The Null Device blog:

A word of advice: if you're looking for a digital camera, do not buy an Ixla DualCam 640 (or Pretec DC-520, as I believe they're called); well, not if you're looking for one which will work reliably for more than a month or two. This camera has some severe flaws which come out after a month or so of use; the camera starts experiencing memory corruption, which can lead to pictures being truncated at best, and at worst, the camera deciding that it needs to reformat its memory when switched on. Or even more frustratingly, crashing when trying to read a specific image from its memory; which is very annoying, as it makes it possible to see some images but not to download them, because of the way the proprietary software works. (I did mention that it's entirely proprietary, and that you're at the mercies of a (shall I say slightly whimsical) TWAIN driver that runs only on Windows 9.x and MacOS classic, didn't I?)

I had the same problem with the previous camera, which I got replaced a few months ago, and now this one's doing it.

There are 4 comments on "":

Posted by: chegabana
http://
Sat Aug 2 09:43:54 2003

I am still having the same problem!!! This camera sucks and so does the company that took over IXLA. The complimentary tech support they offered was: "Download and run TWAIN driver then reboot your computer. Then plug in the dualcam 640. The problem should be solved". I think they mean: "The problem is unsolvable and by the way, if you dont stop trying to install the dualcam 640, your computer will have a problem of its own". Death to the IXLA DualCam 640!!!

Posted by: Ben
http://leviathan.weblogs.com
Sat Aug 2 15:54:08 2003

Andrew, it's obviously something you're doing wrong. I mean, what are the odds of 2 different cameras from 2 different companies developing the same faults after you've been using them for a couple of months?

Or maybe it's all those Gamecube still shots you have been using the Linux editing suite with your illegal modification chip? Just a thought?

Posted by: acb
http://dev.null.org
Sat Aug 2 18:38:14 2003

Um, both cameras in question were of the same make and model. I ended up flogging the last one for $50 to someone; for some reason, she doesn't return my emails these days.

Posted by: Ben
http://leviathan.weblogs.com
Mon Aug 4 03:50:17 2003

I'm starting to get an idea of the problem...I think it's institutional.

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