Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : WDC/Sandisk Corporation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Craig Freeman who wrote (3916)	11/12/1998 7:06:00 AM
From: Ausdauer	Respond to of 60323

Craig, You implied that 8 MB of flash memory was luxurious and 30-40 MB would probably be sufficient for most high resolution cameras. I think you could call Kodak and ask whether this is true and they would say "definitely not". I would assume from your comments that you do not own a digital camera. I also misquoted you. You suggested 98% (not 90%) of future digital camera users will likely leave their CF slot empty as manufacturers will provide enough in the way of on board memory. Again, I understand your point, but you are not creating a realistic scenario and are just pulling numbers out of thin air. Ausdauer

To: Craig Freeman who wrote (3916)	11/12/1998 7:08:00 AM
From: Ploni	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

We'll need more memory for digital video (with resolution so good that freeze frames can be printed as high-resolution photos). I agree that the more computer and memory power we have, the more applications we'll discover for them. I don't think removable memory will be made obsolete any time soon.

To: Craig Freeman who wrote (3916)	11/12/1998 8:28:00 PM
From: Alexander Go	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

>>Those that argue how pixel counts are on the rise might take note of the fact that the >>Kodak DC260 has a pixel count roughly equal to HDTV. There's more to the equation than pixel count. Things like color depth per pixel.

To: Craig Freeman who wrote (3916)	11/12/1998 9:24:00 PM
From: Bargain Hunter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 60323

Those that argue how pixel counts are on the rise might take note of the fact that the Kodak DC260 has a pixel count roughly equal to HDTV. That may be true, but I want to be able to take a digital picture and then be able to zoom in as far as possible without appreciable loss of definition. Presumably while Moore's law is helping us cram more bits of flash onto a chip, it is also helping us get better resolution in the images. Ideally we would get to the point where resolution is limited only by the optics and not by the electronics. I also like the idea of flash cards for backup. Even if my camera can store all the pictures I take on my dream round-the-world 6-month long vacation, I don't want to lose all of them to a software bug on the last day (did I mention that this trip spans Jan 1st 2000?). Similarly I don't want a thief to get all my pictures if he snags my camera. I issue a challenge to the thread to provide estimates of how many bits are necessary to store a single picture with the same resolution as a traditional film picture with optimal loss-less compression. [Or could we do better than film eventually? If so, justify and choose your resolution.] Then estimate the largest number of pictures you might want to take without downloading them and calculate how many bits it would take to store them. Finally estimate how many years it will be before flash chips are dense enough to include that much storage in a camera. The results will give us some indication of whether Craig's suggestion that flash cards are a passing fad for digital photography is correct.