Sanyo has New CD-R Recorder With SmartMedia and CF Type II Slot

Thanks to reader Hiroyuki who pointed me to this interesting new SA-115 Sanyo 4x/14x CD-R recorder that has both a SmartMedia card slot and a CompactFlash Type II slot.

His translation of the Japanese info is that it is a Java-based CD-R device with a CF slot (TYPE II. Microdrive support), Smartmedia slot, Video and Audio output and a printer port. A PC is not required when it works. You can burn the image with sound to CD-R from CF/SM and display to TV or print it out to color printer. Some picture enhancement will also be possible.

New Sanyo Digicam

Hiroyuki also pointed out a new Sanyo megapixel digital camera on the Sanyo Japan website. He says the specs are: 1.5 Megapixel progressive CCD with 1360x1024 resolution, also does 640x480 motion picture with voice. Uses CompactFlash with a Type II slot (Microdrive supported) and has a builtin speaker. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the specs on the Japanese page but I did see more than one reference to Agfa PhotoGenie mentioned so I assume that Sanyo has licensed the interpolation technology from Agfa.

6/27/99: More specs and a name from my "deep throat" source:

Sanyo VPC-SX500EX, max resolution is 2.1 Mpixels with PhotoGenie, video clip at 15fps (with IBM 340Mb Microdrive: 8 minutes at full VGA, 38 minutes at 1/4 VGA, 57 minutes at 1/16 VGA). With a 16 Mb CompactFlash it will be 1 minute at 1/4 VGA and 2 minutes at 1/16 VGA. In snapshot mode, Sanyo says it will be possible to take one picture at full resolution in less than one second and the reading time will be less than 0.7 second.

New Epson PhotoPC DigicamsDeep throat also told me about some new Epson digicams coming out shortly:

PhotoPC 650, 1.09 Megapixels, 1.8" LCD, 8Mb CompactFlash, Serial and USB interface (via the new LexarMedia HotShot USB/CompactFlash) announcement at MAcworld at US price

PhotoPC 800, CompactFlash, metal case, USB, 38mm (35 mm equivalent) with 2x digital zoom, NiMh batteries (4 supplied), microphone, direct printing, 2 megapixels, 3 megapixels with HyperPict (something roughly like 1984 x 1488 !), Panorama mode (1984 x 744 or 1600 x 600), aperture: f:2,4 and f:8, macro from 15 to 50 cm, shutter: 1/2 to 1/750, +/-2 EV of manual adjustment, 80, 160 and 360 ISO, flash from 15 cm to 5 m, 240g, dimensions : 113 x 68 x36 mm. The PC800 should have an internal RAM buffer.

PhotoPC 850, zoom 35-105 (35 mm equivalent), ISO, aperture and shutter speed ajustable, 2 megapixel CCD (3 megapixels with HyperPict interpolation) (something roughly like 1950 x 1500 !) Serial ansd USB interface, LCD screen with solar assistance (like the PhotoPC 750Z) Built-in mic for vocal annotation, direct printing on Epson printer Available in Q4/99.