Several MLMUGers have commented on the cute little camera they've seen me using at meetings and asked what it is. It's called the SupaCam DV6. First and foremost, it's a tiny Digital Video camera, about the size of a king size cigarette pack. I bought it at Macworld Expo in Boston last summer, for $288. It does all of these:

• a DV camera
• 6.6 Megapixel Digital Still Camera
• MP3 Player, and
• Voice Recorder

It uses a cheap Lithium-Ion Nokia cell phone battery, a generic version of which can be had for about $10. For storage it uses standard SD memory cards, but be aware, they must be "high-speed", i.e. 45X or better. Do not buy memory cards or any accessories from them, though; their prices on that stuff are terrible.

In order to use its output on a Mac, you must download the DIVX Codec from: www.divx.com/divx/mac/. That worked just splendid, then I upgraded to Tiger, causing the Test Mac to suffer from failure-to-wake-from-sleep syndrome. This occurred while the DV6 was mounted and I had to force-reboot using the 3-finger salute. This left the camera in a totally frozen state: NONE of its buttons worked. I finally resuscitated it by removing the Li-Ion battery then replacing it.

After that, everything worked fine under Tiger, until I downloaded QuickTime 7.0.2, which broke it. My symptom was that the audio in iMovie was speeded up for the first few seconds, then mute. Luckily, 7.0.2 seems to have broken a lot of things, and Apple quickly offered the "QuickTime 7.0.1 Reinstaller," which worked.

A check back at the DIVX site, though, said (and still says), "DivX 5 does not support Mac OS X 10.4 or QuickTime 7. We are working with Apple to resolve several compatibility issues." So I guess I consider myself lucky. I experienced similar results on a Mac mini, as well as the test Mac.

I use it for all its intended functions. The best video is achieved when using the highest resolution. On the other hand, I've found the LOWest resolution to be best for stills, because photos come out blurry if the camera moves even slightly. So use a tripod for Medium and High (6 Mpixel) resolution.

Never use DIGITAL zoom on any camera; all it does is shave pixels. All the video I took when zoomed was (IMO) unusable. Unfortunately there is no optical zoom on this one.

Do not depend on the built-in microphone for for audio, unless you are close to the subject. I had good results in one case, when I was standing beside a loudspeaker. See http://lmiss.nova.home.comcast.net/VF05/Movies/Kickoff.mov. As far as I know, there is no way to configure it with an external microphone. For most movies I end up exporting the sound track and amplifying it it something like Audacity, then pasting the MP3 into iMovie HD.

It's probably best to stick with Panther or earlier, until DIVX and Apple work things out on the iffy Tiger support. That has been the situation for MONTHs, though; I wouldn't hold my breath.

In spite of the shortcomings mentioned above, I am happy with the unit overall and would definitely buy it again. Unfortunately, the DV6 has been replaced by the DVX, which takes ten Megapixel stills. Also, the price has been raised to $299.