The incredible shrinking act in electronics continues with the recent unveiling of a camcorder prototype less than one-third the size and weight of present camcorders.
Developed by Hitachi, the prototype has a volume of just 18.3 cubic inches and weighs a mere 10.6 ounces. Yet advances are needed in serveral key technologies for it to be produced.
Hitachi engineer Takuya Inaide nearly hides the diminutive device in the palm of his hand as he explains that the dramatic downsizing will depend on eliminating trhe videotpae cassette as a storage medium. Instead, the company envisions digitally recording the video data on flash memory chips stacked in a half-inch cube. To reduce the amount of memory needed, the image data will be compressedd following MPEG 1 standard. With the compression and a 400-megabyte flash memory, users will be able to record up to 30 minutes.
Inaide says that developing the flash cube and one chip
MPEG coder/decoder will take a few more years. What's more, 400 megabytes of flash memory currently cost about $10,000. Prices are dropping dramatically, though, and Inaide thinks the palmtop camcorder could be practical in four or five years. "The target is to make the cost equal to that of 8mm camcorders," he says.
Also yet to be worked out is lasting storage. Inaide says that one option would be to make the flash memory cubes exchangeable. But they are so small they would be difficult to handle and easy to lose. So Hitachi is pondering a way to transfer the image data from the internal flash memory to an external medium such as a floppy disk. --Dennis Normile
PS. Feb. '95