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5GB Hard Disk On A PCMCIA Type II Card

Posted by timothy on from the better-than-secret-microfiche dept.

chopkins1 writes: "Toshiba has managed to squeeze 5GB of storage space into a PCMCIA Type II SAN disk. I'll take this over a Sony Memory Stick any day. Faster storage and faster copy to and from a computer. Considering that I'm about to get a camcorder that supports both, I think my decision is made (128M Memory Stick for $240US or Toshiba 5G for $400US), I'm going for the Type II card." As the article points out, that's more than typical DVD.

1 of 136 comments (clear)

  1. 5GB in a camcorder card slot? Why? by hatless · · Score: 5

    I hope you don't think the card slot on your camcorder is for recording video. Unless you're getting a new camcorder Sony hasn't announced yet, those Memory Stick and PC Card slots are both for storing still images. Lousy, low-res ones.

    Even the $2500 Sony camcorders max out at 640x480 for stills, which look nice on a computer screen or a TV, but they won't make for anything bigger than a so-so 3"x5" print640x480 digital still cameas sell for $70 these days. And on a 128MB card or Memory Stick, you can fit about 1300 images at that resolution. Isn't that enough?

    There are camcorders now out there that can do 1280x960 still images, but I don't think Sony makes one, and in any case, that's still bottom-of-the-line by digital still-camera standards these days. Remember: digital video cameras are terrible still cameras, and digital still cameras are terrible video cameras.

    If you could dump video to the PC Card slot in the camcorder the 5GB drive would be nice for that. But you can't.

    On the other hand, if you have one of those new Nikon D-1x or Kodak 760 3000x2000 resolution still cameras ($4000 or $7000, respectively, without a lens, flash or AC adaptor), something like this is good indeed, since the raw, lossless images take up about 18MB each. A 5GB card would hold a couple hundred such images, or a couple thousand minimal-loss JPEGs. That's pretty nice. A 5GB device would even be good for the "3 megapixel" 2000x1500 class of cameras, with plenty of room for a month or more of heavy shooting. But for the 640x480 images camcorders put out?