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Sony Vaio GT3/K: You Spilled Your Laptop on my Camcorder
Anonymous Howard writes "This article talks about Sony's new, limited production Vaio GT3/K. It's a mixture of laptop and full fledged camcorder that uses the Transmeta 600mhz Crusuoe chip. Weighing in at 2.4 lbs, this hybrid has an amazing battery life of up to 17 hours, 30 GB drive, ATI Rage Mobility-M1 and 128 MB of RAM, and a swiveling screen.
This is definately a very unique device, one that completely blows away Sony's previous attempts of the laptop/video combination machines, mainly due the fact that the video camera is not a wimpy little video lense, but an actual full fledged digital camcorder."
This looks like something this place would sell. They have all sorts of cool import notebooks and gadgets. The stuff might seem expensive, but just remember all these electronics are going to help you get laid.
For streaming live porn from my bedroom straight to the internet... just don't my girlfriend!
DVD Burner and it will be great !
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Is that a distinction of nobility? As opposed to the electronic devices for the laity, the lobread?
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
Is that what you'd get from a stoner Subway employee?
;)
Yeah, we, uh, have this new kinda bread for our sandwiches... it's, uh, got a "special ingredient". We call it "hibread".
libertarianswag.com
It's called a wire
You plug it into shit
This is the technology that allows the internet to be on seperate computers (as opposed to one big one).
Who are y oo ?
That's good!
My old vaio only has a 17 hour battery life when it's on stand-by...
Thanks, but I'll stick with Firewire and my Canon GL2
--sdem
"definately."
------ What's sadder than realizing you've filtered out your own comments?
Either way, Sony is very please with the outcome.
Not half as please with the editing job me bet.
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Where's the kitchen sink?
Is the mcshit on the value menu?
[http://it-tastes-so-good.blogspot.com] Are you hungry?
This reminds me of an experience that I had a few years ago with a "spilling laptop." Unfortunately, 6-year-olds love to use the microwave. One day I had left my laptop laying by the "Kraft EZ-Mac". I heard some strange noises in the other room, and I came to see a bowl of ez-mac sitting on top of my laptop in the microwave. He was aparantly trying to copy me putting a removable turntable in an old microwave. When I picked the laptop up, an "ooze" came out of it. It has never powered on since. (it is also a very ugly sight to see) Oh yes, and the microwave was ruined as well.
When did this thing come out? It seems like it is a couple of years old. The article is recent, but I wonder how long the machine has been around.
I'd imagine super-niche products like this are tres bling bling. Anyone know?
How expensive is this thing? A top dollar sony cam is around $1799 and a low end crusoe computer should cost less than $999 so how much does this little beautiy cost?
I love these sony mini laptops, they are so sweet.
To bad they only have a 90 day warranty....
keanmarine.com
This thing has been out for over a year and this form factor has been out since 2001.
--- I do not moderate.
I have never done any kind of video recording, editing, etc. beyond your basic camcorder usage. So I have to ask, is 30 gig's of hard drive space enough for raw video to be recorded? I know after compression and stuff you can fit two hour videos into under a gig w/ quite a bit of quality loss. But for serious video recording editing I'm guessing 2 hours of video would be quite a bit larger then 1 gig. And it doesn't mention anything about on the fly compression (i dont know if that's even possibe / practical w/ today's cpu's and the software this thing has), so I'm guessing whatever format you record to is going to be huge. If anyone with any experience would care to comment on the size of uncompressed video files it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Check out my life
This type of model is in the market in Japan for more than 2 years.
I use one of these but is more a Camera Toy than a real laptop the keyboard is almost unusable. The battery life is not so good. and the screen is very tiny. But the movies it takes are clear and you can use the optical zoom.
I have noticed that SONY uses Windows ME on a lot of their unique notebooks. The PictureBook uses it as well -- they are almost impossible to upgrade to Win 2k. I never understood SONY's passion for the quirkiest Windows release with its notebook.
Anyone know why?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Then every object in the world is unique, because no two objects can be alike in every detail.
You've got camcorder in my notebook! You've got notebook in my camcorder" Sony Vaio GT3/K! remember that old cereal comercial? I think it was reeces peanut butter cereal or some god awfull stuff like that?
Carpe meam simiam!
Finally, I can eat my electronics when I'm done with them! Even better than regular bread. Why can't we make more things out of this new, amazing "hibread"?
What's so cool about a swivelling screen? Considering how quickly and often laptops develop swivelling screens when the hinges break, I just sort of thought they were intentionally designed that way. Or are they trying to sell this as a feature now?
The best god damn webcam on earth.
A cool device but it definitely fits under that category of gimmick ideas hence the limited nature of the product.
Still, it might have some applications in the film industry if it were adapted to more professional cameras, think electronic cue screens and that sort of thing.
Stuff that might've mattered. Had it been brought up a year or two ago.
Dynamism was selling the japanese version of this thing nearly two years ago. Yawn.
hmm...I didn't see a price in the article, just a note that interested buyers should contact Sony directly. Anybody have any idea how much that thing will cost?
Somehow I tend to be suspicious of things with no price tag..
Twenties Retirement
Good effort, but the ergonomics don't seem quite right. Also surprising it took this long to integrate these technologies.
I am reminded of that Russian MiG which was flown out to Japan. The reverse engineering team was stunned by what was achieved with "old" technology that was tightly tuned and integrated. I look forward to innovations coming from places where technology has only trickled in due to economic or supply factors, making development more deliberate and well considered.
yes, but it's for a limited time only.
I've never understood the fascination of combining digital products together. Cell phones with the Internet, laptops with cameras, etc. The way I see it, if you want a laptop, buy a laptop. If you want a camera, buy a camera. If you want both, buy both. Not only do you get a better selection by doing it that way, but you'll probably end up with 2 good products as opposed to 1 mediocre hybrid. Just my $0.02 anyways.
I saw this about a whole year ago. Granted, it was only a prototype, but this is just the kind of stupid hyper-commercialism that I hate to see on slashdot. I'm sure that the poster was very excited that he can edit video right on his camera, skipping the dreaded thirty-second transfer, but I do not get why I am reading about this here. Take a note from Scientific American, Slashdot! Post creative articles that are thought-provoking, not the same old "product plus a product gets smaller" or "pocket-sized product, is it worth it?". Give me a break. I actually read the article - I wish I didn't. Now I wasted a whole thirty-seconds that I could have been using to transfer video.
We're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time...
Please note that this baby has a 6.4" screen which doesn't compete with any laptop in the market. Enough with the "my firewire device and 15 inch display laptop is better"... it obviously is, since this thing isn't made for every day work like a real laptop is.
Compare it to a lame 500$ camera that can record 10 secs of video on a memory stick and it sounds quite good.
Oozing laptop, right across the back of his head.
BAM!
Wow, I've heard of being late slashdot, but dynamism has been carrying this thing for as long as I can remember.
"Sony says they had no intention of releasing this prototype computer/camera for general sale. That is, until the flood of interest at PC Expo 2000 Tokyo. It was quite a show for the GT3/K; whether a brilliant marketing tactic or just pure good decision-making by Sony, we're very pleased with the outcome."
Its still pretty cool though. Btw, here is a link to the dynamism page. Or is this supposed to be an article about an american release of the same product?
Little laptop with a swivel screen? OK! (think car PC)
Reasonable quality digital camcorder? kewl!
Trying to stabilise the camera with the added, needless weight of a laptop? No thanks.
A camera that has to be upgraded when the laptop is passe'? No thanks
Sending my laptop back when the camera dies? No thanks
Or sending the camera back when my laptop HD dies? No thanks.
Do I even need to say anything?
you'll be lucky if it can read an audio cd correctly. Momma Sony always said, "Burning DVDs is da DEVIL!"
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
The mention of PC Expo 2000, the low end specs of 128RAM and only a 30gig HDD, and the use of WinME and 2k instead of XP lead me to believe that this nifty little "hibread" has been around for a while.
Sir Timbly of Cannatuna, offical Knight of the Heptagonal Table
GTK and QT are both a PITA if you ask me. Hopefully GTK3 is a big improvement. Anyone know when .debs will be available?
How much will a device like this cost when it finally hits the market. This is the kind of convergence technology means.
Dan Mayer: my blog, essays, art, etc
Did you not just see me disparage it?
--sdem
I misread the article title, thought Gtk3 had been released and nearly spilled my coffee on my keyboard.
if you're going to do video, do it right: (http://pro.jvc.com/prof/Attributes/features.jsp?t ree=&searchModel=&model_id=MDL101394) and, the're only getting smaller! It will be interesting to see where video cameras, telephones, and computers intersect ten years from now.
well, at least you can video 17 hours of BSOD anyhow
Does it run Linux?
Combining two devices into one may very well sacrifice a few good features, but drop a satellite phone uplink in the mix and you have a very portable production studio.
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Looks like battery life may not be *that* different from current notebooks:
Batter Life:
Standard Battery: 2-5 hours
Enhanced Battery: 4-10 hours
7-17 hours (quad-capacity battery)
Wimpy CPU.
if you can run Adobe Premiere on this thing.
I've seen this thing at Bic Camera in Tokyo for at least a year now...Cool, but not new...
That thing records so-called "High Definition" in MPEG2 format. Have you ever tried to color correct source footage that's been compressed? It ain't pretty, that's for sure. And forget about keying.
--sdem
*Sigh*
After reading the release, about how DVD growth is because of File Trading, I was reminded again how these arguments hurt. Not just us, but the entire cause of file-trading.
First off, the rise in DVD sales is due to the emmergence of digital technology and the market penetration of Digital Devices, on things like Computers, Playstations, etc. Sales of individual films has risen because of the drop of prices of the discs while things like rental costs and PPV fees have risen. Paying $15 for a DVD full of features isn't so bad when you have to pay $4-7 to rent it.
Increased sales are also because of the fading of legacy technology, like VCRs, and the amount of Players shipped, which has risen by over 100% a year (I don't know the exact number, but it's high) over the last few years.
The special features themselves have been the motivating factor, as have the release of both budget movies ($5-$14 range) and the special features that are released with almost all movies. Take Lord of the Rings for example. I bought both versions of the movie for those special features.
File Sharing has been an after-thought to the rise in sales. Broadband is still a low percent of the internet users out there, and the people that download movies are not the people that buy the most movies. Yes, we buy a lot of movies, but just a fraction of the total out there.
What is often ignored in the whole "CD-Sales" drop equation is that DVDs and CDs and Video Games compete for the same dollar. They are luxary goods that fall within the same niche of recreation items. CD sales have dropped because DVD sales have risen. I keep a budget of $20 a week for entertainment, and that basically equates to 1 CD or 1 DVD. Most people are going to be in the same boat.
Look at the top selling CDs and you will see the same trend that has pushed DVDs. Bonus content in the form of DVDs or extra songs, instead of the "HyperCD" or Enhanced CD technology (that was more annoying than useful. I wouldn't buy Enhanced CDs for quite a while). Also some strong sales promotions, such as "The Next Sound" promotion at Target, and then similar copycat ideas at Best Buy and other retailers. New CDs priced at $6-$8 by new Artists. Some of the CDs I've gotten off the promotion: Linkin Park, Papa Roach, 30 Seconds to Mars, Five for Fighting, Chevelle... and more others than I can remember.
Long rant, but I dislike bad logic
You Spilled Your Laptop on my Camcorder
What exactly were you doing with that laptop to make it more liquid than solid?
The coolest voice ever.
So, for your contrived example, for exactness in every detail, then perhaps every object is unique.
Something can be unique in more or less ways, but when you're talking about a laptop (named product) that can act as a camcorder, that product is either unique in that regard or not. "Very Unique", "More Unique", "Less Unique", and similar phrases are meaningless.
XML causes global warming.
Um, this has been on sale at dynamism.com since Fall 2000. I did consider it, but it was too clunky even back then.
Anyone else think Sony's font of inspiration has run dry and is now coughing up blood?
Double ditto for Taco.
ok.. tip to mods, when somebody is talking about your mom, its a TROLL dumb fucks, not offtopic
now this on the otherhand would be offtopic
I wonder how long will it take for someo one to install Linux on it. I mean the camera hardware is probably found else where (at least the I/O portion).
I've been saying this to my friends whenever conversation steers around to this topic. I have a limited entertainment budget. I can choose to spend: [Prices in AUD]
Now, I love pop culture, and I have a huge dvd collection. Mostly quirky stuff, cult, tv series, anime. I have Babar that I bought on ex-rental, very proud of myself for that one. But i digress. With my limited weekly budget, I can save for a while for the game, doing nothing during the intervening weeks. I can buy the dvd or cd - they pretty much balance out, but I perceive a dvd as having higher value than a cd. For music I might turn on the radio, or if I really want to, save up for a ticket to a show next time someone tours. This does not mean I dont own a ton of cd's though. Eventually I often buy the novel, because I love reading, and I perceive the value of a book as higher than both of these, or I can go to the movies with some friends, or hang out with a rental.
It would be interesting for someone to produce a graph which charts:
I'd like to see that graph. Then I'd like to tell them to think really hard about the noise they are making about 'piracy affecting sales'
Yay me!
This is definately a very unique device
;-)
Maybe it's because I cut words for a living but I *hate* it when I see people abusing the English language like this.
The word "unique" is an absolute, not a relative adjective. Something is either unique or it's not, you can't have "slightly, moderately, or very" unique!
Call me pedantic but I call it sloppy coding to misuse words like this
Woah ... What are we going to do with all of that? ... a video editing machine with 128mb standard ... upgradable to 256mb? That's a toy ... not a machine designed to handle video editing.
Seriously
"Very unique" is roughly equivalent to "highly unusual." ;-)
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
Two kids (one of which was from the TV series, The Partridge Family) collide on a street corner... one is eating a chocolate bar, the other peanut butter straight from the jar (!)...
"You got peanut butter on my chocolate!"
"You got chocolate in my peanut butter"
HMMM!
*cue music and announcer*
Reese's Peanutbutter Cups
The commerican ran for ages.
Sony Glasstron(Monocle system)+Transmeta Proc'd System/DV cam=camera men on the cheap.
Instead of mixing these 2 devices together, I suggest just let those two device support some kind of wireless protocol (WiFi or something similar) so they can have the same functionality as this device, but they need not be connected to eachother physically...
Okay, it might add up a bit to the weight (extra battery pack for the 2nd device), but then, you don't need to carry the whole device in your hand...
I think they need to add wireless so one can record to a bsse station as bandwidth permits. I have been wanting to build something like this for awhile, I was going to use a single board computer and wireless + a screen of some type. I may still.
Does anyone else think it looks like an Amstrad Emailer
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I remember this fella from a few years back... I'm pretty sure it was released as a commercial product in Japan late 2001.. The 600MHz Crusoe Certainly suggests as much.
Still, interesting concept. I'm always curious to see what the fella's at Sony will cook up next (though the price usually scares me off).
Why in the hell would someone subscribe to a service where most of the editors don't know how to spell and use proper grammar, and the moderation system is critically flawed?
Seems to me that they just come here for the humor...I'm really not trolling, just speaking from experience.
Mod me down, and I'll just write off your site as another disaster on the Wicked Wild Web, *sigh*.
db
Cig:
ôô
Personally, I think most of the interest around it is because the batteries are supposed to last 17 hours. Who cares about the camera...
I can see what this will lead to... frequent cybersex. Just imagine, being in the middle of a "session" and you hit the lense of the camera on accident and crack it. What will you tell Sony when you try to put in a warranty claim? All that whackin make some crackin?
What will they come up with next?
Eat me
Very unique is an oxymoron. By definition, if something is unique, it is one of a kind. Something cannot be "very" one of a kind.
Damnit! It is impossible to attach a modifier to the word unique. Unique implies the existence of only one with no shades of grey (i.e. a unique is a boolean). Would you say a bit is very 0? Very 1?
If you think about quantum computation things do become fuzzy. Perhaps the words bit,byte etc should not be used in that context?
Okay, how many years have camcorders been around? I can remember when the first models were introduced... these gigantic monstrocities you hoisted on your shoulder... then in the intervening years the things have gotten smaller and better and now, here we are... back again to huge monstrocities (just in a different way).
So, I suppose firewire (or usb) is just too much of a challenge now days.
sad robot making broken music
Sony has a lot of internal political battles, the hardware division vs. the media division. They don't like each other. :)
FYI, Sony makes one of the most advanced DVD recorders on the market at the moment. The DRU-500AX was the first dual-format DVD-R/DVD+R drive on the market.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This is intended to be VERY different from those pinhole-camera POS units. This one is as good as any MiniDV camcorder in the $600-800ish range. (Once you go to $1000+ you can get progressive scan and extra pixels...)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
One should consider 10 GB/hourish the minimum for source footage. DV video is 13 GB/hour, and is (I believe) a variant of MJPEG.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Firewire might be fast enough ... it depends where the compression happens. This thing presumably shoots MiniDV-type video, which is 4/1 compressed *before* it goes into the computer, and Firewire should be fine. This kind of thing is even done by some pros using the old "two devices connected by a wire" trick. They shoot on DVCAM or whatever (a 25 MB/s stream, unless I've confused my terms) and stream it over Firewire to be recorded on disc in real time. The advantage here is that the whole 'log and capture' phase of video editing is skipped entirely, and with a dedicated editor they can have an assembly cut ready to watch by the time you're done shooting.
Of course, in that case, it's a $15,000 dollar DVCAM connected to a G4 laptop, not a consumer cam built into a consumer computer. You know that embarrassing geek thing where you describe computer technology as unbearably sexy? I hate that.
way2trivial is right. a sony laptop that is this mutated will be a quirky doorstop without Windows drivers for the extra bits.
The latest vertical-model miniDV camcorders (Sony's DCRPC ones for example) have what you're talking about: they probably don't give you the best image or (especially) sound next to horizontal models, but the design is amazingly compact and cool. (Even they suffer from the combo-device problem, though; camcorders right now might give you a little more than a 1 MP still, which is crap, but you still pay $150 for a memory card slot and a card to take still shots.)
But this? This is The Sharper Image, all the way. Let's see, do I want to buy a wire to hook my well-designed laptop to my elegant little camcorder, or do I want to always lug the mini-laptop around like an extra limb on the camcorder? This doesn't even pass the portability test, not next to the obvious alternatives. It's like a leatherman tool that tried to add too many pliers.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
680,000 pixels is 64% more pixels than DVD (720x576 = 414720)
Johan Veenstra
Crow? Is that you?
great, an overly bulky laptop/video camera that makes it harder to shoot video then a normal video camera. If one part breaks you have a lovely appendage like a dead siamese twin.
Buy items seperately so the life of one is not contengent on the life of the other, then use a cord/firewire cable, to link the two. Just think of those people that get the tv with the built in vcr. 4 years later you have a working tv with a permently stuck on broken vcr.
It is almost as bad as the imac with a monitor completely hooked into the computer. Ohh you want a new monitor or computer, sorry you have to buy the whole new unit, but aren't you glad you saved $50 on the original unit.
And it didn't start up. Took off the case and observed insides, everything looked fine. Started computer up with case off. Worked fine. Put case back on, didn't start up.
Conclusion: Doesn't work because it says SONY on the side.
Hi,
Thank you for contacting us. The GT3 has been discontinued, but Sony
has released an updated model called the U101 -
http://www.dynamism.com/u101/main.shtml. Although the U101 does not
have the camera of the GT3 (which was only 640x480), the U101 has a
considerably faster processor, higher quality display, lighter weight,
and smaller form factor. When the GT3 was released, it was designed as
a prototype. After a few model updates, the Sony U101 is the final
result.
We will have the Sony U101 available in about 3 weeks. We are currently
taking pre-orders that will secure your place in line. To place an
order, please give us a call at 800.711.6277. Another option is to
reply back with the following info:
I guess they've been slashdotted on the phone too, The gentleman on the other end says it was discontinued about a year ago. Now that's lag.
-Code
---PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE---
"Now, where's the damn 'any' key?"
This was originally made and offered in Japan around 2-2.5 years ago. It was made as a "look what we can do" demo/prototype with no initial plans to actually produce it. Some people expressed an interest in it - specifically field engineers and insurance companies and they made it in limited edition. These people wanted it for working in the field and liked the idea of being able to take pictures/video, see on screen what they look like, edit them if necessary, and email back to the office. Sony sold out that initial batch and figured that if they sold out the first batch maybe there is an untapped market. They have been making them and upgrading them ever since....
If the "editors" can't at least clean up the most blatant of typos, then (or is it "than" :) they should not bestow the title of "editors" upon themselves.
from Webster's:
"editor \Ed"i*tor\, n. [L., that which produces, from edere to publish: cf. F. ['e]diteur.] One who edits; esp., a person who prepares, superintends, revises, and corrects a book, magazine, or newspaper, etc., for publication.
Your point is valid, I'm just *ranting* about the insults on my intelligence, just as those roadside "do-it-yourself" signs out to be outlawed because they allow illiteracy to spread via literacy challenged people reading something like:
Autentic Italain Pizza!
db
Cig:
ôô
Finally Zero-Minute bootleg theatre movies on IRC and Kazaa.
KABLAMM!
KABOOOM!
My comment wasn't entirely serious but since you insist upon parsing it that way...
...Do you people have dictionaries?
unique is precisely that - one of a kind.
Yes. Right here. J.D. Salinger, frex, seems not to completely disagree with me.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
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Mrs. Biannshew has assured me she is willing to share the bulk amount, which at this time, is USD$40,000,000.00, with anyone that can assist in protecting her family's future. I can see from your dialog that you are a kind and caring individual, Sir, and if you would be so bold as to join our quest, I can state now that your portion of this trust, $10,000,000.00, will be given to you promptly, in exchange for your grand kindness in assisting. Please forward your banking information, assuming you wish to commit, as soon as possible, to me, so that your opportunity and Mr. Biannshew's family's future, can be secured.
shut your god damn puke fuck mouth mac tird. ill fucking take your unemployment checks away and hide your food stamps under your work boots so you starve to death you fucking retard if you dont shut the fuck up.