Audio Video News

The digital camera is now firmly established as a standard tool and toy for most technophiles. The next frontier for consumers---digitally-recorded moving pictures---is about to open up with a new camcorder from Hitachi. The price will be 248,000yen, or approximately $2340 US.

Debuting August 25 in Japan, the model DZ-MV100 camcorder will record on 8cm DVD-RAM two-sided disks with a storage capacity of 1.46GB per side. The camcorder will be capable of recording 60 minutes of “high resolution” NTSC video (30 minutes per side at a fixed rate of 6 Mbps) and two hours of “standard mode” (60 minutes a side at a fixed rate of 3 Mbps). The recordable disks are housed in cartridges compatible with the 4.7GB DVD-RAM drives used in PCs. The camcorder was built according to guidelines for A/V and PC compatibility established by the DVD Forum, according to Hitachi.

A companion item, the DV-RX2000 table-top DVD video recorder, will go on the market the same day at 250,000yen ($2360 US). The DV-RX2000 will use standard 4.7GB disks and will offer random access, noise-free frame-by-frame scanning, and other advanced digital features.

Hitachi, Toshiba, Panasonic and other manufacturers are about to flood the market with a new generation of DVD-RAM drives with both SCSI and ATAPI interfaces. The drives will use 4.7GB bare disc media capable of storing two hours of video, more than 4,900 color photos---or “the equivalent of a stack of documents more than 50 stories high,” according to news reports from PC Expo held recently in New York. “DVD is fast becoming the key storage media for providing a bridge between AV devices and PCs in the DVD world of the 21st century,” said the June 8 press release from Hitachi.