Hi everyone!
I have read about the MD Discam on the Sony Web site and it only can hold up
to 20 minutes worth of video on one MD Data2 disc which can hold 640 Mb of
data. If Sony improved the disc access time for MD Data so that it is
comparable to a hard disk, they could end up with a product that overtakes
Iomega's low-end removeable data storage solutions easily.
The orginal MD Data hardware was known to be as slow as a floppy, require a
SCSI interface which wasn't common on PCs at the time of its release; and
was very expensive. Iomega stole the thunder out of this format because its
portable Zip drive had higher-speed access, worked with a parallel-port
interface and was sold in a price-subsidised manner where there were cheap
drives and expensive media.
Now the landscape for MD Data has changed significantly. Most computers made
since 1997 have a USB port on them for connection of removeable media
devices and similar peripherals and Firewire is now considered a valid
option for a ultra-high-speed access prot for removeable media hardware. If
a manufacturer designs a USB peripheral such as a removeable-media drive to
consume a small amount of power, they can have the device draw power from
the host computer. The speed of access and data throughput can be improved
by use of higher-than-normal spindle speeds and spinning
constant-linear-velocity media like CD-ROM and MD Data at a fixed spindle
speed unless "real-time" data like sound or video is being moved.
Also, an MD Data 2 disc can carry over 1440 1.3 Megapixel JPEG digital
camera images held at a low compression ratio, or 320 2.1 Megapixel images
held at a low compression rate. This format will be a boon to the digital
camera user, who has to mess around with buying lots of expensive memory
cards to use their digital camera at its best potential or use
low-resolution shooting modes which don't bring out the best in today's
digital cameras so they can cover themselves for a long photography session.
A good peripheral that makes use of MD Data 2 would be an image-transfer
unit which copies images held on a memory card onto an MD Data 2 disc. This
is in a similar vein to what Iomega are selling with their PocketZip drive
for digital cameras and their Fotoshiw Image Viewer which copies digital
images from Compact Flash or SmartMedia cards to Zip disks.
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