Help - need a camera or video camera with specific criteria

[saint]

I'm looking for a digital camera or video camera that has the following criteria:

1. Small (shirt pocket size give or take)
2. Supports live RCA video-out so I can plug a cable from the camera to a video screen and see what the camera's seeing in real time
3. Has no text/display overlaid on the video output - just raw picture
4. 640x480 or thereabouts. Don't need high def quality at all, but the picture needs to be fairly distortion free
5. color video
6. No timeout, or at least a super long timeout of 1+ hours
7. Decent battery life

I keep finding cameras that meet a few of the above criteria, but none that meet them all. Many that meet all the criteria but #3, which is a deal breaker unfortunately.

Anyone have a recommendation? New/used doesn't matter.

[lilshawn]

plenty have the ability to turn that off in the settings...

it's odd that you would find one with all those options but not be able to turn off text off.

what kind of project we planning on? perhaps a webcam or a inexpensive security camera would do the trick.

[saint]

I'm creating the illusion of a hole in a solid object with the display on one side and the camera on the other. A cheap web/video camera would work also. The form factor needs to be fairly flat though.

[lilshawn]

a ceiling mount dome camera can be decased to a unit under 1" - 1 1/2" thick.

It would also have a fairly wide angle view that may distort your "see through effect" depending on how big of a monitor you use.

check out the kids toys section of walmart and toys-r-us. most stuff that has a video camera built into it could be hacked to work. My niece has this rediculous kareoke thing that hooks up to the TV and has a video camera built in.

(not actual pic but looks like this.)

maybe consider a video baby monitor.

[saint]

Ah, excellent idea! Thanks!

[Le Chuck]

Are you going to make two units so it works from either side?  That would be pretty awesome.  That solid object wouldn't be a chest for a zombie would it? 

[saint]

Are you going to make two units so it works from either side?  That would be pretty awesome.  That solid object wouldn't be a chest for a zombie would it? 

I'll never tell

[saint]

Iphone?

My backup plan is an iPhone with iPad using Facetime. Tested and working, but the form factor of both of them is difficult to use. Also concerned about the touch screens and buttons getting accidentally pushed and me not noticing. Still good call.

[saint]

Well, I was thinking more of using the video camera on the phone via output cable to your display.  Since the camera is rear facing you could mount the phone such that the screen shouldn't get accidentally touched.

You may have to jailbreak your device to enable TV output while that camera app is running.  You can get an app off Cydia called Resupported that'll let you use the cheaper composite cables.  I've only ever used that functionality to get a hall of mirrors effect on my living room TV (fun for 5 seconds).

Then just use some cheapie LCD for the front.

 

Ah! You da man! I will investigate that, that's perfect. Thanks!