Multimedia Workshop

Mar 6, 2000

Sony News: New VX2000 and InfoLithium problems

Sony finally announced the much anticipated DCR-VX2000 Mini DV camcorder. Anticipated? Well the VX1000 it replaces has been around for many years; it's perhaps one of the longest surviving camcorders of all time! And rumors of a VX2000 have been on the web for over a year.

The VX1000 was popular because it worked, and did enough of what most people wanted. Can the VX2000 improve upon that? Given the length of time we've been waiting, expectations were so high it seems unlikely any camera could live up to what everyone wanted. The VX2000 is not the perfect camera for everyone (no camera can be that) but it does build upon the VX1000. Still, it's not ground breaking.

Here's the highlights: a new, three-chip CCD imaging system using 380,000 resolution CCDs that records up to 530 lines of horizontal resolution; a 2 1/2-inch, 200,000-pixel plasma LCD monitor; digital still photography capability with Memory Stick; audio recording with PCM Digital Stereo Audio in 12 and 16-bit audio modes; built-in color bar generator; 16:9 wide screen recording; an intelligent accessory shoe; a 58-millimeter aspherical lens with 12x optical and 48x digital zoom; and a two-position neutral density filter. The signal-to-noise ratio is double that of the DCR-VX1000.

Still images are saved in 640 x 480 (VGA) image size. The included 4MB Memory Stick can capture up to 60 JPEG compressed images. A Memory Stick USB adapter is included, which we hope will work for Macs as well as PCs. It doesn't have interchangeable lenses, but then neither does the VX1000.

The VX2000 will be available in May and is expected (according to the press release) to sell for about $3,000 (i.e. $2,999.)

InfoLithium Recall

Sony has instituted a replacement program and product recall for a number of Sony InfoLithium battery packs with model numbers NP-F750 and NP-F550 which may be affected by a manufacturing defect. The potentially affected battery packs were manufactured between March and June 1999. Find out more at this web page:
Important Safety Message

And Finally;
A reader (you know who you are, Peter) complained that the title of lasts weeks rant about Resolution (Resolution: it's all that's important when buying digital cameras) could be read incorrectly, and was possibly grammatically incorrect. He seemed to think I was proposing some constitutional amendment or something. I guess it all depends upon what the definition of "it's" is. Resolve: makes my headlines more understandable.

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