that they went with the memory sticks becuase there is a standard that sets a transfer rate at an exceptable level. Rather then having the performance of the device shift depending on whos CF/SD card you chose.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[swb]

Which still seems dubious considering it wouldn't have been terribly expensive to add nnn MB of RAM to buffer writes, thus eliminating the need to use MemoryShaft.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[Anonymous Coward]

No, a buffer can't make up for slow storage medium. My digital camera is Sony's Cybershot 828, which is the only Sony camera to my knowledge that supports compact flash type 2 as well as the memory stick format. I've got a 4G Hitachi microdrive as my primary storage medium. Although I can shoot 50 minutes of 640x480 30FPS video onto the microdrive, I can only shoot 20 minutes of it before it runs out of buffer space and has to stop and write out the buffer contents. Buffers work fine for pictures, but they don't do a lot for video.

Also, the microdrive takes a while to spin up when you turn on the camera - quite a bit longer than a solid state device. This is why I intend to acquire a memory stick to put in the memory stick slot on the camera - I can choose which medium I want to use with the flip of a switch.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[y4h0oo]

According to this site : it has a MultiCard port (SD, MemoryStick, MMC, CF)

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[Anonymous Coward]

The new CompactFlash spec version 3.0 brings up the speed to essentially the same level as UDMA66 (of IDE fame). If that's not enough... Samsung is a big, no... humangous flash chip manufacturer, so surely they can make a fast CF card. The standard is there.

MemoryStick... They can stick it into their corporate back orifice. If Samsung came up with this product, sooner or later there will be somebody else that will come up with something less proprietary. I've got a whole bunch of different memory cards and made myself a promise not to buy MemoryStick. Ever.

Re:Poor choice for memory card

[swb]

You're right, although until I did some simple math it didn't seem like that.

Maybe having the buffer size be 4G or something up front makes more sense; this way you could write it all to the buffer. You could have the camera either auto-copy to flash or not copy to flash. The camera could store more video than a single flash card and for some situations, you'd just transfer the video directly from buffer to PC.

RAM is cheap enough these days that it might make sense.

Re:Hurry!

[mythosaz]

The AC already suggested you switch to decaf, and...he's right. There are plenty of decaffineated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.

That said, us 'xp dorks' don't *want* or *care* what's running inside of it. We want to plug in our to the machine and we want it to work. We want to take pictures and videos, and then we want to plug it in to our computer, and we want the media to magically appear. If you feel like checking the 'expert' box, go ahead.

While it's nify that it runs *nix, these devices should be easy to use, and we don't much care if they run on a beowulf cluster of tiny gnomes.

...and ARM...

[Aardpig]

...stands for 'Advanced RISC Machines', the spinoff company that grew out of Acorn Ltd's ARM (this time, 'Acorn RISC Machine') series of RISC cpus. These chips made their debut in Acorn's Archimedes computers, and were the first RISC chips to appear in home machines. They are used a lot today in situations where a high MIPS/watt ratio is needed, typically embedded devices.

Isn't 'ARM-no-MMU' Just uClinux?

[yacitus]

...is the first of several products from Samsung that will run a new variation of Linux called 'ARM-no-MMU.'

The LinuxDevices white paper seems to imply that 'ARM-no-MMU' is uClinux. That's not a new variation.

Hopefully Samsung won't repeat Panasonic's mistake

[PortHaven]

Panasonic released a similar device with their d-snap AV-50S

However, the video is not truly MPEG4 as they encapsulate the file in a proprietary .ASF file format preventing you from being able to easily share the movies.

Secondly, the voice recorder files cannot be played back on your PC (only on the camcorder device which is limited to about 1 hour battery). Nor do they give you a tool to convert them from their proprietary format to a standard .wav or .mp3

http://www.easternstorm.net/dsnap for more info on these matters.

Just say no to no MMU

[Animats]

No-MMU systems should be restricted to applications where the processor costs a few dollars or less and all the code is in permanent read-only memory. Something that costs a few hundred dollars and runs Linux should have an MMU.

It's amazing...

[JayJay.br]

...that there actually is a version of Linux that does not use a MMU (this "ARM-no-MMU" is based on uClinux, AFAICT, which is a non-MMU distro for embedded devices).

IIRC, Linux was born exactly as a study of the capabilities of the 386 processor's MMU.

Now that is change... this should be the most extreme fork from the original project (which is not bad, I'm just amazed by the diversity Linux is promoting)

Re:It's amazing...

[elgaard]

>...that there actually is a version of Linux that does not use a MMU

The main version, Kernel 2.6.x can be compiled without MMU support for at least some architectures.

Re:I have not had luck with Samsung during dry win

[owlstead]

Yeez, lucky we have consumer rights here in Europe. 1,5 years of usage is not within the time-frame you would expect from such a product (say, 5 years) and you would get at least 80% reimbursed here in the Netherlands (probably in the form of a refurbished camcorder). That is, if you make a case out of it. Cracks would be a bit more troublesome, since you might have destroyed it yourself.

Another problem with your posting is that it is a single incident, and we cannot be sure if this happens a lot, if you actually owned this camcorder or even if you are really MrJerry. Ok, I'll take the last 2 for granted, but its difficult to create a graph from a test of one out of one. But I bet it's still frustrating for you.

Pathetic

[mirko]

for 700$ it records movies in 15fps, photos in 800x600 and it has only one gig for mp3...
Too expensive.

Re:Pathetic

[Schweg]

It's not as bad as you make it out to be, the description listed video capture at 720x480 30fps. Also note that it has an optical 10x zoom with image stabilization, usually not cheap items to implement.

I agree about the low resolution on video capture, and wish that they had chosen CompactFlash Type 2 for the external storage, since then you could use a microdrive with several gigabytes of storage.

Re:Pathetic

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA:

Miniket can capture D1-resolution video (720 x 480, the same resolution as DVDs) at 30 frames/sec, with audio

The 1GB version stores an hour of DVD quality video at 30fps... for $600-$700.. that sounds fair to me.

Re:Pathetic

[exhilaration]

The Canon S1 IS has 10X optical zoom, image stabilization, 30fps 640x480 movies, 3.2 MP still shots, and uses CF cards - all for around $300. Check out this review.

Re:Pathetic

[Schweg]

I agree, that's a nice camera. I like Canon's products.

The only problem there is that I think they use an older video format, since they can only get a maximum of 9 or 12 minutes (depending on compression) on a 1GB CF card. That really limits its use as a replacement for a camcorder.

Re:Pathetic

[jav1231]

There's a reason for it. I call it "Jav's Law of Antithetical Embedded Pricing." The jist of which is: The smaller the device the more likely the OSS-based operating system will actually INCREASE TCO.
It is managing to ignore one of the more common sidenotes to this law by making itself available in the in a country that isn't in the far east.

Re:Pathetic

[Gondola]

There's nothing revolutionary about that camera, however.

The big deal about the parent article is that (1) it's supposed to be Linux, and (2) it's the size of a deck of cards.

If you need to take video clips, and you're not too inconvenienced by having to carry around lots of proprietary memory sticks, that's fine. But this machine fails two important checks for me:

1. No high resolution photo mode. Photos are 800x600. Crap. There's GOT to be a way to have a decent "high resolution" video mode (720x480) AND a 3+ megapixel camera on the same housing.

2. Memory stick. Who cares about memory sticks? They're more expensive and less ubiquitous than SD or CF. I'll pass.

This combined with the high price tag make this a sure loser. I would really like to replace my 4mp camera with 8x optical zoom with something that can also record movies at a decent resolution, but this device isn't it. Yet. Maybe next year.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Albanach]

My guess that it uses some sort of flash memory, which is technicially not a 'disk'.

Informitive?!? Actually, the article's informitive:

Movie length can be extended using removable storage cards. The Miniket includes a MultiCard slot that supports Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro cards. Memory Stick and its faster Pro variant are typically supported by digital cameras and other consumer devices from Sony. Memory Sticks are currently available from SanDisk and Sony in capacities up to 4GB, typically priced slightly higher per megabyte than CompactFlash cards.

Re:I have not had luck with Samsung during dry win

[Anonymous Coward]

It's odd because their 1 year on-site repair in the UK is really odd.

You probably just got a duff product. Have you got in contact with them about it?

Re:I have not had luck with Samsung during dry win

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm ill:

** is really good, and shows that they trust their products.

codec?

[seven5]

i'm curious about what codec this is using. Is it using Ms's mpeg-4 codec (ASF) or is it using a more standard mpeg4 codec?

Just this week i have been researching these mini cams, and this one looks like the ticket. But i want to make sure it will work with iMovie HD now that it is able to edit mpeg4 vids.

Anyone have any insight on this?

In all seriousness why not?

[Mustang Matt]

I'd love to have a single device that did it all. I already carry around a treo 300. Stick bluetooth on it and give me a wireless headset.

Re:In all seriousness why not?

[hostyle]

Have you considered implants? Or stronger drugs? Windows Media Codecs might be just the ticket! Have you not s^Hbuffered enough yet from all that intra-device comnubulationishness?

Camcorder - easy playback feature

[cpaalman]

Is this a limitation or am I just not understanding the statement?

"Playback Fast-Forware and Rewind up to a maximum of 128 times."

"Files created with our Minikit are designed for playback with the included software and our DVD Recorders."

Can their files be exported to a format that I can playback in a program of MY choice? What can't I use my DVD recorder? I don't need another one from them.

Hmm... like most things, looks good 'till you peel back the layers.

Re:Camcorder - easy playback feature

[gcanyon]

I was caught by that as well. I think they mean that it can fast forward or reverse at up to 128x normal speed. Don't know about export...

Re:Camcorder - easy playback feature

[Anonymous Coward]

I would assume the 128 times means you can fast-forward and rewind at 128x speed.

Linux Devices Commentry is junk!

[Ion Berkley]

Come one, and I quote " This is because research at Samsung showed that context switches and IPCs (inter-process communications) are faster under uClinux on processors that have virtually indexed caches and a TLB (translation lookaside buffer) without address space tags."
That is exactly what this piece of "research" said wasn't true!
And I say "research" because whilst I heartily approve of any engineer quantifying any theory, this is not rocket science, every embeded OS developer understands this point.
Most embeded deivces use CPU's with MMU's, for example every cell phone that has an ARM7b running the call control stack would account for several hundered million examples....
Not to be down on what looks like a god product.

Let me know what you find out

[Mustang Matt]

I've been researching them this week too.

This one has caught my interest. The idea of carrying a few memory sticks in my pocket to offload to the laptop every night is appealing.

But does it run Linux ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, wait....well I guess that's the end of this thread then.

Please

[abigor]

And I'm sure it pisses off other people when they think that you put your key into the ignition in your car without knowing every last detail of your fuel injection system and the precise gear ratios in your transmission.

People buy products to do useful, fun things. Companies like Samsung make money off said people and pay their employees.

And I'm certain the kernel source is available. So relax.

Re:Please

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm sure it pisses off other people when they think that you put your key into the ignition in your car without knowing every last detail of your fuel injection system and the precise gear ratios in your transmission.
You would dare anger the gear ratio gods by turning the ignition in a vehicle you didn't know the exact gear ratio, calculating in mechanical wear factors for?!?!? DIE!

I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

These companies...why are they after linux? I mean if it's for the free-ness (beer), why not go for BSD? They certainly don't promote opensource, do you really think I will have all the tools to make my own applications for this device?

While I'm here -> my ideal device:
Size of an ipod (or a lil' bigger).
20gig minimum HD.
Tri-band GSM phone.
400+mhz arm processor.
Audio in/out.
Sharp cl-3000 like Display on top.
USB2 or firewire.
A jog wheel on the side along with some buttons.
A wired headphone remote with 3 buttons and a wheel (like the ipod wheel. Come on, I have a few ideas that will work *just* as well as the ipod's, innovate companies innovate!).
Basic mp3/video/audio recording/pda software on top of some linux.
(No thumbpad or stupid stuff like that...)

Some company do this....and you will make some money. If you put the work in and make the software kick-ass-out-of-the-box, you'll make millions. I'll buy one and so will my friends. And we will all code for it like mad.

On behalf of all the Anonymous Cowards who are too lazy to register.

Re:I don't get it.

[Anonymous Coward]

why not go for BSD?

Because *BSD sucks cock, that's why

Linux and the GPL Stifles Innovation!

[w4rh0g]

So so says MS. And this proves it.... Oh damn! Perhaps closed source/copyrights are stifling innovation, preventing inventors and entrepenuers from rapidly exploring new ideas.

Camcorderless Linux?

[Doc Ruby]

If they've got the kernel to go faster, where's the source code? Don't they have to publish their diffs (under GPL), since they're distributing the new OS version with every camera?

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[Jusii]

Well, if two mouse clicks is too much, how about one?

http://opensrc.sec.samsung.com/

And no, they don't have to publish their diffs for everybody, only for those who has bought the camera if they ask for them.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[Doc Ruby]

Thanks for saving my clicks. You also helped reveal that this camcorder is running uCLinux, not some major Samsung Linux fork along the same lines. So the OS is available even without buying the camera.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[adolf]

They only need to make sources available to those who have the binaries and request the source from them.

And even then, they get to charge whatever they feel like to provide the source to those entitled to it.

So, in order to make a legitimate GPL gripe, you'll first have to unsuccessfully do the following:

1. Procure one of their Linux-based camcorders, or otherwise obtain and posess their kernel binary
2. Request the source code used to generate said binary from Samsung
3. Pony up when they demand payment for their time and materials

If and when you fail, you'll finally be able to direct the ire of the GPL nazis toward them. Otherwise, they're being compliant, per the GPL, even though it might feel all wrong.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[Doc Ruby]

Well, it turns out that Samsung is publishing the diffs to uCLinux they've made. But that fee for source you mentioned is wrong. The GPL allows only media copying and handling charges in order to get source for a GPL binary:


3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,

c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)


Otherwise, people would obey the letter of the GPL, but keep source proprietary, by charging arbitrarily unaffordable prices for the first copy of the source to be delivered.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[adolf]

Right.

Which is why I said "time and materials."

You don't think Samsung employees work for free, do you?

Dipfuck.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[Doc Ruby]

WRONG

You first said "they get to charge whatever they feel like to provide the source to those entitled to it", then you reiterated "time and materials". They don't get to charge "whatever they want" - maybe a hundred bucks tops for an incompetent admin to spend a couple hours burning and mailing a CD. The precedent for this fee us usually around $50 tops, eg. for Slackware.

But enough polite schooling the retard asshole who can't even read his own posts. Why the fuck are you insulting me? I've now gone through the effort of quoting GPL files, and your own posts, in my own. Politely. Even though you've got the basic facts wrong, including misquoting yourself, while making up stupid insult words. You retarded cunt.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[adolf]

Well, let's see. You've got the individual's standard hourly wage, plus overhead. Overhead includes office space, equipment, electricity, insurance, retirement programs, coffee supplies, restroom facilities, and so on, and so forth.

If that's not vague enough, add to the actual cost of source distribution any meetings (and the associated cost of the meetings' participants), plus the meeting space (which may or may not already exist), along with any steak, beer, and whores consumed while figuring out how to distribute the source.

All said and done, the actual cost incurred by Samsung to conclude the acts of figuring out how to get Joe Sixpack a copy of their kernel mods (which is plainly the first step of actually doing it) it could quite easily be a few thousand dollars. The GPL provides that they may recover that cost from individuals seeking source code.

Outrageous? Yes.

Unlikely? Of course.

"Whatever they feel like?" A bit of an exageration, perhaps. But even if taken literally: Who are you to say any different, lest you've got a copy of Samsung's books in front of you?

I've read the GPL enough times that I don't need it quoted to me. I understand it rather well, I think. And when you came along attempting to disprove my statements with quotations that I already know, the best word I could summon to describe you was "dipfuck."

But upon further reflection, I've hence decided that it is indeed not a very apt moniker with which to describe you. Therefore, instead of you being a dipfuck, I've determined that you, sir, are a shitworm: A varied and largely ubiquitous, parasitic thing that lives on the pre-digested shit of other, larger organisms.

I do hope you find this classification more satisfying.

HAND.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dipfuck, huh?

Being the psuedo-intellectual cock-gobbler that you are, apparently you fancy yourself some sort of legal expert.

Well, assfuck, perhaps once you finish slurping the shitworm from your leathered-bonded man-slave's colon you'll realize that the cost is limited to *physically* performing the distribution. This does not mean constructing new infrastructure. This does not mean building a fiber line. This means taking your cock, putting a needle through it, and letting your father lick the dripping blood.

Here in reality we have something called good faith, and thinking you can accept and satisfy the terms of a license while getting around it will land you in a world of buttfucking legal hurt.

Re:Camcorderless Linux?

[adolf]

Good reply.

But I question it.

Your definition of "actual cost" seems to mean a nickel for a CD, a half-dollar for time, and thirty-seven cents for a stamp. Over here in reality, it's rather obvious that nobody actually doing any distribution of GPL'd source has that same definition -- they all charge either significantly more, or nothing at all.

If a line must be drawn somewhere, then feel free to draw it. But nobody, so far, has done so and included it in the GNU GPL.

Voice transcription!

[argent]

I want voice transcription... until it can convert continuous speech to text (offline or in the background, and with training, are OK) voice recording is just annoying.

Re:Hurry!

[characters42]

That said, us 'xp dorks' don't *want* or *care* what's running inside of it. What do you expect while reading "news for nerds"? Hmmm - you sound like somebody reading the Wall Street Journal and then complaining the they only talk about economics... ;-)

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Anonymous Coward]

so my old camcorder from last year is also a diskless recorder.

it uses tape :-)

Re:Hopefully Samsung won't repeat Panasonic's mist

[art123]

Here are some features the Samsung has over the Panasonic:

* optical zoom
* image stabilzation
* 720x480@30fps versus 320x240
* higher price $600-700 versus $400

Line In!

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw all this built-in mike crap everybody's selling...I want a Line In. I want to be able to sit at the back of a lecture, recording it from a nice powered mike up at the front.

rugged sports model.

[captfi]

Oh oh let me guess...
I bet it's gonna be f'in YELLOW!!!!

yeah yeah... mod me redundant

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[afidel]

slightly higher per megabyte than CompactFlash cards

Yes, if you consider 20-100% higher slightly. Memorystick is a stupid, proprietary (even if they have one external lessee for their tech), technology that typically lags CF in both capacity and price drops. For example the cheapest 1GB CF card on Newegg is $63, cheapest MS Pro 1GB? $133. And that's not some aberation that I picked just to prove a point, I simply went to look for how far behind MS still is.

Cool!

[Anita Coney]

Imagine what you could do with a beowulf cluster of these babies! They have built-in gigabit networking, right?

Too expensive, low still resolution, and no CF/SD

[mriker]

US$700 is too much for my wallet to handle. And still resolution of 800x600? That's extremely disappointing. CF/SD support would've been nice... I refuse to buy Sony's over-priced memory. And I've expected more than 1GB internal memory for that price.

Does anyone have a suggestion for a [much] lower-cost cam that can do both video (at least DVD quality) and high-resolution stills (2MP+)?

ARM-no-MMU?

[radarsat1]

I'd be interested to know what this is, and how it differs from a cross-compiled copy of uClinux..

Which, by the way, has supposedly now been integrated into 2.6, so my question could also be, how does this differ from vanilla kernel 2.6 compiled for MMU-less ARM?

Re:ARM-no-MMU?

[olibri]

It is uClinux. They even say it in the whitepaper. Yes, uClinux is not new...it's just yet another effort to have engineers think, "Hey cool. They're using something that I know about." Incidentally, Samsung has always had uClinux support. I worked on a port for one of their ARM9 solutions and it was crap. Apparently they contracted the work out, and the contractors did a bad job. We probably spent two weeks debugging network and memory problems. Since Samsung had contracted it out, they couldn't give any reasonable direct support.

No memory management? Cool.

[rhaas]

Unless I'm mistaken here, this will allow one process to take down the entire machine, just like Windows. I've always said that the problem with Linux is that it needs to be made just as fast and reliable as Windows.

(Before someone mentions it, yes, I know that Windows has memory management. But it also has poor process isolation, of which this design creates a more extreme version.)

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless I'm mistaken here, this will allow one process to take down the entire machine, just like Windows.

Whereas otherwise you could always hope that the process wasn't important to whatever it was the camcorder was doing?

Needs a mini HDD

[KrackHouse]

If this thing had a laptop sized HDD inside it'd be only marginally bigger but would make a huge difference in terms of capabilities.

They need to either take out the crippled video recording feature and make the whole device smaller and cheaper or they need to add a HDD and make it competitive with "real" camcorders.

You mean uClinux?

[Anonymous Coward]

ARM-no-MMU. You mean uCLinux? Which has been around for years? Ya its a little faster than the identical processor with an MMU in some instances, but it also doesn't do a lot of neat things properly, like shared libraries. I hate how press releases always try to make old things sound new.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on!
You can call it a "solid state" camcorder - still - it does not have a disk... :)

If you read my post.....

[reality-bytes]

If you read my post, I refer to MPEG-4 QVGA as a Format not a codec. IE: MPEG-4 QVGA Format a format consisting of an MPEG-4 stream at QVGA resolution.

I then went on to state that this is probably using a proprietary codec as per:

MPEG4 motion video can be played back with Windows Media Player 6.4 or later. Playback Fast-Forward and Rewind up to a maximum or 128 times. Files created with our Miniket are designed for playback with the included software and our DVD recorders.

Sounds like a right stingy system at that if it restricts you playing-back only 128times :-/

Re:If you read my post.....

[GoRK]

De-Engrishing it, they mean that you can fast forward or rewind at up to 128 times normal speed. This really isn't applicable for computer-based playback as you can also arbitrarily seek, but on the unit itself, I'm sure it will do 128X ff/rw.

what's in a name

[Anonymous Coward]

will run a new variation of Linux called 'ARM-no-MMU.'

What a beautiful and mysterious name for an OS. I wonder what chip it will run on, and whether it will have a memory management unit?

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

For embedded systems, the applications can be developed on a system WITH protected memory and later deployed on the target system which lacks memory protection. You see, once the software is vetted under the strict environment, it can safely be moved to a less strict environment.

No problemo, amigo.

40 credit cards?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that 40 blank, non-imprinted credit cards, or is it rather 40 credit cards with standard-depth name and number embossing? If the latter, that might be, what, 60 to 80 unembossed cards, and let's not even get into preapproved faux cards.

Not enough juice

[Stone316]

The nice thing about flash type media is that it requires alot less juice to power. If you were to put a small HD in there it they would have to put in a bigger power supply or the battery life would be even more pathetic.

and RISC

[Arakonfap]

... stands for "Reduced Instruction Set Chip". :)

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... It's a camera. How many processes do you suppose are going to run on it at any given time? I'd say 2-3.. Maximum. How many are critical to the functioning of the camera? All of them. It's not a fucking general purpose computer. Frankly, Linux is totally overkill... BUT They're using it because it's there, it suits the purpose, and they didn't have to re-invent the wheel. I'm all for that.

The only way this is going to have a problem is a) Their programming screws up. b)Linux is bugged c)The user tries to use it as a something it's not designed to be used for. Everything except A is an extraneous circumstance.

and GNU

[adeyadey]

Stands for "GNU is Not Unix.."

Voice:anyone tried speech-to-text from MP3 lately?

[IceAgeComing]

I've periodically looked into the possibility of using these MP3 recorders as dictation devices. About 2 years ago, the voice recognition software hadn't caught up to convenient use yet: you had to be sitting down in a quiet area with a good noise-cancelling microphone. The main commercial packages were IBM's ViaVoice and Dragon Naturally Speaking, and you couldn't easily use your own MP3 voice recorder with these. You had to offload the MP3, translate MP3 to WAV on your desktop, and somehow run the software in batch mode (non-interactively). I gave up after finding out that recognition was good only under restrictive conditions (sitting down, quiet room, etc.)

As I understand it, someone can write good software to separate background from voice (in particular MY voice as the software understands it from training), then speech recognition on-the-go should be possible, i.e. walking and talking. I would love to record my thoughts while I go on outdoor hikes.

So I'm wondering if anyone has come across this lately or tried it.

while GNU..

[Anonymous Coward]

means "GNU is Not Unix"..

Re:while GNU..

[hostyle]

Whats that mysterious "unix" word stand for then?

however, GNU..

[Anonymous Coward]

GNU stands for "GNU is Not Unix"..

Ogg?

[Lord Byron II]

Anyone have any idea what it would take to make it play back Ogg files? It runs Linux, has plenty of processor power and memory, and surely the rom can be flashed.

Re:Ogg?

[Stevyn]

Ugh. These embedded devices are so specific to their task it's not simply a matter of adding some more software on and assuming the rest of the system can just play it. Plus, it adds cost to develop with very little benefit even if the hardware could take it without little modification.

I don't see why every tiny music player should be expected to play a format nobody uses.

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[sprprsnmn]

It's not that the ARM architechture doesn't have Memoery Management, it's that there is no dedicated Memory Management Unit on the microprocessor, so the kernel has to do all the work for memory management, rather than just telling to MMU to do the I/O.

But it has an MMU -- just not used

[breadbot]

The SoC (System on a Chip) that Samsung uses has an MMU, but they just don't use it for this device.

From the LinuxDevices article:

The Miniket is based on a Samsung S5C7376 SoC (system-on-chip) clocked at 216MHz. The SoC includes an ARM9 core with MMU; however, the Miniket's uClinux 2.6 kernel does not use the chip's MMU.

Re:Request for clarification on Diskless technolog

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what it means.

Disappointing specs though

[Please tell me why]

Still cqmera? At 0.5 megapixels! Video, at 15 FPS! Sounds more like a toy to me.

Looks like fun....except:

[fikx]

This looks like a fun gadget to have. I've been wanting to play with a camcorder, but didn't want something that would be useless once I figured out what features I REALLY wanted. This would fit that great....except for two possible killers:
reading between the lines it looks like it uses a format that can't be played back without special work (read extra software or a special DVD player). Also, it uses memory sticks as storage and doesn't transfer to PC without software.
Both aren't horrible, but I hate when ANY gadget sais it needs extra software. it is invariably WINDOWS software, blast it!
someone prove me wrong on those suspicions....please.

Aiptek

[Hal XP]

Ya. I too bought one of these so called multi-function devices for about the same amount. Mine's an Aiptek. Could we be talking about the same rebranded gizmo? The Aiptek DV-3500 does mp3 playback and voice, still and mp4 recording to MMC or SD media.

The old saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" certainly applies to the thing. It's a nice toy. But it's bound to fail in quite a few situations where a dedicated mp3 player, digital still camera and digital camcorder -- even if they still fall short of their analog cousins -- would do just fine. For one thing, the DV-3500 doesn't have optical zoom. Most of the better mid-range digital still cameras have at least 3X and as we go up the price range we see 10X in cameras like the Kodak DX7590, which also does mpeg4 recording. The camcorder is also practically useless in low-light situations. So forget about using it in undercover work.

The Taiwanese company has other models available in their Pocket DV range.

Re:Aiptek

[robogun]

The Mustek DV4000 looks the same thing but records only 10 frames/sec at highest resoultion. But even this Samsung does not record DVD quality (Mpeg2). In fact the only Mpeg 2 flash-based camcorder is made by Panasonic (av100) which chose to use SD cards (as in 1 gb max). Meaning 20 minutes best of recording. For reference uncompressed DV videotape rips to disk at about 10gb/hr.
These guys need to wake up and use CF.

Formats

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, didn't Sony just confess that trying to force people to store music in proprietary formats was a mistake? Now they want us to record video to their own crummy memory stick...

Re:Hurry!

[unixbugs]

Some people have no sense of humor. Eat some ass, all of you.

Hmm... uClinux on ARM9 without MMU

[humphry]

Why don't they use ARM7 it's much cheaper than ARM9? uC is supported on ARM7 for ages. The only reason to use ARM9 is for the MMU support.

Re:Hmm... uClinux on ARM9 without MMU

[ajlitt]

Hmm... ARM9 doesn't imply MMU (ARM9E). And ARM7 based parts can have one (ARM720T). ARM7 is usually cheaper to implement as a core in a larger custom chip as it's more flexible about process requirements (from 0.35um on down) and takes up less area. However, it's not designed to clock quite as fast, and doesn't natively talk to one of ARM's nice high speed SOC buses.

Re:Too expensive, low still resolution, and no CF/

[Slack3r78]

Not to mention that the optics are going to be terrible in a package that size. All the extra junk is probably there to slow returns once consumers get ahold of it and realize that it has the subpar image quality that a lens that size is going to give you.

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[hostyle]

Dude... It's a camera. How many processes do you suppose are going to run on it at any given time? I'd say 2-3

No KDE then? Why the hell would you run Linux without all that KDE eye-candy? Monstrous!

Re:Too expensive, low still resolution, and no CF/

[Anonymous Coward]

Less expensive for more performance? You're not thinking straight. I just bought the JVC Everio - coolness incarnate - for $1200. The stills are 2 megapixels and the video is in MPEG2 format for DVD quality. The Everio uses SD and Compact Flash and comes with a 4 gig microdrive. The design is nothing short of amazing. You've got to hold one of these things in your hand to really get a feel for it. See the review at Tom's Hardware for more info.

Cut off your ARM

[Jack Greenbaum]

The "whitepaper" says:

In this paper, we implemented Linux and uClinux kernels on the same ARM9 platform and compared the performance. The ARM9 processor features virtually indexed caches and a TLB without address space tag. Therefore Linux should flush entire cache and TLB on each context switch which is very costly. uClinux, however, contents of caches and a TLB are valid even after context- switch because the same address space is shared among all processes. We observed an order of magnitude reduction of the context switching overheads on uClinux. As a result, IPC (Inter Process Communication) performance is also better on uClinux.

The idea of turning off memory protection because your chosen processor has a poor memory architecture makes no sense. Virtually tagged caches are bad, mkay? CHOOSE A DIFFERENT PROCESSOR if you don't want to pay the cost, using no memory protection is just asking for customer returns when their files get corrupted and the whole box crashes because the appointment book walks on the kernel.

-- Jack

"ultra high resolution"?

[Demon of the fall]

"Capture crisp, clear images in ultra-high resolution", the ad says.

I think not - the still-image resolution is 800x600! I guess that was ultra-high in the nineties, but surely not nowadays.

Re:No memory management? Cool.

[rhaas]

Whereas otherwise you could always hope that the process wasn't important to whatever it was the camcorder was doing?

Even if you assume that the process that crashes is bound to be doing something important, you can recover from an isolated crash just by restarting the process. On the other hand, if processes aren't isolated, the defunct process may have corrupted kernel memory, and your system may become unstable in unpredictable ways or even just die (and need a hard reboot to get back online).

On the other hand, it sounds like this thing reboots PDQ, so maybe having to have the user hit the power button twice if something goes wrong is not the end of the world.

Still, memory protection and process isolation contribute powerfully to system stability. You have to really want to squeeze out every possible drop of system performance to be willing to get rid of them (or not know what you're doing, which I doubt is the case here).

details

[torrents]

right, most people want products that "just work" the people who want every last detail are the minority however they drive the change and adoption of these products

I think my fuji s7000

[fishyfool]

does pretty much everything the samsung does, except it takes xd and type 2 cf cards with support for microdrives as well. why buy the samsung for more money?