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Sony Says - from Camcorder to Webcam
Sony's product plans for the year, how you can use the USB port
to turn your cam into a webcam and the implications of Blu-ray
for DVD - all grist for George Cole's mill this month
Every year Sony hosts a European press event, where the company
sets out its vision for the future and shows a number of new and
interesting products. This year's event was no exception and so
here are some of Sony's plans for the coming year. At last year's
event, Sony announced that it was dropping Video 8 and the question
was whether this year, Sony would become an all-digital camcorder
company. The answer is: not yet. Sony is launching three Hi8 models
this year, the CCD-TR748, CCD-TRV208 and CCD-TR408. It's also
launching four new Digital8 models, three of which can play analogue
recordings. But there's no doubt that digital is the future: the
facts speak for themselves. In 1998, only 13 per cent of the camcorders
sold in Europe were digital; last year the figure 61 per cent;
and this year, Sony forecasts that 71 per cent of all camcorders
will be digital, 12 per cent Digital8 and less than one in five
(17 per cent) analogue. I asked Sony when it thought the market
would be completely digital. Spokesman Kees van Meeawen said:
'It's too early to say, but the digital market is getting stronger
every year. The trends certainly suggest that one day, everything
will be digital.'
From camcorder to webcam
Recently I talked about the USB (Universal Serial Bus) port and
its growing importance in the camcorder market, despite the Firewire/DV
out/i.Link connection being standard on digital camcorders. This
is because USB is a standard high-speed connection for PCs and
PC peripherals like printers and scanners. All modern PCs have
USB ports but not all have Firewire sockets. At the time, I mentioned
a new high-speed USB2 standard that could challenge i-Link/Firewire
and wondered when Sony would start pushing the USB connection.
Well, the answer is sooner rather than later, because Sony is
adding USB streaming to its new mini DV, MICROMV and Digital8
camcorders.
Media streaming is already used by thousands of websites for
sending audio and video to PCs, using streaming software from
companies like RealNetworks and Microsoft. For example, whenever
you log on to the BBC's website to watch a TV programme or listen
to a radio show, it is streamed to your PC. When a file is downloaded
from the internet, it sits on your PC's hard drive, but streaming
works by sending a continuous stream of data that is not stored
on the computer. This means you don't have to wait for a complete
file to download before you can playback an audio or video clip.
Sony Goes Retro
Sony's MICROMV camcorders are dinky, but small camcorders can
mean increased camera shake, so now Sony has gone back to what
the company calls 'many tried and trusted features found on early
Super8 cameras,' including a handgrip. When Sony made this announcement,
it showed an old Super8 advert that was hilarious to watch, because
it talked about state-of-the art technology which today looks
state-of-the ark. Mind you, it had me thinking what today's ultra-sleek
camcorders will look like in 30 years time..
If you want to use video streaming on your camcorder, you'll need
a couple of things in addition to a USB connection between your
camcorder and PC. One of these is USB driver software (anyone
running Windows XP has this feature as standard), plus some third-party
conferencing software like Microsoft's NetMeeting. Add these ingredients
together and your camcorder can become a webcam. Webcam pictures
are not great (the image resolution offered by Sony's models is
just 320 x 240 pixels) but it's a neat way of staying in touch
with friends or relatives via the internet.
Blu-ray - red faces?
You've no doubt read in the news about the Blu-ray Disc, the new
high-definition video format backed by nine major electronics
companies. Blu-ray discs store around six times more data than
ordinary DVDs and can hold more than two hours of high-definition
TV images or almost 13 hours of standard-definition video. News
of Blu-ray has led some to ask whether this means that the DVD
recorders trickling on to the market are already obsolete? But
the message from the electronics industry is 'no.' Makers of DVD
recorders point out that Blu-ray is a concept not a product, adding
that Blu-ray is not a DVD format. The first Blu-ray recorders
will also be much more much expensive than DVD recorders. The
old joke in the PC industry used to be that such was the speed
of technology, that by time you had bought a new computer and
unpacked it at home, it was already being replaced by a faster
and better model. Could the same thing be happening with consumer
electronics products?
MP3 - it's everywhere
MP3 used to be an obscure audio file format, but the explosion
of internet music sites offering MP3 audio files changed that.
MP3 has gone from PCs to portable audio players, to audio systems
and even DVD players that can read MP3 files stored on recordable
CDs. Now, JVC has several camcorders including, the GR-DVP5 and
GR-DV3000, that can use MP3 sound effects. What next, a microwave
oven that plays MP3 music files as it cooks?
George Cole, What Camcorder, May 2002
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