Digital Cameras To Feature 8cm Optical Disks For Large Capacity

Optical disks measuring 8 centimeters in diameter will enter the digital camera scene next month as large-capacity bridge media to PCs, the Electronic Engineering Times reported.

Hitachi Ltd. will introduce a DVD video camera that uses the 8-cm version of the latest DVD-RAM Version 2.0 format, packing 1.4 Gb per side. And using mature, recordable-CD technology, Sony Corp. will roll out an 8-cm version of CD-R with a 156-Mb capacity. The disk format makes it possible for cameras to store a mixture of still and video images on one medium. Once those disks are recorded by the cameras, they can be read by ROM drives. DVD-RAM disks still have to wait, however, until compatible DVD-ROM drives more widely penetrate the market.

Hitachi's DVD video camera DZ-MV100, can capture and store MPEG-2 video and still JPEG images in one disk. The camera is said to achieve video-picture quality of more than 500 TV lines, outdoing the VHS format's roughly 300 TV lines and the laser disk's 425 lines, the report said. For still images, 1,280 x 960 dpi resolution is available, Hitachi said. One disk can store about 60 minutes of MPEG-2 video, recorded at a fixed data rate of 6 Mbits/second, or 1,998 JPEG images per side, the company said. Hitachi Maxell will start selling the 8-cm DVD-RAM disk in a cartridge late next month, timed with the camera's introduction. The list price in Japan will be about per disk, the report said.

Sony's Mavica CD-1000-which will hit both the Japanese and U.S. markets in early August-will use an 8-cm CD-R disk with 156-Mb capacity. Sony intends to sell the 8-cm CD-R disks, which it OEMs, in Japan for under . For the U.S. market, the camera will be about ,200. The camera has a 2.1-megapixel CCD image sensor and 2.5-inch thin-film transistor LCD monitor, and features a 10x optical zoom lens.