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Hardware

Sony MiniDisc DV Cam Does Java, Ethernet 61

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-does-it-do-windows dept.
Lifewolf writes: "Sony's new DCM-M1 digital video camcorder stores up to 20 minutes of MPEG2 video, 4,500 still images, or 260 minutes of ATRAC encoded audio onto a MiniDisc. Even more interesting, the camcorder features a Java 2.0 GUI and an Ethernet port so you can download your files from the built-in web server." Now all you need is a hot chick or two, a lot of bandwidth, and a macro virus and you're in business!
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Sony MiniDisc DV Cam does Java, Ethernet More

Sony MiniDisc DV Cam does Java, Ethernet

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  • First off, I'd like to say that I really like DV.A while ago, about a half-year ago, I bought a JVC DV Camcorder. After everything, expenses totaled to be about $1800. The video quality is unbelieveable, and the pictures.

    The one problem, well, not really a problem, just something that I'm disatisfied with is the lack of being able to upgrade features. I mean, all the features it has are integrated very well, it just doesn't have much expandibility, for a world which develops so quickly technologically.

    I also have TiVo, which is a very nice device. The part of TiVo that's really appealing is the fact that every time they decide to integrate a new feature, they can do so by updating the software. This is made possible since it's running linux. It is also open-sourced, so hypothetically, you could add you own features to it! This, is the type of expandibility I'm speaking of.

    I wonder if cameras will choose to integrate anything like this. I mean, not being able to check for software updates every time they check their schedules, but something parallel to this level of versatility. Having a java webserver is one step in the right direction.

    Anybody have any idea what I'm saying?
  • MDs aren't that good for data storage because their data capacity is actually quite small. The reason that you can fit the same amount of audio on an MD as a CD is that the compression system is very efficient. In fact non-recordable MDs are in actual fact very small CDs; they have the same data density and about an 8th the capacity. This is also why you could not have an MP3 MD system as you cannot compress the data twice.

  • This is something that I can't understand either. MD seem to have a lot of possibilities, but nobody is taking advantage of them.

    I just came back from japan, where MD has almost taken over from CD as the audio format of choice, and I wish that the rest of the world went the same.

    The biggest problem with CD's is that they're not robust - they've gotta be kept in the case, no fingerprints, scratches etc. - I want to be able to throw a CD on the pile when I'm finished listening to it.

    I've heard that the data transfer speeds aren't too crash hot, but they definetly still have uses. They could become the next 3 1/2" floppy

  • Re:Why hasn't sony been pushing md? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here is the rub I have about recording on MD. First off, the 1/8 to 1/8 solution requires an analogue intermediary stage which leads to signal degredation [i.e., MP3 (digital) -> audio out (analogue) -> ATRAC (digital)] The Toslink approach avoids the analogue stage but since MP3's are already compressed, I don't want compress them again with ATRAC ?!? What Sony needs to do is release a MD player which plays and records MP3's natively, then the format will take off I assure you. MD's are a hell lot cheaper than flash ram and unless the Recoding companies have their way, MP3 will be the format of choice in the future.
  • Uh. CD-R and CD-RW are *NOT* true random
    access. They suck compared to Minidisk.
    Try editing a CDRW a few thousand times
    in one minute.

    MD also uses a lossy compression algorithm
    that is not proprietary at all.

    Where do you Slashdot people get your
    information from?
  • This may sound a bit wierd but if you could control an optical audio line from a PC and did some research on the compression maybe you could use a portable minidisc recorder to store data? (Just a thought)

  • Like I said above, I haven't noticed any quality loses with recording MP3s. Do they sound as good as if I had recorded from a CD? No, but this is the MP3 compressions fault, not ATRACs. Do not toss MD out the window just because it's compressed.

    You can't blame either codec for the (relatively) poor quality of twice-compressed audio. They (MP3 and ATRAC) use different psychoacoustic models -- you know this -- which inherently will introduce more artifacts to the signal. If, hypothetically, MP3 were to be worse at pre-echo control and the ATRAC-flavor-du-jour were worse at reproducing high-end frequencies, it seems obvious that the two problems would both be evident in a file compressed with both codecs.

    Even compressing MP3 to MP3 will produce poor results. The poster to whom you were replying has a valid concern with this practice, especially since Sony seems to be wanting people to do exactly this, with their line of Memory Stick ATRAC recorders that come with PC-based MP3 decoders. I personally would also be interested in an MD player that played MP3 files natively from cheap MDs.

    < tofuhead >

  • I really don't care for the MD music format, CD is better, no loss of quality, same digital sound.

    It's kind of ironic that my MDs, which are supposed to be inferior quality to CD because they're compressed, sound tons better than the actual CD. I guess it's because Sony and Sharp aren't putting out crap MD players/recorders.

    WHen pushing it as an audio format it has to go uphill against CD and it only offers size and durability as advantages (CDs are pretty durable) and it costs more.

     MD has pretty much taken over Japan. Almost everyone has at least one and it has eclipsed CD sales. I would like to see the same thing happen in the US, but Sony seems oblivious to the oppurtunity that it has. You pass up size like it doesn't matter. I can tell you that sticking a portable MD, earbuds, and 3 MDs (222 minutes of music) is very, very convenient. Try doing the same with CDs. Durability is also important, and CDs are not durable. Try this: throw your CD around the room 10 times, use it for a hockey puck in your driveway, and scratch the bottom with a knife for good measure. Is your CD usable? If you did the same with an MD, would it be? Last, MD is not expensive. Sure, portable/components cost more than most portable CD players (for now), but the discs themselves sell for less than $2. The players are also 10x better in quality than any CD player I've ever owned.
    -Antipop
  • It would be cool to use cameras to hold law enforcement accountable in this way. However, after a few more police officers (or politicians responsible for police officers' conduct) goes down based on such evidence, I predict it won't be long before it becomes illegal to make an audio or video recording of an officer conducting a stop or other arrest without his or her permission. Off topic, but what sucks is that we even have to think about recording traffic stops in case our one of our most trusted citizens decides to beat the crap out of one of us.
  • First off, the 1/8 to 1/8 solution requires an analogue intermediary stage which leads to signal degredation [i.e., MP3 (digital) -> audio out (analogue) -> ATRAC (digital)]

    When I record MP3s to my MD, I notice no lose in sound quality. I do see your point, soundcards built in to the motherboard introduce extra noise as do sub-quality 1/8->1/8 cables but this is a problem with any device that deals with an analog source.

    The Toslink approach avoids the analogue stage but since MP3's are already compressed, I don't want compress them again with ATRAC ?!?

    Like I said above, I haven't noticed any quality loses with recording MP3s. Do they sound as good as if I had recorded from a CD? No, but this is the MP3 compressions fault, not ATRACs. Do not toss MD out the window just because it's compressed.
    -Antipop
  • The Control-A1 port on Sony consumer digital audio products (as well as their laptops), give computers direct control over Sony MiniDisc systems from Sony-provide software, including the ability to drag and drop audio files to and from MiniDiscs, using the Control-A1 port.

    Very common in Japan, but you gotta look underneath the covers to find this feature in Sony products here in the US.

  • Actually I have seen a Digital Camera that does use SuperDisks as it's storage media. Not only does it acept Super disks, but also regular diskettes. In addition to this I heard that Sony was showing off a Mavica with an SD drive at Macworld San Fransisco not to long ago (6 months?) I can't remember the manufacturer of the Before mentioned SD Digital camera/camcorder, but I know it was being sold at Sears Department stores. So if you really are considering it go check it out there!

  • Re:Why hasn't sony been pushing md? (Score:3)

    by Silicon_Knight ( 66140 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @10:13PM (#1043509)
    I don't know why MD havn't been pushed as a data storage media. IT is a logical choice. The same technology that MD uses is called Magneto-Optical, and it's used in drives that are called (duh) magneto-optical drives. Fujitsu makes them. The discs are about $5.00 for a 640 Mb disc (in Taiwan).

    The technology that MD and MO discs uses requires a laser to heat the material past it's curie point, where a magnetic field can then flip the "polarity" of the material. This is very similar to a CDRW and the "Phrase change" technology. Combined with a good enclosure for the discs, they are virtually indestructable. I use it to back up my /home directory at night, and NEVER had a failure.

    Reading is thru a laser, so no contacts, no wear.

    -=- SiKnight

  • Just Another Step. (Score:3)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @07:10AM (#1043510)
    Hm. This seems just another step toward widening the availability of more in-depth, personal, as-it-happens news coverage from those "outside of the mainstream news media".

    The possibilities, as these utilities improve and drop in price, are magnificent. A kid in school could suddenly have more than just a 'voice' on a website. A protestor could share with the world, first-hand, what is occuring between him and the police (such as during the WTO incident). If you're stopped by an office, you can just flip the switch on this baby and have instant proof if anything unprofessional occurs. You could share your daughter's soccer game with her father who is across the country -- in real time.

    But one of the greatest things I can envision about this would be for urgent situations such as natural disasters and military operations. Imagine cheap, unlimited access to what is basically a high-fi webcam to tell your wife goodnight, while you're getting under the covers, instead of from some busy commons or mess-hall that you have to share with a million other people.

    Most importantly, imagine Mardi Gras . . . No more waiting for the photos of naked breasts to appear randomly on the internet. Suddenly, they're streaming from Joe Schmoe's MiniDisc recorder right to his website... Like I said, the possibilities are pretty endless.

    The problem right now, of course, is that $2500 is a lot to spend. Even $1000 would seem pricey. And the camera itself doesn't look very comfortable. Perhaps if there were a way to easily transition it from a standard handy-cam setup to a more typical flat-standing camera that you could set on a surface somewhere and get in front of (like you would with a little Logitech webcam, strapped to the top of your computer, or elsewhere), it would be easier to handle.

    It also says that images, once transferred to your computer, are in 640x480 resolution. That isn't horrible, but it doesn't say whether it can achieve higher resolution than that. In other words, do they mean that if you want to store 4500 images, it has to be done at 640x480? Or is 640x480 literally the highest resolution any single image can reach? For $2500, I'd want a finer quality.
    ---
    icq:2057699
    seumas.com

  • I'm thinking about purchasing this dcm-m1 camcoder, but this being the first 'digital' camcoder maybe it'd be best to wait for the products to start pouring in and get a much better price and product becasue of it.
    First digital? No. First MD? Yes.

    I bought a Mini-DV camcorder last fall, and at the time it was "last years" model. They've been around for quite some time.

    It has firewire and serial connections, as well as S-Video and RCA video and audio jacks. It can do still images, and the amount of images is limited to the size of the MiniDV cassette.

    Fun fun fun! What sounds interesting here is the interfaces - ethernet with a built in web server. sounds pretty darn cool. Still, I'd prefer firewire, I think. But the web based interface lets idiots use the camcorder, too.

    Anyone who is interested more in still images is better off with a real digital camera, though. Sometimes those 640x480 jpegs just don't do it. I routinely scale them down to 320x240, which then look excellent. But since I only use the images for the web anyway, it works out fine.


    ----------

  • There is no Java 2.0. Sun made this confusing for everyone. There is such a thing as the "Java2 platform".

    Java2 Standard Edition is (I believe) pretty much just the 1.2 JDK (Java Development Kit) and the core libraries.

    Then there's Java2 Enterprise edition, which again contains JDK 1.2, as well as EJB 1.1, JavaMail, Servlets 2.2/JSP 1.1, and more.

    Adding to the version fracus is that the "Java2" platform has version numbers. I have absolutely no idea how Sun is going to make a big media hit when they release (in the unforseeable distant future), JDK 2.0.

    "Personal Java", which I am completely unfamiliar with, also appears to be on v1.2: http://www.javasoft.com/products/personaljava/inde x.html

    Oh well, anything is better than calling it "Java 2000"

  • Argh! (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Shepherd ( 17338 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @07:14AM (#1043513) Homepage
    So I'm a little peeved. It has an ethernet port! I want a FireWire port, dammit!

    I mean, I have a perfectly good video device, another Sony product, the TRV103, digital 8 FireWire/iLink capable digital camcorder... but if I want to record audio, the best I can do is keep the lens on and record for about an hour straight. Is there no solution for people looking for a digital audio recorder device? DAT, miniDisc, whatever? I'm not sure where to look, but mostly what I've found are FireWire tape backup devices...

    Sigh, this is off topic, of course, but it seems the best place, of any, to find other link minded individuals. Anyone able to help?

    -AS
  • Its got to have a pretty fast CPU.

    Not necessarily. MPEG-2 compression is almost certainly done in dedicated hardware. Otherwise, you would need the equivalent of a P-II 300 or so just to get it to work, which would make it large, heavy, even more expensive, and pretty hot.

    I guess the httpd and Java are done in software, so presumably there's a 32-bit CPU in the somewhere - but how fast it is, I'm not too sure. But there probably isn't much in the way of storage - most of the stuff will be done on flash ROM, I'll bet. Maybe you could hack it to store stuff in the memory for the video, but possibly not (depending on how the hardware interfaces with it).

    IIRC, there is an Java API specifically for embedded devices (basically just taking out the less common/useful stuff, I guess). Though I don't know anything about Java so take that with a grain of salt.
  • What Sony should have done was redesigned their Mavica to use a 120MB Super disk instead 1.4MB flopy disk. Now that would be a nice product enhancement. 85.71 Minutes of .MOV on a Super disk would be kick ass as apposed to the current 60 seconds on a flopy disk.

    This product cries out redesign me, redesign me, redesign me! They could even call it the Super Mavica. Sony, I promise I will not sue you for the use of this name. Just build the damn product!
  • Yeah but I've got MP3 and not minidiscs. I really don't care for the MD music format, CD is better, no loss of quality, same digital sound.. MD as a data format is much more compelling, you can fit something like 140M on a conventional MD and 650-700 on "new generation" ones.


    WHen pushing it as an audio format it has to go uphill against CD and it only offers size and durability as advantages (CDs are pretty durable) and it costs more. As a data format it could have been the zip-drive.

  • Re:Why hasn't sony been pushing md? (Score:3)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @02:04PM (#1043518) Homepage Journal
    This product uses a new format MD with a capacity of 650MB (same as 74-minute CDR). That's how they get 20 minutes of MPEG-2 audio onto it. Presumably they're using around 4 Mbit/second encoding for 20-minute mode, and 8 Mbit/second for the 10-minute high quality mode.

    It would be nice if they offered an inexpensive MD-Data drive for this new 650M format, but somehow it seems unlikely, since they thought that people would pay over $700 for the original MD-Data drive. Sometimes it boggles my mind that a company with such superb engineering talent can have such idiots in marketing. Wait a minute, that sounds just like most companies I've worked for or dealt with; I guess it's not so mind-boggling after all.

  • Same thing here. Love the DC240. Wolf Camera even gave me an extra 16 meg flash card under a promo. It held its price for nearly 6 months (a rare thing in electronics) and only recently, can the DC280(?) be purchased for about the price we paid for the DC240.

    Looked at the Mavicas, but 1.42 meg of space fills up REAL quick. The DC240 dumps to linux like a dream too, so I cant complain.

    ONly add on I'v purchased was a sansdisk reader, because I got tired of batteries wearing out while transfering to machine.

  • Re:Why hasn't sony been pushing md? (Score:3)

    by Antipop ( 180137 ) on Saturday May 27, 2000 @07:33AM (#1043520) Homepage
    I would have though that MD would have been a compelling product to place against the zip-drive.

    This question comes up quite often on alt.music.minidisc, and from what I remember, they do exist. I don't recall exactly why they were not good, but a quick search on Deja will answer your question.

    Now there are tons of digital products where MD would be perfect, like cameras.. It's about time. When can I get an MP3 that uses MD?

     You don't need an MP3 player that uses MD! Portable MD players/recorders have the ability to record from any source, whether an analog headphone jack or an optical TOSLINK. Just get a $2 1/8 to 1/8 miniplug cable from Radioshack and record your MP3s to your MD. It takes a bit longer than just copying the files to a MP3 player, but the sound quality of MD is phenomally better than the portable MP3 players I've heard.
    -Antipop
  • IIRC minidisks have a capacity of about 120Mb, which is about the same as an LS-120 or ZIP disk. I have tried to do a little research, and apparantly SONY did release a MD Data drive, but it used different types of disks and were slow. pity cos i can pick-up an MD for about 1 UKP, much less than an LS-120 disk or ZIP :(
  • In both the original post and on the page it clearly states that there is an ethernet port on it!!

    Regarding the MD Video discs - hopefully sony will us it in their next MD Recorder/Player, 260mins rather than the 80 max using MD audio discs!!! YEA!!!

  • I have a Sony camera. The InfoLithium battery is actually a series. You can get from the itty bitty 60-90 minute battery to a monster that lasts for hours.

    Ahhh, They're probably extremly expensive, just like the battery for my laptop. I'm still stuck with a battery that only does 60 minutes. And it's far too expensive to purchase a longer lasting one... :\

  • The CD-R drive that it would fit into would probably suck down a lot power as it burned that CD. And let's face it, it would be a pretty damn big camera with a CD stuck in it... And then there's the burning time, you'd probably need a HUGE chunk of buffer RAM since you couldn't burn the data as fast as you can record it...

    Course, it would be nice to get more video out of it than just 20 minutes... Personally I like the TRV-900 they make: very pretty.

  • http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MDH -10.html [minidisc.org]
    At $769 for a drive it doesn't seem like quite a deal.. at a lower price, I sure would have wanted one, though.
    But I imagine Sony wasn't thrilled at the prospect of being able to copy and manipulate Minidiscs filled with digital music files. They were probably trying to prevent the kind of freedom we have with mp3 files.
  • Argh, that should have read:

    copy and manipulate Minidiscs filled with digital music files as if they were regular computer files.

    I have a portable MD and a deck and the flexibility of the format is a lot of fun. The only thing that could possibly make it better would be direct access to the disks to avoid all that copying time..
  • There's a big difference between the ~40 Mbps DV codec and the ~4 Mbps MPEG-2 codec that the MD Discam is using.

    AFAIK, only the kernel in the TiVo is Open Source; the rest is proprietary so I doubt you could add any features to it.

  • are we talking 1.2+ swing here or what?

  • Not likely.

    MD Players/Recorders are not lossless. At least not most. The way they stuff 74 minutes of music into 140 mb is quite similar to MP3 compression - lossy.

    -qabi

  • I know they are lossy but if you could work out what makes ATRAC discard data then you could either; - Make an algorithm that adjusted your data so that it was all seen as important to the compression. (not possible if ATRAC has a minimum compression ratio) Or - Mix your data with an appropriate amount of 'unimportant' stuff for the MD to discard and be happy. This would give you a quite decent 60MB (ish) system from a standard 80min MD, a recorder and a little TTL->optical circuit on the parallel port.
  • The new camcorder uses a new-and-improved type of minidiscs, called MD Data2. They can hold 650 megs of data, or about the same as a CD. The Discam is the first product based on the new format, but it sure offers some interesting prospecs. The audio minidiscs have been (unfairly, IMHO) bashed for their sound quality -- MD Data2 discs would make uncompressed audio minidiscs possible. This would be the first serious contender for DATs.
  • A minidisc essentially is a mini rewritable CD. Though they look like them, they are not floppies!
  • Don't know if you'll get this or not, but I'm wondering what you use to tranfer images to Linux? I'm still using TWAIN (Photoshop 5.5) or the stupid Kodak Pictureeasy ...
  • Yes but a MiniDisc disc costs only a few dollars whereas a 128mb flash card would cost about a hundred dollars (or significantly more, not too sure on this.) The MD format is very cost effective.
  • The info provided about the unit about 6 months back or so indicated that it would have a firewire port. Maybe just this press release? It is Sony, afterall...
  • Forget the tech stocks. Look at Sony stock price for the last year. As everyone knows Sony comes out with a new media format at least every 3 years to make profit. The minidisc has been kind of a flop actually and they probably have a warehouse somewhere stuffed with them from 96 with some exec yelling at a meeting "dump them!"
  • That'a s pretty freaking powerful camcorder. It has some processor capable of running a Java VM, image manipulation algorithms, a TCP/IP stack of some sort, and a HTTP server; it also has enough storage to hold _4500_ 640x480 16-/24-bit images. And the cost is $2500...$2500 will buy you a pretty hefty computer these days.

    The point I'm getting at is that "peripheral" devices like this are getting closer and closer to being "real" computers (in the conventional sense.) Devices are getting more and more powerful, and will continue to do so with the advent of things like Transmeta's Crusoe. With a cheap, efficient processor to put in almost anything, the world is going to get a lot more computerized.

    This camcorder is an omen of things to come.
  • I wouldn't say the quality of mp3's recorded on an MD has better sound quality. MD uses ATRAC compression, which isn't quite as sophisticated as MP3. The newest versions of ATRAC are competetive with mp3 in terms of quality, though, and I don't know about the quality of portable MP3 players.

    But recording mp3's on a MD isn't the ideal. First you compress the original with MP3, and then rape it a bit more with ATRAC. If your CD player has optical digital output, it's the simplest and most quality preserving way.
  • I use gphoto, obtainable from www.gphoto.org.
    To use USB, you need to have a newer kernel.
  • I would have though that MD would have been a compelling product to place against the zip-drive.


    Now there are tons of digital products where MD would be perfect, like cameras.. It's about time. When can I get an MP3 that uses MD? And an MD to plug in to my scsi card?

  • Does the builtin web server have a cgi for credit cards? I wouldn't be surprised.
  • come on malda, we know what you really mean. you might as well admit it. there is only ONE hot chick of interest to slashdot. i don't think i need to mention her name (yet again).
  • The ATRAC video onto a minidisc is cool, but are there drives out for computers? or what can you do with it once you have the data. Do you have to use a Firewire link to a computer?

    Minidisc is pretty well established as an audio standard(or rather a medium), and its been used a bit for multitrack recording. At one point Sony promised data Minidiscs that could hold 250mb of stuff... but i havent seen any. Anyone out there seen it?
  • it doesn't leave your dishes spot free.

    still waiting for the new JavaCam 2000
    It does your laundry, feeds your dog, takes insanely good video with no camera-shake...and it gives really good head


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network

  • If there was some way to delete the recordings after downloading them, you could have an auxilliary storage device nearby and do continuous video (instead of just 20 minutes).

    Yeah, they probably implement this with the HTTP DELETE command. sure.

  • what do these camcorders run? and does anyone else kinda think that 20 minutes per md is a little skimpy? what is the price per minute of recording?
  • ... it's just a tad too pricey to actually justify. Last year about this time, I bought a Kodak DC240. Why? Because I'm a geek. I don't *NEED* one, it's just the coolness factor of being able to instantaneously digitize pictures. Now, trust me, I would absolutely love to have MPEG2 of some of my weekend antics, but at $2500, there's just no way I can justify this. It's new, so I understand the pricetag completely, but it looks like I'll be waiting a year or two.

    .. of course, after that year or two passes, they'll have the new 60minute version out and I'll probably end up buying that. Isn't credit grand?
  • I guess it's going to take a long time for me to get over the fact of these digital camera thingys. I may be a geek, but I just don't really see any need for them in common everyday life. My uncle bought one for 'family' pictures, yet most of my family is in the upper 50's and rather stupid when it comes to any kind of digital technology.

    I used a Sony Maverica last year in Orlando during the FIRST Robotics Competition. That model took disks and about 60 seconds of video fit on a disk, and I beleive it was 25 images fit on a floppy too. I was pretty impressed with it. We were using an older camera for a while, using the serial connection to transfer the pictures to the pc... Which was a rather BIG pain in the ass to do each time. But up to 4,500 pictures? Holygod, That's a complete family photoalbum for a life time.

    I'm thinking about purchasing this dcm-m1 camcoder, but this being the first 'digital' camcoder maybe it'd be best to wait for the products to start pouring in and get a much better price and product becasue of it.

    InfoLithium® Battery with AccuPowerTM Meter System Rechargeable Lithium Ion battery means no memory effect like other battery types can experience. Sony's exclusive AccuPower meter continuously displays the battery time remaining in minutes, in the viewfinder or LCD screen.

    Does anyone how long this battery lasts? I coulndn't find any information about it on the site... :-\

  • me (Score:1)

    by Jainith ( 153344 )
    Being the cheap bastard I am, unless someone wants to give me one for free I don't really give a damn.

    Jainith
    Founder of cheap bastards anomous

  • CD-RW (Score:1)

    by crovax ( 98121 )
    What would think if this device used a CD-RW to store the information(a mini one).

    That would solve the problem of drives and deleting the data you don't want any more.

    The only problem would be having to hold the camera really still.
    -----
    If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.

  • Re:I'd love it, but ... (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The problem with this device is that it does a lot, but doesn't do anything particularily well... sure it stores 4500 digital images, but they are only 640x480. Then there is the digital video... certainly good quality, but this time it can only hold 20minutes on a single disk. This means if you use the thing for any significant amount of time, you will be swapping disks constantly. Plus, how much does a blank MD go for? I'd hate to have to spend $150 to do a single 60 minute porno ...
  • Underneath that Java interface, this things could well be running Epoc32, since Sony recently liscensed it from Symbian to power various portable devices.

    Personally, I think the hardware needs more storage per disk to be truly neat. I remember reading about an MD2 format that could store over 600MB per minidisc, but it never seemed to materialize. The current MD format stores roughly what a 128MB flash card would (raw storage capacity).

  • I posted this stuff a few weeks ago when someone asked about digital cameras.

    Over at minidisc.org [minidisc.org] they have some good information [minidisc.org] about this camera, along with some external reviews. The thing does look very cool. Just hook it up to the net and you can do your webserving right off of it.

  • I'm in a digital video camera frenzy right now, having scoured the net to find the 'perfect' digital video camcorder. When I first saw the Discam at Circuit City I almost went into cardiac arrest. It was so cool! However, from what I gather, the resolution of the video is lower than most miniDV camcorders, and there's no FireWire port. Sure, it has ethernet and a USB connector (I think), but FireWire is really convinient. I won't buy any digital camcorder without a 1394 link. Also, the new high-density mini-discs are like $15 a pop. It has awesome in-camera editing features, but these are almost useless to me since I'd rather edit on my computer. What I want is a high-density mini disc (MD View) drive for my computer. They can store way more data than Zip disks (640 MB), and are much more convinient to lug around. Also the MD View discs would be great as a PDA storage solution. It could be Sony's MicroDrive. But Sony is trying to get the world to use over-priced Memory Sticks at the moment.
  • This has got to be one of the coolest things I've ever heard of. Java based, minidisk video, Ethernet...

    Now what I really want to do know is, Will it be possible to load custom .class files on the thing? And I take it java+Ethernet means Jinni, is this correct? As far as I know, you need to put the entire Java API on a device if you use Java at all, If they let you upload code to the thing, I'd be willing to bet there will be a ton of games/addons for the thing pretty quickly. Its got to have a pretty fast CPU.

    Even without code upload, its still pretty slick
  • Plus, how much does a blank MD go for? I'd hate to have to spend $150 to do a single 60 minute porno ...

    I don't know about video MD, the disk is slightly different (larger size, probably). But a music disk goes for like $1.50 at sears. Way cheaper then a zip disk (witch pisses me off, since the digital storage capacity of a music disk is about 120 megabytes)

    Based on that info, I'd say the videodisks probably go for like $5 for something. Plus, there overwrite able, so you can burn your movie to CD or something, and use the same disks for more porn

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