LGR - 1996 Sega Digio SJ-1 Digital Camera

Andrew Buffenmyer

Wow, so in one of your pictures there's a faded trailer that says "Preston the 151 line". That is a trailer from the now defunct Preston Trucking, a company from rural Caroline County on the eastern shore of Maryland where I've been teaching for the last 12 years. What a neat thing to see in presumably North Carolina!

Tim

It's not great under broad sunlight... ...so you're saying it doesn't see blue, blue skies?

Mac84

First, awesome video! Second.... Wow, I didn't even know they made a standalone digital camera! That's also likely the thickest serial port adapter I've ever seen. :O I see their website mentions a Macintosh connection kit. Is there any evidence this was ever released? I know back in the day if they didn't think enough Mac users would buy it they'd shelve compatibility to save costs. I've had better luck with rechargeable AAs with older digital cameras. My QuickTake eats through them like crazy. No wonder they shipped with rechargable-lithium batteries.

omg the a e s t h e t i c i love it so much

Luke Herbert

I didn't even know this existed, it's pretty awesome.

Zeromaster

when you used your camera to zoom in on the viewfinder the quality makes me wish I could find a video plug-in for that, the look is really cool

Steve Skafte

I’ve said before, but as someone whose everyday life has revolved around photography for over a decade, your camera videos are among my favourites. My father first stared buying digital cameras in 1997 (Epson brands), so this aesthetic is very nostalgic and kind of magical to me. Thanks very much for this! I appreciate it.

Rob Caporetto

That quip about how it was great at capturing the colour blue had me in stitches. Would have been wrong for it *not* to pull it off. Just a shame that a device from a company known for their blue skies in games... can't quite capture them to the same quality. But an interesting way for them to branch out. Doubly so that its only western release was my small part of the world.

Always love those digital camera videos! It's pretty surprising to see what stuff there is to uncover like the SEGA camera now. Also I guess movie makers today would be all over these cameras now which create this kind of "lens flare". 😛

LGR

Hehe, not only that but it's been a Pokestop ever Pokemon Go came out. So there's people there all the time!

LGR

Parallel world devices from the 90s are the best, hehe. And the Rio, now there's something I haven't used in forever. What a classic.

LGR

【ＧＲＥＥＴＩＮＧＳ】

LGR

It does have that going for it, at least! And yeah, would be really nice to have an optical viewfinder for all those reflective/sunny situations. What a pain to use otherwise.

LGR

Thank you!

LGR

I totally would do that, too.

LGR

I actually followed that thing off the highway over to where they parked just to get a photo, haha

LGR

Excellent, thanks!

LGR

Ya gotta wonder indeed. I'm going to add a quick note about the QV-10A LCD screen to the final video here actually. Wish I had one myself, it'd be fun to put it side-by-side with the Digio. Heyyy, now we've been wondering about a crossover episode opportunity... whenever one of us finds a fully working QV-10, I'd be down to do something together on that if you're down! I could bring over a whole slew of its digicam contemporaries, too.

LGR

Certainly does make you wonder. If Sega hadn't made those few (but devastating) bad choices back then who knows where they'd be now!

LGR

Happy to hear it.

LGR

Yeah I love when you find now-ubiquitous technology on something of this age. It's kept me excited to cover it for along time.

LGR

It's true, there is nothing left to reveal now. We did it guys 😄

LGR

Thank you sir!

LGR

Oh plenty! There's some footage of folks looking at it in my E3 video, I was passing this around like it was a new baby or something

Pablo Rodriguez

I wonder if the owners of that tiger are weirded out by the same guy always showing up to photograph it at the same time of day. They're like "Man, this guy really loves our scuplture!"

Laurent

At the beginning of the video, I thought I had been living in a parallel world in the nineties. And then, ah, the device had only been sold only in Japan and Australia. Nevertheless, I had a SmartMedia card in my MP3 player, connected to the parallel port. ;-) I think it was called Diamond Rio. Thanks for sharing!

Skoddie

Wellll my waves are appropriately vapored! That sequence was ａｅｓｔｈｅｔｉｃ ａｆ

AlexPeaks

Head and shoulders above the Nick Click 😂 But that is weird it doesn't have a viewfinder

Great video, as always =)

You need to review the ambitious range of Sega medical diagnostics equipment. :')

Bryan McIntosh

That Chevette, though! All I can hear is Mr. Regular saying "UNSAFE FOR HIGHWAY USE." :D

I bought the Australian release of this in 1997. Sadly no longer have the camera, but saved a copy of the English version of the software: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=30649&start=560#p645770

The 8-Bit Guy

neat device. I had no idea it existed. I have been trying to find a working Casio QV-10 for ages. I used to have one when they were brand new. The picture quality looks almost identical to what you got out of the Sega. I wonder if they have any components in common?

Kathy M

I love seeing the dead-ends that manufacturers went down; like if it had been more successful, and the Sega consoles hadn't lost the console wars, would we be seeing the tech converge into a combined console?

Myles MAN

That’s pretty cool

Steve Lovelace

Did you get any comments on it at E3?

Slope's Game Room

This could not be more up my street... awesome work!

always love a good LGR camera thing

PhotoSvein

I can always count on Clint to show me something I did not know existed 😀

Riley W. Andersen

What the heck? A Sega camera??? Now I've seen everything!

Ian Spence

Wow, a camera with a digital viewfinder from 1996! I recall being blown away by Sony doing the same thing with their Alpha series of DSLRs back in 2010ish, cool to see that it's been done way before that!

LGR

I think this is the first time showing it! Been meaning to give it some long overdue attention.

LGR

Hehe, yeah it's a wonderful machine, maybe it's time to do a restoration on that. Had it forever, just love the way it looks!

LGR

Aw yeah, digicam history 👍

Bryan Smith

Was the NEC PC with the Japanese Win98 in another video? If not, it should totally be one, even if that video is just watching you do various subdued neon things on it.

Curus Keel

That NEC pc was straight up the most cyberpunk thing I've seen. Needs more vr

BastetFurry

I would guess that Sega used their own filesystem incompatible with FAT, mind plopping the card with some photos on it into a Linux machine and making an image? If you don't want to fiddle with the command line, gnome-disks has an easy to use interface.

Ah, selling things separately that should be together. If only that practice wasn't in place anymore. Can't wait to watch this one! Hugely interested in the evolution of digital photography. Thanks, Clint!