A STILL camera from Sony that saves images to ordinary floppy discs is aiming
to bring electronic photography within reach of ordinary photographers. The
design resurrects ideas used in a product that failed ten years ago, but updates
them for the digital age. Sony has even kept the old name.
The original Mavica camera recorded analogue still pictures onto a
5-centimetre floppy disc. Each disc could hold 25 still TV images as an analogue
FM signal that could be shown on a domestic TV set. Picture quality was poor and
the product flopped.
The 1997 version records its snapshots in digital form on a standard computer
floppy disc. Most digital cameras use solid-state memory chips for this, but
discs are much cheaper and make transferring pictures to a PC much simpler. The
only disadvantage is that the disc camera takes a few seconds to display each
picture, while those displayed on a chip camera screen will appear
instantaneously.
Current digital cameras store images as binary code in the VGA (Video
Graphics Array) standard used by PCs. This has a resolution of 640 by 480
pixels. Even when data is compressed, each image requires around 70 kilobytes of
storage space. Transferring pictures from a chip camera to a computer requires
additional cables and special software.
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The reissued Mavica camera costs around £450. It compresses pictures
and can store 20 of them on a standard 9-centimetre (3.5-inch) floppy disc.
Alternatively, 40 more tightly compressed images of slightly poorer quality can
be put on the disc.
