Flash-only video cameras available? (edited title)

[dqa]

I am in the market for a video camera.

[dqa]

Crap. Hit the wrong button. Let’s try this again.

I am in the market for a video camera. There are some that use mini
DVDs as the recording medium. Since the future is digital and all that, it makes sense to me to go with the more versatile digital rather than a tape format that must be played in the camera to be watched, and which must be converted to digital for other purposes.

When I checked the capacity of these DVDs however, they are about 1.5 GB. Most flash cards are now available in 1 GB formats, with 2,4, and 8 GB on the way. It seems to me a camera using only flash media rather than the clunkier mini-DVDs would be a superior product in at least the category of compactness, and probably battery drain as well.

But a trip to Best Buy and similar stores suggests there are no such cameras on the market presently.

Does anyone know if there are flash-only video cameras in the pipeline, and are there any technological problems that I’ve overlooked here?

[DougC]

• • • Flash cards are already a technological “dead end”, as we now have mini-MP3 players that use tiny hard (about 1.25 inches square and .25 thick) Microdrives that (currently) hold 5 gigabytes. Microdrives have already swept the MP3-player market and have all but killed off large-capacity solid-state memories. As you can see in this link (off Slashdot) there are apparently already some devices (a camera?) that use these mini-hard-drives like “cartridges” already:
      http://www.greghughes.net/rant/PermaLink,guid,e9bdfa3f-da94-4c6e-a2f9-5ff3260040f1.aspx
      …
      There are also videocameras that use tiny digital tapes that give DVD quality, available right now.
      ~

[Q.E.D]

@DougC

• • • Flash cards are already a technological “dead end”, as we now have mini-MP3 players that use tiny hard (about 1.25 inches square and .25 thick) Microdrives…

I don’t think so. IMO, they’re the technological equivalent of a passing fad. CF capacities are fast catching up, and they’re generally faster and more robust than microdrives, as a quote from this article states:

Microdrives are literally small spinning hard drives the size of a dime inside a case the size of a CF card. As such, they are more susceptible to damage if dropped or otherwise roughly treated. Originally developed by IBM, they are now marketed by several other companies as well. Capacities for microdrives have tended to be greater than for CF cards, although Lexar has recently announced CF capacities up to 4 GB making this difference less clear. Speed for microdrives is often not as fast as for CF cards either, since the process involves mechanical parts and the inherent seek time of a hard disk.

[John_Kentzel-Griffin]

General Questions is for questions with factual answers. IMHO is for opinions and polls. I’ll move this to IMHO for you.

Also I’ve fixed the title for you.

DrMatrix - GQ Moderator

[DougC]

I don’t think so. IMO, they’re the technological equivalent of a passing fad. CF capacities are fast catching up, and they’re generally faster and more robust than microdrives, as a quote from this article states…

• • • You mean a “passing fad” like the desktop computer hard drive? How much RAM does your computer have, and how much disk storage space does it have?..
      ~

[Q.E.D]

@DougC

• • • You mean a “passing fad” like the desktop computer hard drive? How much RAM does your computer have, and how much disk storage space does it have?..
      ~

You’re missing the point. I don’t take my desktop computer out hiking, or sightseeing, or whitewater rafting, or skydiving, or any of the other dozens of activities that people take DV cams where they are subject to (often severe) shock and vibration. Hard drives are great at storing a lot of data in a small space, but they’re not very robust, mechanically. And with CF cards rapidly closing the storage capacity gap, it won’t be very long before all the advantages belong to CF or a similar solid-state technology.

[astro]

The latest CF’s are pushing 12 gig capacities and up, but these are currenlty bleeding edge expensive. Unless the physically more fragile microdrives can offer a substantially lower price per gig and/or more storage, the future for portable device digital storage belongs to solid state devices.

[dqa]

While I appreciate the insight on micro hard drives, I’m still curious about my original question.

Are there any flash-only video cameras in the pipeline? If so, how soon?

[Finagle]

A lot of the newly announced digital cameras have pretty impressive video modes. You might look at the Sony M3 or the Pentax Optio Mx4 (http://www.dpreview.com/news/0409/04091303pentax_optiomx4.asp).

I think the quality of the video is still going to be less than you’ll get from a dedicated digital camcorder. And the cost of spare tape is still going to be magnitudes less than the cost of a spare memory card.

[Telemark]

Here’s the Sony DSC-M1
The problem is that even with multi-gig memory cards or microdrives, tape is still loads cheaper and not much of a size issue. I suspect over time the memory cards will bridge the gap, but today it’s still not practical for any serious amount of high-quality video.

[Timchik]

This page has a list of flash camcorders. Of the big names only Panasonic and JVC are listed here; there may be others.

@dqa

Since the future is digital and all that, it makes sense to me to go with the more versatile digital rather than a tape format that must be played in the camera to be watched, and which must be converted to digital for other purposes.

I think you’re a bit confused here - miniDV tape camcorders do record in digital format from the get-go, and are much more versatile than the mini-DVD ones (they can be transferred to the computer for editing with no loss of quality (being digital copies do not degrade from generation to generation).
Flash-based camcorders seem to record to MPEG-4 format, which is pretty highly compressed. MiniDV camcorders record to DV format, which is much less compressed (and thus higher quality, all other things being equal).

on preview: as Telemark says, tapes are much much cheaper than flash cards.