Acer Digital Camera 300 User Manual

Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300 1

Touring Your Camera 2

Preparing the Camera for Using 4

Acer Digital Camera 300
Electronic User’s Manual

Installing batteries and neck strap 4

Installing digital camera software 5

Using Your Camera 6

The digital camera mode 6

The PC camera mode 18

The video camera mode 25

Using the cradle 30

Installing the cradle 30

Troubleshooting Tips 33

Service Information 35

Technical support 35

Copyright

Copyright (c) 2001 by Acer Communictions & Multimedia Inc. (Acer CM). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro­duced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system or translated into any language or computer language, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual or otherwise, without prior written permission from Acer CM.
Brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

Disclaimer

Acer CM makes no warranty of any kind with regard to this material, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantabil­ity and fitness for a particular purpose. Acer CM assumes no responsibility for any error that may appear in this document. Acer CM makes
no commitment to update nor to keep current the information contained in this document.

Taking care of your camera

• Do not use your camera over the following environmental range: temperature: O C to 40 C, relative humidity: 45% ~ 85%.

• Do not use or store your camera in environments listed below:
Direct sunlight
High humidity and dusty places.
Next to the air conditioner, electric heater or the other heat sources.
In a closed car that is directly under the sun.
Avoid shaky places.

• If your camera becomes wet, wipe it with dry cloth as soon as possible.

• Salt of seawater may cause severe camera damage.

• Do not use organic solvents, such as alcohol, etc., to clean your camera.

• If the lens or viewfinder is dirty, please use the lens brush or soft cloth to clean the lens. Do not touch the lens with your fingers.

• To prevent electrical shock, do not attempt to disassemble or repair your camera by yourself.

• Water may cause a fire or electric shock. Therefore, please store your camera in a dry place.

• Do not use your camera outdoors when it is raining or snowing.

• Do not use your camera in the water.

• If the foreign substance or water gets in your camera, please tum the power off immediately and disconnect the batteries and the trans-

former. Remove the foreign substance or water, and send it to the maintenance center.

• Transfer the data to the computer as soon as possible to avoid losing your image data.

Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300

Introduction to Acer Digital Camera 300

Acer Digital Camera 300 is equipped with the following features:

• Small size for easy carriage and convenience of use

• High resolution: 640 x 480 pixels in digital camera mode; selectable 640 x 480, 352 x
288, 320 x 240 or 176 x 144 pixels in PC camera mode

• 24-bit true color representation for high image fidelity

• Onboard 8MB memory to store up to 95 ~128 images in digital camera mode

• Mode selectable flash light

• Built-in self-timer

• Fixed focus : 8 inch(0.2m) for macro mode, and 2ft.(0.6m) to infinity from camera for
normal mode

• Electronic shutter

• Easy recognizable LCD screen for camera and image handling

• USB interface for easy and quick connection to PC

• Automatic power-off system

• 3 operation modes:
Digital camera mode for taking photos
PC camera mode for using the camera as an image capturing device for PC
Video camera mode for capturing motion clips with a PC

1

Touring Your Camera

Front

Shutter

Flash light

Self-timer activation
indicator

Rear

MACRO indicator

BUSY indicator

Touring Your Camera

Viewfinder
Lens

Macro switch

USB connector

Status display

POWER button

SELECT button

MODE button

Neck strap holder

Battery compartment
cover

2

Touring Your Camera

The status display

elete all images in memory

Delete the last image

Enter self-timer
mode

Image counter

Enter auto flash mode

Turn off flash

Battery status

3

Preparing the Camera for Using

Installing batteries and neck strap

Open the battery compartment cover and insert two AAA alkaline batteries into the
compartment. Note the polarity of the batteries when you install.

Refer to the illustration below to install the neck strap.

Preparing the Camera for Using

Now you are ready to use your camera!

4

Installing digital camera software

Insert the digital camera software CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive. The following
software installation menu will appear on computer screen automatically.

Click this item to install digital camera software
Click this item to install Presto! Mr.Photo Gold
Click this item to install Presto! Image Folio
Click this item to install Presto! VideoWorks
Click this item to open Electronic user guide
Click this item to install NetMeeting
Click this item to install Acrobat Reader

Note: If the software installation menu did not appear, open Windows Explore and

double-click the “Autorun.exe” icon in the CD-ROM directory.

Click Digital Camera 300 Driver first to install digital camera software. Follow the
on-screen instructions to proceed.

When you are done installing the digital camera software, you have the choice to go
back to the software installation menu and click other items to install the bundled
software programs.

Preparing the Camera for Using

5

Using Your Camera

Acer Digital Camera 300 provides 3 different operation modes: Digital camera mode,
PC camera mode, and video camera mode. With these modes, you can not only use
Digital Camera 300 to take photos, but capture and show images in various ways.

The digital camera mode

In digital camera mode, you can take photos, view and download them from your cam­era and save them as files.

Taking pictures

Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the POWER button. The camera beeps
once and enters camera mode. The status of camera will appear on the status display.

: This icon indicates that the flash light is in Auto mode. You can choose to turn it

off. See “Turning on/off the flash light” on page 13.

Using Your Camera

: The counter that indicates the number of photos taken. You can choose to let

the counter display in another way. See “View picture counter” on page 16.

6

Using Your Camera

: Indicates the battery status. If the battery power becomes low, the battery icon

will become empty.

Look through the viewfinder to determine the object to be taken. Make the object
appear in the center of the viewfinder.

Make the object appear in the center
of the viewfinder.

Press the shutter. The image will be taken and the BUSY indicator will flash, indicating
that the camera is saving the image to memory.

When the indicator becomes off, you are ready to take the next photo. The memory of
camera allows you to take up to 95 ~ 128 photos.

Note: Do not press the POWER button when the BUSY indicator flashes.

After the shutter is pressed, hold the camera still until the BUSY indicator
becomes OFF to prevent blurred images.

To save battery power, if the camera power is turned on and not used for 2 min­utes, it will be turned off automatically.

Turning off the camera

Press and hold the POWER button of the camera. The camera beeps once and the
power will be turned off.

7

Managing photos in camera

Deleting the last photo taken

Press the MODE button 4 times. The icon flashes on the status display.

Press and hold the shutter for 1 second. The last photo taken will be deleted.

Deleting all photos

Press the MODE button 5 times. The icon flashes on the status display.

Using Your Camera

Press and hold the shutter for 1 second. All photos in camera memory will be deleted.

8

Using Your Camera

Downloading photos from camera

Turn on the power of the camera by pressing the POWER button.
Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. When

connected, the number of images in camera memory will appear on the status display.

Power on your computer.

grams > Acer DC 300 > DC300 Digital Camera. Or, right-click on the icon on
Windows Taskbar and select “Digital Camera” in the submenu that appears.

Click the Start button on Windows Taskbar, and choose Pro-

9

Using Your Camera

The image preview window will appear on your computer screen and start creating
thumbnails of the photos in the camera.

If there are more than 20 photos in the camera, the image thumbnails will appear on
different pages. Click on the tab on top of each page to switch among the pages.

Choose the thumbnail of the photo you want to download. You can:

• Click on each thumbnail to select a photo separately. Click on the thumbnail again
and the photo is not selected.

• Click on the Select All button to select all photos on a page.

• Click on the Unselect button to cancel selecting photos.

Click Save. A Save as dialogue box will appear. Specify the file name and location and
click Save. If you have selected multiple photos, you will be prompted to enter a prefix
for the file name of the photos. The image files will be named in the format of (pre-

fix)001, (prefix)002.... For example, if you entered “Mypic” as the prefix, the images in

camera will be saved using the names “Mypic001”, “Mypic002”...

10

Using Your Camera

Deleting photos in camera in the image preview window

Select the photo(s) you want to delete in the image preview window.
Click on the Delete button. The photo(s) will be deleted from your camera.

11

Using Your Camera

Using the image browser

Click on the Browser button in the image preview window. The Image Browser win­dow shown below will appear. You can use it to browse the photos in your camera.

In the Image Browser window, you can:

Click the button to go to the previous photo.

Click the button to go to the next photo.

Click the button to zoom in on the photo.

Click the button to zoom out on the photo.

12

Using Your Camera

Options

Using the flash light

Your camera is equipped with a flash light. It is recommended that you use the flash
within the best working range as illustrated below.

Turning on/off the flash light

Press the MODE button. The icon appears and flashes on the status display.

13

Using Your Camera

Press the SELECT button to select from the following. The one selected will flash.

Auto flash light Flash light OFF

Now you are ready to take pictures.

Note: If the macro function is turned on, the flash light will be disabled.

It takes about 11 seconds for the flash light to recharge for the next shot. During
charging, the FLASH indicator blinks. Charging is completed when the FLASH
indicator becomes off.

14

Using Your Camera

Using the macro function

If you need to shoot objects at a very close distance (from 8 inches to 2 feet), turn on
the macro function before shooting.

To turn on, slide the Macro switch to the “macro on” position. The MACRO indica-

tor will be on.

Slide the switch to the
position marked

Note: If the macro function is turned on, the flash light will be disabled.

To turn off the macro function, slide the switch to the position marked

.

.

15

Using Your Camera

View picture counter

The picture counter provides 2 display modes. You can view picture counter by the
number of pictures taken or by the number of photos allowed in the remaining mem­ory space.

View picture counter by the number of pictures taken

Normally, the picture counter shows the number of pictures
taken (or the number of pictures in camera memory). For
example, if you have taken 20 pictures (or, there are 20
images in camera memory), the counter shows “20”.

If there are 102 pictures in camera memory, an “1” will appear
at the lower right corner of the status display, and “2”
appears on the picture counter.

View picture counter by number of photos allowed in the remaining memory space

Press the MODE button twice
until the picture counter
flashes.

Press the SELECT button until “REMAIN” appears above the
counter.

Now you are ready to press the shutter and take pictures.

16

Using Your Camera

Enabling self-timer

The self-timer function allows you to let the camera take pictures 10 seconds after the
shutter is pressed. To enable self-timer:

Press the MODE button 3 times. The self-timer icon will flash.

Press the shutter and the camera will start generating

beep sound. The icon flashes and the self-timer

activation indicator blinks.

After10 seconds, the camera will take picture automatically.

17

The PC camera mode

In PC camera mode, you can use Digital Camera 300 as a motion image capturing
device for your PC. You can use it for video conferencing, capturing snapshots and so
on.

Using Digital Camera 300 as a PC camera

Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. “PC”
will appear on the status display.

Power on the computer. Click the Start button on Windows Taskbar, and choose Pro-
grams > Acer Digital Camera 300 > Acer Digital Camera 300 App. Or, right-click

on the icon on Windows Taskbar and select “PC Camera” in the submenu that

appears.

Using Your Camera

18

Using Your Camera

The PC Camera window will appear showing the video.

Taking snapshots

In the PC Camera window, click the Snapshot button. The image will be captured
and a Snapshot Browser window will appear showing the captured image.

If you want to capture multiple images, click the Snapshot button several times.

Click the button to save current snapshot in the Snapshot Browser window, or

the button to save all snapshots.

19

Using Your Camera

Rotating video

In the PC Camera window, click the Rotate button. The video will be rotated 90
degrees counter-clockwise. This is convenient for you to place the camera in different
angles and maintain the correct orientation of video.

20

Using Your Camera

Video settings

Video format

Click the Video Format button in the PC Camera window. The following Video For­mat window will appear.

Items Function/meaning

Resolution Click in the drop-down listbox to select different resolution for

viewing in the PC Camera window.

Pixel depth and compression Selects the pixel depth and compression of the image in the PC

Camera window.

Size Shows corresponding size of the captured image file according

to the selection in Resolution and Pixel depth/compression
options.

21

Using Your Camera

Video source

Click the Video Source button in the PC Camera window. The following Video
Source window will appear.

Options in the Capture Source tab

This tab allows you to select a video input source. If you have multiple devices installed
in your system, device names will appear in the drop-down listbox and you can click to
choose one of them to use with the digital camera driver.

22

Using Your Camera

Options on the Device Settings tab

On this tab, you can adjust the saturation, brightness, contrast and sharpness..., etc. of
the image in PC mode. Drag the slider of each item to adjust.

Click Default button to reset the settings to default values.

23

Using Your Camera

Options in the Camera Controls tab

On this tab, you are able to access other advanced video settings of your digital cam­era. Drag the slider of each item to adjust.

24

The video camera mode

The video camera mode allows you to capture motion video and save it as a video file.

Note: Make sure the Presto! VideoWorks software is installed. If not, please install it

first.

Using Digital Camera 300 as a video camera

Refer to the illustration below to connect the camera to PC using the USB cable. “PC”
will appear on the status display.

Power on the computer. Click the Start button on Windows Taskbar, and choose Pro-

grams, Presto! VideoWorks 4.x, then Presto! VideoWorks. The following Video-
Works main screen will appear.

Using Your Camera

25

Using Your Camera

Click Capture and select Select image source in the submenu that appears.

The Select Source dialogue box will appear. Click to highlight Acer DC300 Video
Camera and click Select.

26

Using Your Camera

Click Capture Video.

The video capturing window will appear on the center of the screen. Click the icon

to continue.

27

Using Your Camera

The following dialogue box will appear.

Click in the Frame rate box to specify the number of frame rate. The larger the num­ber of frame rate is set, the smoother the video is captured and played back. However,
the file size also becomes larger if you set higher frame rate.

Click the Capture time limit checkbox and specify the length of time in the box if you
want to limit the capture time beforehand.

The default path of the captured video file is shown in the Captured file name box. If
you want to save the captured video file to another location, click Browse... button to
select a new path.

Click the Video... button for more options, including the video output size and com­pression.

Click the OK button to continue.
The following dialogue box will appear. Click OK to start capturing video.

28

Using Your Camera

When capturing is in progress, the status will appear on the bottom of the screen.

The Capture window will appear after video capturing is done. You can click the but­ton to playback the video clip.

Now you are ready to use VideoWorks to work on the video clip (such as adding special
effects to the clip..., etc.) and share it with your friends and family. For details, please
look under the Help menu of VideoWorks.

Note: In Video Camera mode, you can press and hold the POWER button for two sec-

onds to activate the image browser and download the photos in camera.

29

Using the cradle

The cradle that comes with your digital camera allows you to fix the camera on various
surfaces for different applications.

Installing the cradle

Insert the screw on the cradle into cradle the installation hole on the bottom of the
camera. Rotate the cradle clockwise until the cradle is appropriately fixed.

Using the cradle

30

Placing the camera on top of computer monitor

Placing the camera on a notebook computer

Using the cradle

Pull the metal ring outward.

Clip the cradle on the LCD
screen of notebook computer.

31

Using the cradle

32

Troubleshooting Tips

The LCD panel remains blank when I press the POWER button and can't take
pictures.

Check that the battery is correctly inserted. If it is old, replace it.

The camera can not take a picture.

When the FLASH indicator is on, it takes up about 15 seconds to charge the flash light
for the next shot. During this time the camera is busy and cannot take pictures. Wait
until the indicator becomes OFF.

Cannot download all my images from my camera to PC.

The RAM memory installed in your computer may not have sufficient storage space.
Close all software programs and proceed to download your images. If the problem per­sists, download images in batches and store each batch in your hard drive before pro­ceeding to the next batch. Make sure all the images you want are stored prior to
clearing the camera memory.

I have connected the camera to the computer, but the Digital Camera 300
driver says “Device not ready!”.

Make sure that the batteries are installed correctly and there is enough power in
them.

Check if the camera power is turned on. If not, turn it on and then connect the camera
to the computer again.

Troubleshooting Tips

33

Troubleshooting Tips

In Windows 2000, when I unplug the camera from my computer while run­ning Acer Dgitial Camera 300 driver, the computer freezes.

Unplugging the camera from your computer while running the Digital Camera 300
driver will cause the computer to become unstable. Do not unplug the camera from
your computer when the camera or driver is in use.

34

Service Information

Technical support

If you encountered problems using Digital Camera 300 and the camera driver program,
please send an E-mail (containing detailed descriptions of the problem you came upon,
the hardware and software environment of your system) to the following addresses:

For free driver program updates, product information and news release, please visit
the following web address:

For questions about the bundled application, please consult the following web
addresses:

Service Information

USA: [e-mail]

Europe: [e-mail]

Taiwan: [e-mail]

China: [e-mail]

Asia and other countries: [e-mail]

http://www.acerCM.com

http://www.adobe.com (Adobe Active Share)

http://www.newsoft.com

(Presto! Mr. Photo Gold, Presto! Image Folio, Presto! Video Works)

35