Casio QV remote controls

What is the purpose of this page?

You own a Casio QV digital camera and you want to know if it is possible to remote control it with a wired remote?

You are interested how the camera could be remote controlled with a serial cable?

You are a software developer and you are interested to write an application for remote control your Casio digital camera?

May be this page is what you are looking for!

This page provides informations about the matching of different wired remote controls to different cameras.

And in the case you are a software programmer you get all you need to write a remote control program for your Casio QV model.

May be these informations concern other 'new' Casio digital cameras too - this has to be proved.

The serial communication protocol is quite simple. It seems Casio engineers provided this simple protocol to encourage software developers to have an easy job writing a remote control software. But Casio didn't publish this protocol on a web page.

The Casio QV wired remote control museum

In the history of the Casio digital cameras there have been produced several (but similar) wired remote controls:

• WR-80QV

• WR-1C
• WR-2C
• WR-3C

The 3 controls WR-80QV, WR-1C and WR-2C have a similar layout. All of them have 12 buttons and they have nearly identical button labels.

In fact they work identical, because all of them have the same code / button matching.

Because the label printing differs between these controls I introduce a simple number system to identify better a button:

The syntax in this small table is Number - Command.
Both are used in the matrix below. 

The layout of the WR-3C has been reduced to only the half number of buttons - there are 6 buttons now:

The matrix

The following table ("matrix") shows how several wired command controls work together with several Casio QV cameras.

It shows on the left side in the first column C (= command) a command code (A, B, C, ...). This column is only of interest for people with programming interests, most people are users of the cameras and the remote controls - they can ignore this first column with the commnd code. A is the according ASCII code value in decimal numbers.

Then there are 4 columns representing 4 different models of wired remote controls. The columns show a respresentation of all buttons, their position number and the symbol (or text) label.

The next columns represent several Casio QV cameras and their functions.

So the matrix shows the matching between buttons of the wired remote controls to the functions of the camera models.

You can use the matrix to get the answers of questions like "Will the WR-2C remote control work together with a QV-4000?".
In this case you should compare line for line the values in the WR-2C column with the values in the QV-4000 column. The answer will be: "The buttons 'Focus Lock', 'Shutter', 'Zoom W', 'Zoom T', '-' and '+' will work as expected, but the buttons 'Menu', 'Focus', 'Set', 'Flash', 'Shift' and 'Timer' will not result in any function.

Some explanations:
'x / y' means 'x' is processed if the camera is in REC mode, 'y' is processed if the camera is in PLAY mode.
'x <> y' means the command toggles between the two states 'x' and 'y'.
'Focus Lock' is the same as a half pressed shutter button.
'Focus' is represented as a flower symbol and means the switching between the modes 'Automatic Focus', 'Manual Focus', 'Infinity' and 'Macro'.

One more example how to use the matrix:

The matrix was used for programming 'DiCaControl for Windows', a remote control software for all of the Casio QV models mentioned in the matrix. 'DiCaControl for Windows' offers all available remote control functions of the cameras in a Windows program (not only the functions of the wired remote controls) and additional features like time lapse control.

The serial remote control protocol

This and the following chapters might be of interest for people with programming interest and knowledge - most people don't need to read this programming stuff.

The serial line has to be established with the following parameters:

    9600 bps, 8 bits data size, 1 start bit, 1 stop bit, no parity, LSB first.

The protocol defines 'key commands'. This means the protocol 'simulates' the functions of keys pressed or released at the camera.
There are 'commands' corresponding a 'key press' and there are commands corresponding 'key release'.
Every command is represented by a single character code.
'Key press' commands are represented with an uppercase character.
'Key release' commands are represented with a corresponding lower case character.
Every 'key press' command (upper case) has to be followed by a corresponding 'key release' command (lower case).
Example: When the camera receives the command 'D' the camera starts a 'tele' (zoom up) operation that continues until it receives the command 'd'. This means that a lower case character command should be sent from the computer to stop every operation started by an upper case character command.
An interval of least 10 ms must be allowed before sending a lower case character command following an upper case character command.
If an upper case character command is not followed by the same lower case character command, subsequent commands may not operate correctly.

Executing time requirements

There is no response returned to the computer when a command is executed. Sufficient time must be allowed between commands to make sure they are executed properly. The list below shows time values for each type of command, but these are rough reference values only. The values depend on factors such as the type of CompactFlash card, the number of files currently stored on the card and the properties of the stored files.