Hitachi Digital Camcorder Records To 8cm DVD-RAM

theluckman writes: "Hitachi is scheduled to release this digital camcorder in "early 2001". It can record 60 minutes of high quality (6M bps) digital video or 120 minutes of standard quality (3M bps) digital video. Also can store up to 2000 jpg's at 1280x960. All stored on an 8cm DVD-Ram disc (2.8 GB capacity). Add tons of specs and USB support and it seems like what the digital video world has been waiting for." It's sure intriguing, but raises the same pitfalls as Sony's CD-R camera discussed a few months back -- building a camera around a delicate mechanism is a difficult task. I'd be nervous about entrusting important moments to this.

Comments

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[AstynaxX]

In related news today, an unwary /. user posted an erroneous mathematical challenge and was swiftly inundated with replies all hoping to correct his ignorence.

Shortly after this event, an equal number of moderators stole karma from n-1 of the aforementioned /. users, labeling them as redundent, even though, due to the nature of /. they all most likely posted simulatneously.

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Reliablility of CD-R camera...

[ivan256]

I have a Sony MVC-CD1000 and have been using it for a few weeks now. As long as you don't drop or bang around the camera WHILE IT'S WRITING, everything is fine. I would think that this would be even less of an issue for DVD-RAM, as the DVD-RAM media is designed for random access writes unlike CD-R[W] media. If you've ever seen the back of a DVD-RAM disc you'd notice little block markers in a radial pattern on the disk. I wouldn't be too worried about the reliability of this camera. Besides, it's so expensive you wouldn't want to bang it aroung anyway... :)

Delicate mechanisms?

[Bill Currie]

What about trusting important moments to delicate media? Open a regular camera at a bad time and "poof", no more photos. Mechanics can be made VERY robust. Photographic film cannot: it's either light sensitive, or it's not (and useless for taking photos). Similar for magnetic media: get too close to a big magnet and your moments are gone.

I'm not saying dvd would be better, just not worse. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Bill - aka taniwha
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ZDNet's Coverage and Info

[Chuck Flynn]

Hitachi's link looks like it's down. Here's the story at ZDNet and Hitachi's own press release.

Some quick points:

It came out in Japan back in August.

It has a 1.1-million-pixel 1/4-inch CCD with an effective area of 720,000 pixels is used for video recording. In still mode, the effective area is one million pixels.

It's compatible with Windows 9x and Windows 2000/NT. No plans for Linux as yet.

The DVD-RAM used complies with CPRM standards, meaning your own pictures/video is subject to the same copyprotection nonsense we've been bitching about on slashdot for the past couple months. This is insipid, since by definition, you own the copyright on the video you yourself are taking. When will these companies learn?

I've already used this, it was at Comdex

[Brento]

This thing was at Comdex, and it wasn't anywhere near as motion-sensitive as you guys are playing it out to be.

Hitachi had three gorgeous models on stage, and there were four of these videocameras hooked up to TV's. The public could walk up, play with the videocameras, and film the models as they walked around. It was hilarious. I've never felt so guilty for taking part in a product demonstration.

I jostled it, moved it up and down, slapped it sideways, and when I played back the recording, it was great. (Well, granted, it looked like it'd been filmed by a drunken monkey, but the reproduction was perfect.)

There were literally dozens of us standing around the display at all times, scoping out the hardware (ahem). I can't believe I'm the first poster to remember it.

Re:Why not make the storage physically separate?

[byee]

I seem to remember that the old camcorders (I mean pre 1984 old) had a camera attached to a separate vcr module that would do the recording on a full sized video tape.

So you would have a vcr over your shoulder and hold on to a video recorder attached to it with a wire.

It seems like they stopped making them this way because they were so darn hard to carry and annoying. I personaly wouldn't want to lug around any more equipment than I had to.

But the wireless idea does have potential, how about just sending back to your home computer to be written to disk there. That would save you have to transfer the video to edit it later...