Hitachi's DVD camcorder...................................
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DVD-RAM CAMCORDER
MAKES ITS DEBUT AT PC EXPO
Hitachi plans U.S. rollout by end of year 6/30/2000
By Rob McGee
June 29, 2000 -- Hitachi had a bona fide headline grabber on display at PC Expo this year, but it wasn't to be found under the big red logo marking the company's pavilion. No, the world's first DVD-RAM camcorder was sequestered in a claustrophobic conference room downstairs, surrounded by DVD-RAM computer drives, DVD-RAM video recorders and fully-automated DVD-RAM "jukeboxes" for data archiving.
Due to hit the Japan market in August followed by a U.S. release at year's end, Hitachi's DZ-MV100 is similar in size and design to a typical VHS-C or Hi8 model. Only the translucent circular window on the side suggests that the recording medium isn't a cassette tape. But the window is round purely for reasons of style. What actually goes into the camcorder is a square plastic cartridge, and inside that is the removable DVD-RAM disc.
Like the CD-Rs used in Sony's MVC-CD1000's digital camera, the DVDs used by the DZ-MV100 are smaller, lower-capacity versions of the discs consumers are most familiar with. An 8-centimeter disc stores 1.46GB per side, enough to hold a half hour of MPEG2 footage in high-quality mode, or a full hour at a lower bit rate. (A full-size DVD-RAM disc holds 4.7GB per side.)
Once removed from the plastic cartridge, the 8cm discs are just the right size to fit the inner guide ring found on the tray of just about every DVD-ROM drive in the world. Not every DVD-ROM drive in the existing installed base will be able to read the discs, though -- some manufacturers, with an eye to the future emergence of DVD-RAM, built in forward compatibility, but others did not.
As a camcorder medium, DVD-RAM has one important feature in common with every tape-based format -- the discs are rewritable, which means that unsuccessful "takes" can be recorded over instantly to save on disc space. Apart from this, the durability of DVD-RAM easily beats all the analog tape formats, while the instantaneous access allowed by disc-based memory will make editing much more convenient than it is with DV tape camcorders.
Apart from the unprecedented use of a recordable DVD, the specs for Hitachi's baby will look familiar to anyone who's gone camcorder shopping in the past year or so. It has the usual flip-out LCD viewfinder, 12x optical zoom, and the ability to capture digital still photos in the JPEG format. The expected retail price hasn't been announced, but the Hitachi rep who was showing off the DZ-MV100 predicted a price tag in the neighborhood of $2000. |
