Which one - CVS blue or CVS red?
Just curious as I am about to get ready to buy one of those cameras, which one you think that produces the best quality photos also not very diffecult to hack? Thanks!

some say the BLUE has a better imager, not sure about that, don't have 1 but I like the RED for the preview screen, and the ability to change the startup and shutdown screens and all the others too ... I made mine show spiderman (SpiderCAM) at startup (splash screen) and at shutdown, and the other screens were changed too... somewhere on this site there's a link to the spiderman collection, I forget where it is, but you can do a search. FOR ME... I suggest getting the RED. following the Legal hack method, it was easy to hack ! :D :P :idea:

The red and blue PV2's have the same imager chip (even the unofficial 2Mpixel versions). However, I have seen that the blues take better pictures than the reds. Some speculate that the extra circuitry required for the LCD is interfering with the imager somehow. That said, the reds do keep you from "wasting" shots. However, I typically carry a couple of blues for use once I "line up" my shot with a red. The blues consistently produce better, more clear, pictures.

The reds won't power on without an LCD attached. I haven't tried to force the issue using pv2tool - since the flash won't fire. That said, yes - the difference is fairly noticeable. I can post some pictures I took of the same thing with three different cameras (a red, a blue, and a FlatFoto2) BTW - in most cases, the blue PV2 actually beat both the red, and the FF2 (which did a quite bad job actually)!

You may go ahead and also point to where the pin 6 and 7 on both bue and red so I can see and get good idea and I know Bues is cheaper than Reds :)

The pins are actually the same - but on the blue, there isn't a large LCD panel covering most of the chip. Just imagine the left half of the chip is covered, and follow the same tutorial. I bought another blue the other day, and had it unlocked in 5 minutes - usual method.

:lol: Good for you!!! so you unlocked it with hardware hack and you got 2 beeps then you downloaded the flash and make backup and unlock it and uploaded it back and give it a reboot :)

Actually, I skip a few of those steps because I already have a copy of the firmware sitting on my harddrive prehacked. (actually, it's a copy I built from S records) So, I just bootloader (get the two beeps), upload my patched binary, and once the camera restarts running my code, I click the "Unlock Firmware" button. The longest bit is getting the camera apart. To make it in under five minutes, I just poke my screwdriver through the sticker and go.

If I have the CVS red, when I peforms a shorting trick, when the beeps occurs, will the LCD go BLANK that tells me that it is in bootloader mode? also I received a private message though this webistie that there is a hidden folder that contains original firmware, I do not know if it is a red or blue and I do not know if it is hacked or unhacked version. I believes it is 6550 version. The reason I ask you about LCD is that I cannot hear the beeps since I'm deaf and if I want to install a LED across the piezo speaker, I must remove batteries to de-energize the camera before installing the LED for visual purposes. Thanks!

Stephenw4, You could also solder a couple of pigtail leads, and use a voltmeter. Or, follow the instructions carefully, and watch for a PID of 2B when you open the camera. If done right, the two beeps is just a confirmation. The real trick is opening the camera after the attack, and getting the right PID.

Okay, when the beeps occurs, will the LCD comes on and open the camera with the la-*test*-('") version of PV2Tools to verify that the PID is 28 and if I get that number then I'll know that I've succed in attacking the firmware then carry out the unlocking procudre then should be done and I'll continues to use PV2Tools to download the .RAW files and format the space where the pics are stored and reset the counter then I'll feed those files into rawGL to be processed before I could view the processed files :) Will the LCD lit up once you plug in the USB cable and will it remains blank while you hold the probe in place?

Argh - I forgot you were doing a blue. The blues are a bit strange in that their reported PID is the same as their bootloader PID. (unless you have a rare 6550 / 2F, in which case, I would be interested in talking to you!) There is one visually observable phenomemon when you successfully bootloader a blue. Normally, the LCD comes on almost instantaneously when you plug it in. When you bootloader the camera, though, there is a noticeable delay before the LED comes on. The reason is that it takes the bootloader several seconds to "give up", before it asserts control. If you are observant, you will notice the difference in "startup time". However, a voltmeter might be simpler. Just count the number of "twitches". BTW - make sure you set your voltmeter to measure AC, not DC. When the buzzer triggers, it will be modulated using PWM (pulse width modulation) - which should make it easy to see on an AC meter.

Good eveing, I just bought a CVS Red today from CVS in my area, (Clementon NJ) and when I did valcuan pinch to get the version and hardware, what I got is: Firmware : 6550 Hardware : 06 Typeid : 2B CMP Typeid: 2B ID #xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Realm ID : 20 So do you think the hack at the top of the thread will work fine for this partuclar camera? :?:

Yes - and with a 2b, you don't need any "feedback" from the buzzer. If you do the hack right, you will see the green light turn on "late" (as compared to a usual bootup) and when you connect, it will report a PID of 2B if you did the hack correctly. The blue 28's are the only cams that make things difficult.