kp PureTool ZBMEditor vdiskmanager_GUI VMXExtras PMRC

Introduction

PureTool is a Mac OS X program which interfaces with PureDigital's one-time use camcorders or cameras* to allow users to download files. Users will also need a USB-to-cam cable, and on newer camcorders, some way to bypass authentication. As PureDigital has expressed an (understandable) desire for software bypass methods to not be distributed, please do not ask for ways to do this -- you're on your own if your camcorder requires a software bypass.

PureTool is similar to Ops (popular on Linux and Windows). The main difference is that Ops is based on libusb, which is not trivial to package or install on OS X. In contrast, PureTool uses the native IOKit frameworks on OS X, and so does not require administrative privileges or other libraries. Ops also has more camcorder-specific functionality (such as changing images and uploading movies), but it doesn't support cameras.

For more information, try the CameraHacking forums

* - only the original blue cameras, not the second-generation ones

Requirements


Quick Instructions

For basic use, all you have to do is plug in your cam and press "Refresh". A list of movies or pictures on the cam should appear; you can download one by double-clicking on it or download all of them with "Download All". There are also some preferences you can set, they should be self-explanatory.

Less frequently used options are under "Configuration". You should have at least some idea of what those settings do before you change them. These options allow for tweaking of various cam parameters, mainly for adjusting the number and quality of images.

Known Issues

Downloaded files seem to have no audio.
The audio codec used by the camcorders is not recognized by QuickTime. You can convert the audio stream by using a program such as ffmpeg. Zaph from the CameraHacking boards has packaged ffmpeg and LAME into a program called FixSound. You can get it from http://www.dowtin.com/saturn

An alternative is to use a player, such as VLC or MPlayer OS X, which recognizes the audio stream.
File transfer can be slower than on Windows.
USB devices transfer data in packets of certain sizes (64 bytes or 512 bytes). The larger the packet, the faster the download. The camcorder will sometimes claim it is capable of transferring at 64 bytes/packet, sometimes at 512 bytes/packet. 512 byte packets were introduced in the USB 2.0 spec, so if your Mac doesn't support high-speed USB (e.g. pre-2003-ish Macs), transfers will definitely be slow.

Windows ignores the reported speed and blindly uses 512 byte packets; Mac and Linux honor the reported speed. This may be fixable, but it's not high priority for me right now - get everything to work first, then make it better. I suspect shorter, better cables should work better, but I haven't tested.

Note: After you press "Refresh", there is an indicator on the main tab which shows camcorder speed. It reflects speed at the time of refresh, not time of download, so it's more to see if you're consistently getting high or low speeds than to see how well your download is doing. If you are able to consistently get high connection speed, I'm interested in hearing about it.
Nothing shows up in the file listing when I press "Refresh".
When doing a camcorder "Get Config", I see three warning messages. Changing the settings and pressing "Set Config" does nothing.
Both of these symptoms indicate either a problem with your cable or a problem authenticating to the camcorder. Search the CameraHacking forums for troubleshooting help.
Download pane does not close after download finishes; the user has to quit PureTool.
Since files download correctly and a simple workaround (relaunch PureTool) exists, this is very low priority.
Mass Storage mode doesn't work on newer camcorders.
Mass storage mode only works on firmware 3.40, 3.62, and 3.70.

About

PureTool is derived from PureRead (John Maushammer), dakotaconfig (Rodrigo Balerdi), PureRead GUI (Loren Brichter), OPS (Bill Wiley, keescook, ygfperson). Neither I nor any of the others are affiliated with PureDigital, CVS, or Apple in any way.

Screenshots

Main interface of PureTool Preferences for PureTool Configuration tab for PureTool Advanced camcorder options for PureTool Log window for PureTool

License

GPL v2

Changelog


Notes on behavioral differences


Todo

Implement more OPS features, clean up code and UI. I'm not actually planning on working on this anymore, as my interests have changed, but it's what I would suggest.