I am looking for a webcam or a small digital camera that can act as
a video camera that:
- hooks up to a PC via USB port, displays and captures still images
directly in BMP file format (preferable) or other non-lossy format,
- has true resolution (not software interpolated) of SVGA (800x600)
or higher,
- B/W or color does not matter,
- discontinued model OK if commonly available on Ebay,
- under $400.
I already have the Kensington SVGA webcam, unfortunately the image
quality is poor, I like to try others.  Thank you.

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Request for Question Clarification by seizer-ga on 07 Nov 2002 19:15 PST

Some models which support video only support a limited time length
(regardless of memory size). Would, say, a 15 second limit be
acceptable?

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Request for Question Clarification by seizer-ga on 07 Nov 2002 19:21 PST

15 seconds, that is, when acting as a standalone unit.

Is the TIFF format acceptable for non-lossy storage?

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Clarification of Question by aaaaa-ga on 07 Nov 2002 20:22 PST

RE: 15 seconds
I am not quite clear on what you meant by "15 seconds"...  I am not
trying to capture a movie clip, just a still image.  I do not plan on
using the camera in a standalone mode.  I would use the camera hooked
up to the PC like a webcam where I can see live images on the PC
screen, and then when I click "capture", I want that one frame to be
saved as a BMP file.  The frame update rate on the PC is not important
though.  In summary, if it is a digital camera, then it needs to be a
dual-mode camera where it can also behave like a regular webcam.

RE: TIFF
Yes, it would be acceptable, but as mentioned, BMP is preferable.

Many cameras that are designed to work as webcams (that is, with
computer control) will export their digital data to the computer and
let the computer software determine the type of graphics file format
in which to save the data.  This is particularly true of cameras which
are TWAIN-compatible, since it means that any program which supports
TWAIN (including numerous paint programs and even Microsoft FrontPage)
can communicate with the camera and grab an image from it.