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Casio QV-3000EX Casio steps into the 3-megapixel era with great picture quality and 340 megabytes of storage! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet QV-3000EX Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on QV-3000EX Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Camera Modes & Menus :(Previous) | (Next): Video, Power, Software>> Page 10:Image Storage & Interface Review First Posted: 2/14/2000

Image Storage and Interface
The QV-3000EX utilizes CompactFlash (Type I or II) as its image storage medium, which should never be removed from the camera while in use. An access light on the outside of the slot lets you know when it's ok to pull the card out (we found this light to be a little dim and hard to see, it's best to judge by the LEDs next to the optical viewfinder). As noted at the outset, Casio has created an incredible value in the QV-3000 bundle, by shipping every camera with a 340 megabyte(!) IBM MicroDrive! This provides an incredible amount of image storage, by anyone's definition! An interesting feature is that the QV-3000EX creates an HTML file with four card browser options available (compatible with Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 or later and Netscape Communicator 4.5 or later). QuickTime 3 is required to play back movie images. The four different card browser formats let you choose how much information is recorded with each image (a very detailed chart in the manual explains the settings). The card browser feature is very slick for people (like us) who want to know what all the exposure settings were for each picture. Perfect for the detail-oriented techno-tweaks!
The QV-3000EX organizes images into storage folders, assigned numbers from 100 to 998. Within each folder, images are numbered from 0001 to 9900 and each folder contains up to 100 files. An extremely detailed directory tree in the manual shows exactly how information is encoded on the CompactFlash card.
You can protect individual images on the CompactFlash card through the Playback menu in Playback mode, preventing accidental deletion of images. If you want to erase images, the Delete menu in Playback mode gives you the option of deleting individual images, a folder or all images that aren't protected. You can also hit the trash can button on the back panel to delete individual images as they appear on the LCD monitor.
The QV-3000 does support an uncompressed TIFF file format, but it appears to be in the native CCD format, and so is of relatively limited use. (No use?) We weren't able to open the uncompressed files from the camera in any imaging application we tried. (But here's a link to a file, in case you want to experiment yourself. Be warned that it's a 6+ megabyte download though!) To access the uncompressed TIFF mode on the camera, press the Set and Flash buttons simultaneously in any capture mode. The only way we could find to turn off this feature was to cycle the camera's power.
Below are the number of still images that will fit on the 340 MB MicroDrive card and their approximate compression ratios. (Can you believe those image numbers?!):

Image Capacity vs Resolution/Quality		Uncompressed	Fine	Normal	Economy
High Resolution	Images	56	245	341	562
	Approx. Compression	1:1	7:1	10:1	16:1
Standard Resolution	Images	227	943	1347	2155
	Approx. Compression	1:1	7:1	10:1	16:1

Image download is remarkably fast, thanks to the USB host connection, and the speed of the MicroDrive: We clocked the QV-3000 at 20.4 seconds to transfer a 6,146K uncompressed-mode file, an incredible transfer rate of 301 KBytes/second!