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Surprisingly, this toy camcorder made for an interesting teardown.
Given the bare-bones simplicity and working serial port, it could be a worthwhile target to reverse engineer the Zoran Coach architecture. Zoran Coach for a while in the late 2000s to early 2010s was the dominant camera SoC , found in many consumer point & shoot cameras of the late 2000s to early 2010s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoran_Corporation was bought by CSR, who was then later sold off its camera IP to Qualcomm.
The camera is also unique, in that it isn't a rats nest of flat flex cables, but mostly uses right-angle pin-headers as interconnect between circuit boards (the exception being the display). This will make it easy to tap into signals between image sensor and SoC, or to automate camera controls with an MCU.
== Teardown pictures ==
[[File:Disney Flix Camcorder Main PCB Front.jpg|none|thumb|Main PCB, front]]
<br />
[[File:Disney Flix Camcorder Construction.jpg|none|thumb|Assembled camera, without enclosure. Note the pin-header interconnects.]]
== Parts identification ==
=== Main PCB ===
U1 Zoran '''ZR36440BGCF''' Coach 6e Digital Camera Processor
J1 debug header (see below)
=== Sensor PCB ===
U? Silicon Optronics Inc. '''SOI-968''' image sensor
* 1.3MPixel (SXGA), CMOS* Datasheet [https://web.archive.org/web/20231002032056/http://file1.dzsc.com/product/13/05/14/854235_135052437.pdf available]
U? JRC '''NJM4580M''' dual audio op amp
* Likely for microphone and/or audio jack on same board
=== Display ===
Marking on flatflex: Tp037A
Boot message: LCD = TOPPLY_TP033B
== Serial debug port ==
A serial debug port is available on four pads marked as J1:
Pinout (starting at J1 label): 3.3V, TX, RX, GND
=== Logs ===
==== Boot ====
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
Boot - VER: HW=0x62B0, FW=0x0463.19
</syntaxhighlight>
==== Power down ====
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
HCE_ReadFGPIOButtons 0x01
</syntaxhighlight>
==== Image capture ====
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
XLGPIO pressed is 4
</syntaxhighlight>
==== View image ====
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
Read ADC1 Button 3
</syntaxhighlight>
==== Change mode to "Settings" ====
<syntaxhighlight lang="c">
HCE_ReadFGPIOButtons 0x04