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A Disposable Video Camera

Techstination feature for Thursday, June 16, 2005

A disposable video camera. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Disposable still cameras have been popular for years. Now CVS, the second biggest drugstore chain the U.S., is coming out with disposable camcorders. The company's director of photo and imaging, Grant Pill…

"So what this brings to the market place is a real entry level, 29 dollars 99 cent product that allows customers to record up to 20 minutes in as many segments as they want of video and sound, bring that back to CVS and get the DVD within one hour in the store."

The cameras use built in flash memory …no tape. The 20 minute limit per camera is one drawback. Another is, the cameras can't be connected to TVs or computers. They have to be taken back to CVS for the video to be transferred onto DVD. And…

"There is an additional charge for the DVD. It's 12.99. And with that DVD, though, you get a range of software that's burned on the DVD. When you're watching it on the television, it's like a Hollywood DVD in that if you see something at minute 18, you don't have to wait to go through all 18 minutes, you can actually use the menu function and go through each of the chapters."

The DVD also includes software to allow you to email the video file. Pill says CVS decided to add a separate charge for the DVD to allow customers to order multiple copies. He adds, the expectation is…disposable camcorders…much like disposable cameras…will become big business. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.