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Hardware

Hitachi Digital Camcorder Records To 8cm DVD-RAM 94

Posted by timothy from the but-you-can't-watch-it-without-MPAA-approval dept.
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.
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Hitachi Digital Camcorder Records To 8cm DVD-RAM More

Hitachi Digital Camcorder Records To 8cm DVD-RAM

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  • /. effect seen in reply to post. (Score:4)

    by AstynaxX ( 217139 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:31PM (#506200) Homepage
    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.

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • All things comsidered, I tend to be more partial to some sort of solid state media, rather than delicate rotating media like that in a portable situation.

    Although it is not difficult to see someone making it, just because they might make a few bucks off it.

    [shrug]

    This may be another case of media wars, and the maxim of not buying version 1.0 of something has got to apply somehow as well.

  • Almost all mechanical devices can fail. Is that a reason not to use them? If the moments are important, use two or more methods to record them.

    When my sister was married the photographer had a beautiful Hassleblad large format camera, among the best at the time. The shutter failed though, and all the pictures he took were garbage.

    Fortunately he also had an assistant that took basically the same shots with another camera.

    Remember, if it's important always have a backup, no matter how reliable the medium or device if the recording is important!
  • Back in the early '80s my parents got (for free) a VHS camera (can't call it a camcorder) that did this. It was a VCR split in 2; Tuner and tape deck. At home, you'd have them side by side, and a fat cable connecting the two. Each required a power outlet. When you wanted to go out to film something, you took the tape deck part with you, and plugged the camera into the same port as the tuner plugged into at home.

    The whole setup weighed a good 20 pounds and was a bitch to lug around anwhere, but then you didn't get more than 30 minutes of battery life anyway. Going to be standing a while, recording something? Enjoy the back/neck pain for the next week. Putting it on a tripod? The cord was just long enough to be able to put the deck on the floor close by. Couldn't put it on a table, because someone would walk by and catch the cable.

  • Here is some more info from the Japanese site:

    -AP

  • Although a DVD-RAM digital video camera is a huge step up from my old fashion Hi8 Sony digital video camera, it seems kind of like an old technology compared to a SuperDrive [apple.com]. (CD-RW / DVD-R combo)
  • The DVD-RAM discs come in cartridges but you can remove one-sided (2.6 GB) discs from the cartridge and use them in the ordinary DVD-ROM drives.
  • While this first-gen stuff may be a little weak, this is something I've been wishing for. Everyone can whine all they like about it, but it is still a big step in the right direction. Once the density and ruggedness goes up a bit, and the camera systems get a bit more advanced, this is going to be KILLER. Gigs and gigs of storage, with all the coolness of the MiniDisc form.

    And as for the aforementioned "first gen" slagging: it doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good, and in your hands. I could have a lot of fun with one of these, and I doubt there will be much better for the next 18 months.

  • camera -> fire-wire out -> Apple G4 with DVD burner -> DVD player

    QED
  • Er... maybe my math is screwed up, but I only get 10 minutes for an entire disc copy. The disc holds 2.8GB, so 5MB/s would transfer the whole disc in 560 seconds or 9 minutes and 20 seconds. Still not very preferrable... and I'm probably missing something blatantly obvious, so feel free to slap me if so...
  • The following link is from where I work. We created a plugin (see the page for which applications) to edit the dvd-ram movies and then view them in a DVD player (or RAM-read player).

    DVDConnexIT [heuris.com]
  • Kindof a silly question speculating about that but hey what do yous think? Any chance of getting it below 1000$ when it's released?

    Oh well - where's that payrise...

  • But who knows when it will actually be available?

    I remember waiting ages for G4/500 systems to appear in the store, and judging by the rumours floating around, availability for this could be even worse, especially with all the rich geeks around who really, really need recordable DVD drives :-(.

    Not that I wouldn't like one, of course; it would be really handy to be able to make DVDs instead of being stuck in the stone age with VHS.

    D

    ----
  • If you're willing to spend about $2,300 on a camcorder, you can get a three-chip MiniDV camcorder, which is significantly higher quality than Digital8. This isn't because of the format, but due to the three-chip CCD recording system - significantly superior to the single chip used by all Digital8 cameras. Recommended models are the Canon GL1 and Sony TRV900. These models will get you image quality which is very close to true professional formats like Digital BetaCam or BetaCam.

    For about $3,000-4,500 you can get a high-end three chip camcorder like the Canon XL1 or Sony VX-2000 - those are semi-professional grade tools that will give you additional flexibility in operation. (The XL1, which I own, has interchangeable lenses and all sorts of cool features).

    On the low-end, I think the big issue is small and light. The closest equivalent MiniDV camcorders to the Digital8 units are something like half or less the size and weight. For vacation photography and capturing images in difficult situations, this matters enormously - I've even been tempted to get my beautiful but large and heavy Canon XL1 a less pricey friend for exactly this reason.

    I wouldn't be surprised if there are durability issues with the 8mm tapes. They are run at double their normal speed in a Digital8 camera. The older Hi8 format had dropout problems which were well known; tapes would survive unscathed for only a few plays. I don't know if Digital8 development has fixed this or not.

    The biggest advantage of Digital8 is tape availability and price. You can buy tape usable in a Digital8 camera in a typical grocery or drug store. In my experience, MiniDV tapes are almost impossible to find outside of major urban centres. Even in the big city, you could have problems; in my trip to South Florida last year, I had to go to three different Circuit Cities to find even a single tape - and that was all they had available. So if you buy a MiniDV camcorder, you should stock up on tapes before travel.

    I have a FAQ I wrote on Digital Video - it's a bit dated but there's still lots of good information. Visit http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .

    Let me know if you have other questions.

    D


    ----
  • see http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=01/01/15/18525 9&cid=130 [slashdot.org]

    echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
  • well, if you ordered it fast enough, it'll be available in about two weeks - that, and a titanium powerbook. the wait time is now up to about 30 days or so...
  • Not true. If you're using one-sided DVD-RAM discs you can remove the disc from the cartridge and at least my DVD-ROM unit reads them just fine.
  • If you'd read even the first paragraph of the linked article, you'd know that it is in fact cartridge-based, but you can remove the disc from the cartridge and put it in a DVD player. Unfortunately, not all DVD players support DVD-RAM, but the article says most do.

  • Further information (Score:3)

    by Khopesh ( 112447 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:40PM (#506218) Homepage Journal
    "Hitachi preps first DVD-RAM camcorder" on ZDNet [zdnet.com]
    "Hitachi to hit market with first DVD-RAM camcorder" on ZDNet [cnet.com]
    "Hitachi shows DVD-RAM camcorder" on IDG [idg.net]
    The Google search I used to find all this stuff [google.com]
    I can't find a hitachi mirror on their global [hitachi.com] or japanese [hitachi.co.jp] sites.

    --------

  • What I hope happends (Score:3)

    by donglekey ( 124433 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:41PM (#506219) Homepage
    This sounds kind of cool but not like something I would save some money for. What I want is more quality and while this might increment it, it doesn't really take the problem head on just by using DVD RAM. I think that high definition digital video camera's are where its at.

    Expensive? definitly, and not going to be in the consumer range anytime soon for sure, but combine the incredibly sharp picture of HDTV with being able to see your moments in that sharp picture would be worth alot. Instead of just seeing some fuzzy crappy picture of your wedding you could finally see a widescreen colorful picture of everyone there. Its along way off for sure, and JVC isn't helping anything but I think it would be where video cameras stop looking like crap and take a turn into true photography. I think that the best way to accomplish this would be to just use a hard drive in the camera. Then there isn't an issues with capturing video to computers because they could be put into files. People would certainly have to burn DVD's with only an hour or less video on them, but who wants to really save all of the video they take? If some of it could be easily discarded I think people would learn to throw away all the useless crap pretty quick. No one wants the half an hour trying to convince their kid to jump off the high dive, they just want the few minutes leading up to it and the few minutes after.

    Some kind of heavy compression would have to be used, MPEG 2 is already somewhat out of date, and MPEG 4 only goes up to DVD resolution so neighther would really do the trick. Also the compression would take quite a bit of power so that is another obstacle I guess. Luckily MPEG 2 acceleration already works with MPEG 4 video (at least for me) so that's one problem solved already. It will happen, it will just take time.
  • Can anyone tell me if there any digital cam corders that record to IDE harddrives? Like say, you can plug any old IDE harddrive into it and increase your storage capacity any time you want by buying a harddrive? Perhaps the cam corder could even run linux? When you consider that 40 gig harddrives are pretty cheap these days, it seems like a pretty worth while product.
  • Where is that?

    I find:
    such as future DVD-RAM equipped personal computers and future DVD-RAM recorders and home DVD players.

    and:
    With DVD video recorded on the Hitachi DVD-RAM Camcorder, consumers can easily connect the camcorder to a TV to enjoy the recorded video or plug into the USB port of a PC (equipped with Windows 98 or Windows 98 second edition) or drop the disc into a 4.7GB DVD-RAM drive for editing, viewing, printing or even posting recorded memories on a personal home page.

    &nbsp

    I read the words future in the first quote and absolutely nothing about using a standard DVD drive in the second.

    Are you and I reading the same article?

  • I know, that's why we were all slapping it around to see if it kept recording smoothly or if the laser "lost track". Believe me, this thing was pretty impressive. The only thing stopping me from dropping it on the floor was the fact that it was tethered to the table.

    Well, that and the fact that I couldn't take my eyes off the blond model. Woohoo!
  • okay, I can't resist :-)

    >What happens if the monkey reaches up and hits the camera? Ruined disc.

    You are too close to the monkeys. Please back up out of monkey arm-reach. Thank you.

    >What happens if an elephant sprays the camera? Ruined camera.

    Depends on which end of the elephant the spray is coming from. If it is the long dangly end in the front, it is water with a trace of saliva. Your DVD-R camera is no worse off than any other contemporary digital camcorder. If the spray is coming from the other end, you are too close to the elephant. Please back up out of elephant urine spraying distance. Thank you.

    >What happens if your son is using it to record the bears in the pit and then drops it into the pit? Ruined disc, THEN ruined camera.

    What!? You are letting your son handle your brand-new DVD-R camcorder!? You deserve to have your new toy turned over to the bears. :-)

    Seriously - how is this any worse than a DV camcorder? I'm assuming Hitachi must have ruggedized this enough tolerate moderate bumping and such. Dunno, can you buffer enough video in memory to overcome occasional skips, kind of like what goes on in a car CD player?
  • I am sorta curious, will the DVD's these produce be playable on DVD's from other countries? I mean if I want to send grandma back in bulgaria a video of the kids, will I have to use a camera from bulgaria? Note to moderators: Not flamebait, nor funny, nor troll, legitimate question. --toq
  • I look at these posts, and see alot of oooing and ahhing over the _dvd_ part of this camera (and that is probably the only reason it was posted in the first place). As I see it, the only reason to have a RAM type media is if you are going to be doing random access, otherwise it just adds cost and durability issues.

    Now, for still photos, DVD-RAM might be a good solution, but that is not what this camera is designed for (just a 1.1-million-pixel 1/4-inch CCD).

    For video, Mini DV tape does the job just fine, and at very low cost, and high reliablity. If you want better quality create better CCD's, and if that causes a higher bit rate than DV can handle, create a new format. But I don't see a reason to move away from tape at the moment (other than to cash in on the ooo's and ahh's we have seen here today!)

    echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
  • The link is not broken or slashdotted, the server just won't serve up the page if the URL is typed in, for some reason. If you go to www.hitachi.com [hitachi.com], and click on DVD Cam, it loads fine.
  • I have the Sony camera of which you speak. Quality is just fine for home video. In addition to composite video, they also have Firewire (bidirectional) so it means I never have to use a VHS tape again. I can just make MPEG-2 versions of my video through the Firewire card.

    Right, in addition, all your old VHS tapes should be able to be input into the video in, and transfered on the fly as an MPEG-2 stream over IEEE1394, that I think is a feature actually missing in more expensive DV cameras.

    -Daniel

  • "I know it breaks geek tradidition to say this (heresey! they cry) but: NEVER, EVER pick up first generation tech, even 1st gen deriv's. "

    first generation tech: The Thinkpad 770 I picked up three years ago with a first-gen DVD drive and hardware mpeg en/decode that's still in use. The Mac 7100 I purchased six years ago that's still in use. The Sony 5-disc changer I purchased twelve years ago that's still in use.

    I think this camera is exactly what I've been waiting for, and I do intend to try it out as soon as I can. Timothy, you, and your FUD be dammned. Those who take the risk of first-generation products are called "early adopters" by those who sell, and "leading edge" by those who hire.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • well you could definitely build one but it's not the same as having one built by a consumer products company. Integration and all.
  • Why USB? Why not Firewire (IEEE 1394)? This would be cool if I could use it like a regular DV-cam. what's the max bandwidth usb can push? 5mb/s? thats around an hour to copy a whole disc to your HD. ugh.
  • In fact our company is working on such a device. We use the camcorder's AGP serial bus connector too interface directly with the Windows 2001 1.66MB floppy drive. As strange as that sounds we use the more conventional method of distributing the resonant signals to the FPU (on the DVD decoder port) so we don't have to over buffer defenistrate the SDRAM extention on the Linux BIOS (version 3.9).We're still trying to fit the 14" CRT on the camcorder but I expect that to take a week or 8. But as long as the sound card on the mouse iis working, it will be smooth sailing.

    ---
  • But again, a DVD-ROM drive isn't a home DVD player. That such a disc is readable in a DVD-ROM drive doesn't mean the image recorded is a playable, consumer-format DVD disc.
  • This thing is not going to compete in quality with DV based camcorders in its price range.

    If I were buying a camcorder. I think I'd pass this up rather quickly. For one the imager block will not produce high quality images. Second the data rate is really only good when you compare to LAN streaming video...6Mb/s is not impressive.

    MiniDV and Digital8 Camera's record at 25Mbps or ~5MB/s. At that quality this camera can only hold about 9 minutes of DV25 video. Professional DV50 Cameras record at twice the bandwidth, which means that these disks can only store about 5 minutes.

    In other words this stuff is useless, and you will very disappointed if you try to use this to archive your wedding or some other precious moment. You will likely end up with a VHS quality image and digital artifacts to boot.

    Hmmm, just did the math, you could get 1 hour of DVD quality video from the format, but you will still be limited by the imager to less quality than you find on most VHS camcorders. Also, I question how well you can automatically encode MPEG-2 in real time.

    There are other technologies that, when integrated into video systems, offer vastly greater promise.

  • the link to the cam is broken... after 4 posts...

    I am hunting for a new link... Good thing us /.ers are so patient...
  • /me waits until they include electronic skip protection =)

  • Reliablility of CD-R camera... (Score:4)

    by ivan256 ( 17499 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:09PM (#506237)
    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... :)

  • dvd RAM is not DVD-R (Score:3)

    by Khopesh ( 112447 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:13PM (#506238) Homepage Journal
    I made this mistake a while ago; DVD-RAM is cartridge-based, a drive for your comupter costs about $350-500 and will NOT read DVDs or DVD ROMs (right?). Nor can DVD players and DVD-ROMs read DVD-RAM discs. I therefore see no point in this silly device.

    As timothy stated, it seems rather risky to use this kind of technology; it is easily messed up and not even terribly compatible! I'd much rather see some kind of memory storage like MP3 players but larger; like 512 to a gig of storage. (who needs 2+GB anyway?)

    btw, DVD-R is available for about $4k.

    --------

  • Woah, der, naou... (Score:3)

    by notcarlos ( 139684 ) <jcl08&uark,edu> on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:13PM (#506239) Homepage
    I know it breaks geek tradidition to say this (heresey! they cry) but: NEVER, EVER pick up first generation tech, even 1st gen deriv's. DVD-ROM AND Sony's got some kind of new high-def codec? That's money better spent on getting through college/morgage/kids. Let Gates and Torvalds break theirs first.


    Geek Culture killed my dog/
    and I don't think it's fair...
  • "It can record 60 minutes of high quality (6M bps) digital video...All stored on an 8cm DVD-Ram disc (2.8 GB capacity)."

    The math sure does look wrong...

  • Delicate mechanisms? (Score:5)

    by Bill Currie ( 487 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:16PM (#506241) Homepage
    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
    --

  • ZDNet's Coverage and Info (Score:4)

    by Chuck Flynn ( 265247 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @12:18PM (#506242)
    Hitachi's link looks like it's down. Here's the story [zdnet.com] at ZDNet and Hitachi's own press release [google.com].

    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 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.

    If I'm spending big bucks on a camera I should expect to be able to take pictures of Uncle Cleetus and Uncle Hoss, mud wrestling in their overalls without fear of a slackjawed yocal knocking the camera (thus losing precious footage). Seriously, I would think that Hitachi is smart enough not to bring out an inferior product. It must have significant advantages over previous technology or else consumers will not waste their money. Alot of footage of children is action and vacation shots, so the reliablility of the camera must match the activities.

  • 60 minutes = 3600 seconds
    6Mbits per second * 3600 seconds = 21600 Mbits
    21600 Mbits / 8 = 2700 MBytes
    need I go further
  • Damn it! ... I hate simple math ...
  • My high school [mbhs.edu] has a good-sized TV studio that is used both by various TV production classes and our very own Blair Network Communications [mbhs.edu]. Anyway, we just got a whole mess of new G4 computers with DVD-RAM drives to replace the old linear editors. Apparently, they have been a boon to all involved. I'm not involved with TV production much (more of a newspaper [mbhs.edu] man myself), but numerous of my acquiantances are, and these are very nice machines. They do tend to heat up the editing suites quite a bit, but they editing much easier and more efficient.

    Annyway, all the cameras the studio has are still cassette recorders. Some people use digital cameras, but no matter what, you invariably have to hook your camera up to a firewire adapter and dump everything to a DVD-RAM before you can use it. If we got DVD-RAM cameras... well, I'm sure they'd love it.

    -J
  • It seems that the biggest drawback to DVD-RAM or other such long term reliable storage is the fact that the camera gets bumped around.

    Why not separate the storage from the camera? Have the camera store SOME amount in a couple-meg buffer (FlashCard? RAM?), and transmit the rest to a base containing the storage device. The base can be either wearable (say in backpack) and thus possible to connect via a wire or some short-distance network (Does Bluetooth have enough bandwidth?); or stationary, may be in a car, using other wireless network that is more long-distance.

    Just my .02

    -DVK

  • Stop you're going to make me pee...
  • That's true, but it's the moving parts that can provide mechanical failure. The write process for a camera is remarkably simple, even in the most advanced cameras: open and shut. Digital recording onto DVD-RAM might require very precise movements; jarring it even a little could ruin your memories. Jarring a camera won't.
  • I mean I've looked at them, like the sony TRV-120, they seem reletivly inexpensive, they can record to 8mm tape that's cheeper and more available (possibly even more durable). They can play hi8 and such. They have composite video in and out such that they can digitize a signal for you, and they're still pretty small.

    I have the Sony camera of which you speak. Quality is just fine for home video. In addition to composite video, they also have Firewire (bidirectional) so it means I never have to use a VHS tape again. I can just make MPEG-2 versions of my video through the Firewire card.

  • AFAIK, DVD-RAM isn't compatible with DVD players, meaning that you can't pop those disks into a DVD player and share your moments. This seems like this missing link here -- a camera that could directly make DVD-compatible videos without having to mess around remastering them to DVD format.

    Or does Hitachi also sell a DVD player that can read and display this format as well as DVD format discs?
  • For skydiving I have used the JVC GR-DVM50 and the Sony PC100. They are nifty little mini-DV palm-corders that easily fit on the side of my freefly helmet.

    DVD-format would be fast and perfect for being able to transfer video into a PC for editing instead of the fire-wire I use now but there is no way that I'll delude myself into thinking that this camcorder would be able to keep up with a vicious 200+MPH freefly jump like the JVC and Sony Mini-DV will.

    Sigh... I guess I'll just have to wait a bit longer on this one.
  • 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.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It's amazing how much a prevalent technology (and it associated problems) can so overshadow a different less known technology. DVD-RAM is NOT DVDR,CDR,CDRW, or any of the slew of other recordable technologies out there. DVD-RAM is based on the phase-change technology first pioneered by Panasonic and used in the original PD-Drives. From the very beginning the technology was developed for random access to the information on the disk. The data is not arranged in a spiral but in concentric rings like on a harddrive. The result is a disk mechanism that doesn't need to maintain a carefully aligned spiral and can stop and start at any point on the disk. So if your camera does get knocked while recording, it is easy enough to rerecord the affected data blocks and continue. Any device worth it's salt would have enough buffer to handle this kind of situation. The media is also optical and thus immune to magnetic fields As for compatibility, DVD-RAM drives are perfectly capable of reading CD, CDR, CDRW, PD, DVD-ROM and DVD-RAM disks. They use a cartridge/tray mechanism that allows disks without the cartridge to be inserted. In addition most DVD-ROM Drives (computer based) are capabable of reading single sided DVD-RAM disks (the DVD-RAM disk can be removed from the cartridge). I'm not too sure about consumer video players though. So no, DVD-RAM drives are not susceptible to all the problems we associate with DVDR or CDR. You will still have to build a robust drive mechanism but the media is nowhere near as susceptible to external shocks than people seem to believe.
  • Isn't this the same format DVD that the Nintendo Game Cube uses? If this is the case, then maybe the Game Cube isn't so off access as it seemed to amateur developers and um, p1r@ts?
  • Good point. Reading and writing jpgs (and mpgs even more so) is eminently suited to a linear medium like digital magnetic tape. The only thing not supported would be erasing pictures whilst in the field, as tape likely wouldn't support any sort of block-allocation.

    The technology is mature and reliable; just what the doctor ordered, and the HUGE capacities makes the lack of edit functionality a moot point.
  • Haven't seen camcorders that use hard disk as a storage medium yet. The technology is being used in other similar areas though, Pace [pace.com] are using a hard disk for tape-free recording in their new set-top satellite boxes.

    ----------------------------
  • You'd be better off just hooking up your camera to a Firewire drive. Although expenisve, the speed and simplicity are worth it.
  • Forget monkeys *hitting* the camera, what about flinging poop? Is this thing feces-resistant? As for the elephant and the bear pit:
    1. they'd both probably destroy a regular camcorder just as easily, and
    2. Who the hell in his right mind takes a unit this expensive to the zoo with his family?
  • My Hitachi DVD-ROM reads the DVD-RAM discs I've recorded with my Hitachi DVD-RAM. What's the problem?

    DVD-ROM is not a consumer-grade DVD player. How are you able to get DVD-RAM discs into a DVD-ROM only drive, also? The only DVD-RAM discs I've ever used have been cartridges (similar to the old 1.2GB opticals or the cart-fed CD-ROM drives of days past). The DVD players and DVD-ROM drives I've seen have been designed around the 'bare' 12cm CD-type media and cannot accept cartridge media.
  • My bad. I was thinking of the article liked to from this post [slashdot.org].
  • Yeah, Hitachi builds one, it's called the MPEGcam. It uses a PCMCIA hard disk or memory card. It's just a bit larger than an electric shaver, its made to be handheld. I used one for a while, I even made a movie for spanish class my junior year of high school with it (97-98). Though they seem to like using flash cards with it now, I used it with the hard drive. I think it stored about 20 minutes of video. You can see it at http://www.mpegcam.com/a [mpegcam.com]
  • No, I think it means you have to sue yourself every time you use the camera since you are violating your own copyright. Or something. I don't know, ask a lawyer. They'd probably tell you you can counter-sue Hitachi for selling this thing in the first place.

    I had a feeling you were going to say that.
  • Question: why is it that toward the bottom of almost every article there are non-threaded threads? Take these three guys: they are obviously having a conversation, yet they are not posting replies, just new topics. What gives?

    I had a feeling you were going to say that.
  • What is wrong with tape?

    You can't put it in a computer, it's linear, and it's more prone to damage.

    And while I don't think you can put a DVD-RAM disc in consumer DVD player (anyone know for sure), this is a step in the right direction.

    - Scott
    --
    Scott Stevenson
    WildTofu [wildtofu.com]
  • What about having two devices:
    (i) camera with memory stick (ii) storage with USB & plug for memory stick
    That way, device (ii) would be a neat storage extension for your laptop as well and you wouldn't have to carry around your laptop for this. Device (ii) could also be just some sort of jazz drive.
  • I'm not seeing the error here at all?

    6Mbits/sec / 8 bits/byte * 60 sec/min * 60 minutes = 2700 MBytes, sounds just about even to me.

    Reminder:
    Mb = megabits
    MB = megabytes
  • "It can record 60 minutes of high quality (6M bps) digital video...All stored on an 8cm DVD-Ram disc (2.8 GB capacity)."

    The math sure does look wrong...

    Well, do the math again; it looks okay to me.

    6 Mbits/second = 45 Mbytes/minute.
    45 x 60 = 2700 megabytes, or 2.831 gigabytes if you use 1024x1024 for "mega", rather than 1,000,000, which I used in my math.
  • You are correct in saying that DVD-RAM and DVD-R are not the same thing. Different discs, different format, drives not interchangeable.

    I would also imagine that the DVD-RAM that works in this camera is cartridge based but I'm not positive, I've only seen the 5.2GB disks.

    The need for a lot of storage is pretty obvious, even for stills. Many professional photographers might take the same shot a half a dozen times. Since you get more out of a single disc it also reduces the amount of extra media you have to carry around.

    Video, at least decent quality video, eats up gobs of space.

  • It is correct... 2800 MB times 8 bit/byte divided by 6 Mbit/s is a bit more than 3600 secs, which is, 60 minutes...
  • 6Mb = 750KB
    750KB/sec x 60 sec = 45MB/min
    45MB/min x 60 min = 2.7GB


    Math looks ok to me...
  • I'd be nervous about entrusting important moments to this.


    You'd rather entrust them to ever-reliable tape? You've never had a VCR eat an important tape, have you?


    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • ... one of the biggest players in the server world. Should "/." be made one of standart test for servers reliability/response time ? Just imagine "Latest configuration of server ABC-2001 from XYZ recevied 3245 Slashdotmarks ! "

    tandr
  • Sorry...i converted to metric... ;)
  • Let's say that you take a normal Hi-8 camera to the zoo.
    • What happens if the monkey reaches up and hits the camera? Dirty camera. Probably the same thing that would happen to the DVD camera, assuming adequate shock protection.
    • What happens if an elephant sprays the camera? Ruined camera.
    • What happens if your son is using it to record the bears in the pit and then drops it into the pit? Ruined tape, AND ruined camera. THEN son thrown into pit to retrieve remnants.
    - A.P.

    --
    * CmdrTaco is an idiot.

  • The concern so much isn't the stability of the images as far as motion is concerned, it's the stability of the DVD-RAM drive while recording. The tracking of the record laser and the write buffering while recording has to be robust enough to handle common shocks so that you don't drop out data being written to the disk.
  • I know this is a little off subject, but does anyone if a program for the Mac or another OS exists that will let me backup files (other than movies) to my digital video camera? These Hi8 tapes are ultra cheap and I'm sure they hold a bundle.

    Also, I've used a DVD-RAM drive before on a G4, and it mounts like a normal hard disk, which is very neat. Will this new Hitachi work similarly? If it doesn't, it should.

  • Re:Why not make the storage physically separate? (Score:4)

    by byee ( 221083 ) on Monday January 15, 2001 @01:04PM (#506279)
    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...

  • You can't put it in a computer
    You can put it in a computer just as well as any other digital media, all that is required is a drive. In most Mini-DV cams, there is a way to link the drive in the camera to a computer through some type of interface, so there is no need to buy a drive for the coumputer.

    it's linear
    Yes? And?
    Linear is just fine for storing video. As far as editing goes: if you are editing non-linearly, you are going to be needing much more than 5.2GB of RAM media to store the video, so it has to go on a harddrive anyway . . . (BTW, even if you were editing a very small video, DVD is way too slow for non-linear editing)

    and it's more prone to damage
    Well, sorta: dropouts are a big problem on analog tapes, but digital formats have built in methods to prevent problems. I don't have specs handy, but I can tell you that Mini-DV works very well, I have looked at over 40 hours of footage, and have seen no problems. On 1/2 inch formats like BetaSP a very small amount of data missing will create visible problems, this doesn't happen on the DV formats.

    And while I don't think you can put a DVD-RAM disc in consumer DVD player
    No, as far as I know (I researched this about 3 months ago) you can't put a video on DVD-RAM into a DVD player and have it play (talking set top boxes here, you can access the data on the disk in most computer DVD drives).

    this is a step in the right direction
    Would you mind explaining why? So that perhaps in the future you could take your media out of the camera, and be able to hand it to someone to play on their DVD? This is somthing that needs to happen in the consumer drives before I would run out and buy one of these, and I suspect that this is kinda unlikely due to our friends the MPAA :) (after all, why are there no consumer DV drives, which have a much higher quality than DVD?)

    echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13
  • btw, DVD-R is available for about $4k.

    Surely the best deal at the moment must be the combo DVD-R /CD-RW drive available for £3499, housed in a sleek graphite box with the following additional features:
    733MHz PowerPC G4
    256K L2 & 1MB L3 cache
    256MB SDRAM memory
    60GB Ultra ATA drive
    NVIDIA GeForce2 MX
    Gigabit Ethernet
    56K internal modem

    Just go to the Apple Store and select the 'ultimate' configuration.

  • think c90 vs CD for ease of use

    also - minidisk like editablity / shuffle-ability

    later

    seth
  • 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.

    It's easy enough to do with virtually any video camera worth it's salt today. Many video cameras have high-quality video out feeds to which the cameraperson can easily attach an external recording device (S-VHS deck, DV storage unit, laptop computer w/ DV editing capabilities) to capture the video/audio stream. In fact, a great number of semi-pro/professional camera crews do just that, as professional grade cameras often don't even have things like microphones and media recorders built in.

    The catch is that it does, as you stated, create an unnecessary pain in the butt for the casual/home user, who's perfectly happy with having reasonable-quality parts packed tightly into a tiny package.

    information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.

  • That is the first time ZDNet has had better coverage than anyone else.
  • While the inclusion of DVD is minorly interesting, what confuses me totally is why the digital camera industry is stuck in the 1880s -- which is when the innovation that led to the 4:3 aspect ratio of the TV screen was introduced. (Early television developers needed a source of content for their new medium [sound familiar?], so they looked to movies, and adopted their 4:3 aspect ratio to make transfer easier.) What would make me pay attention is a full-resolution digital camera with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Video would be recorded at the equivalent of widescreen D1 (768x482.5, component YPrPb, with a progressive scan option or line doubling on the output). Stills at the highest resolution possible but at least 1920x1080. I used to work for an HDTV production company and I can vouch for the impact and versatility of images sourced in this format.
  • I have a DVD-RAM disk in my Apple PowerMac G4. It can read DVD-ROM just fine. If you use a single-sided, 2.6 Gig disk, you can actually pop the disk out of the cartridge and read it in any DVD-ROM drive. I've done this to share stuff with my DVD-ROM-using coworkers.

    I believe [although I've never tested this] that DVD-RAM is not compatible with consumer DVD players. DVD-R [not the same thing as DVD-RAM] is compatible with consumer DVD players [see Apple's superdrive [apple.com]].

    Just wanted to clear up some FUD.

  • The success of this device ultimately depends on how much it is going to cost. I have a feeling that it will be introduced at a price comparable to HDTV, and therefore would be out of the price range for "Joe 6-Pack". I personally don't know anyone with an HDTV in their house, and it will probably be the same with the DVD camcorder.

    With regards to skip protection. I have a 5 year old Alpine CD player in my car, and it never skips. I could be doing 45 over a speed bump, and it won't skip. I know they have portable DVD players already, and I'm sure that they have the technology to prevent skipping.

  • What about CSS? Does this device have a Region Code? From what I understand, Region Codes are required to view DVDs. If so then it would be useless to try to send a DVD home movie to family in another country...

  • What about the second side. DVDs have two sides. The capacity of one side is 2.8GB, the capacity of both sides combined is actually 4.7 GB.

  • The Math is fine:

    60 minutes=3600 seconds
    6 megabits/sec=6 megabytes/8 sec
    3600/8 = 450 6 megabyte units
    450 * 6 = 2700 megabytes

    give or take several dozen megs, the math is fine.

    -={(Astynax)}=-
  • Hey; quick question:

    Is there any real drawback to the Digital 8 cameras out there?

    I mean I've looked at them, like the sony TRV-120, they seem reletivly inexpensive, they can record to 8mm tape that's cheeper and more available (possibly even more durable). They can play hi8 and such. They have composite video in and out such that they can digitize a signal for you, and they're still pretty small.

    So is the draw back manufactured, i.e. the CCDs arn't as good as the DV cams? or is it part of wieght/energy usage, or is it that 8mm is just a bad format for high bandwidth stuff.... I'm not following why people arn't all over these cameras as opposed to the more expensive ones.

    -Daniel

  • Wait, does that mean I can sue the DVDCCA for selling devices that circumvent the protection on my copyrighted works? :o

  • Re:dvd RAM is not DVD-R (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually wrong.

    I have a DVD-RAM drive that plays DVD-ROM (Britannica), DVD's (every movie of the 200+ I own) and its own DVD-RAM discs.

    It even works fine under Linux as a CD player/CD-ROM drive.

    What it can't read are the DVD-RW discs, although I'm yet to see a player for these discs.

    For _me_ it works wonderfully. The only problem I have is the software to allow packet writing does not work under W2K, and the company that wrote it want's $80 to _upgrade_ it, which is a complete rip-off.

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