Sony Electronics

The DSR-390 is a DVCAM camcorder designed specifically for 4:3 aspect ratio acquisition. It has three high-performance 1/2-inch type Power HAD CCDs.

Sony’s press conference featured the industry debut of the highly anticipated Blue Laser (Blu-Ray) optical media product family, which currently includes a camcorder and optical disc player. The new recording system leverages such important IT-based features as the Material eXchange Format (MXF) and metadata to allow in-camera editing and management of digital files captured with the camera. CNN, several local stations in the U.S., and rental house Limon Video have adopted the format, and NBC will use optical media cameras for athlete background stories at the Summer Olympic Games in Athens Greece.

Sony said that five minutes worth of images captured on optical media could be downloaded into a nonlinear edit system in five seconds. Capacity on the disc is about 90 minutes of DV 25 quality.

Also unveiled at the press conference was a new HDCAM SR camera that captures high-resolution, 4:4:4 images (or about three times the resolution of conventional HDCAM) with ease and a new 4:4:4 HDCAM SR VTR. Both will be available later this year. Also new is the LUMA series of professional LCD monitors that display both SD and HD resolutions. These widescreen monitors can also be installed in a multi-screen configuration, which Sony is making available for trucks and studio installations.

Other new products from Sony include a DVCAM camera (DSR-390), a new S-AIT PetaSite library that features terabytes of storage, and a low-cost DVLince product family of VTRs for the corporate and small studio market.