DIGITAL STILLS THE VIDEO WAY
by John Henshall
Digital camcorders from JVC, Panasonic, Sharp and Sony already produce still images at least as good as some of the digital still cameras on offer.
LEFT: JVC's digital camcorder is not much bigger than a small audio cassette recorder but records one hour of near-broadcast quality moving images and 16 bit stereo sound on a Mini DV Cassette. Note the 'Snap Shot' button on the front of the camera. This captures a still image with about seven seconds of sound - though any one of the 90,000 individual frames on the videotape can produce a good still frame.
CENTRE: Sharp's Digital Viewcam has an enormous 10.2cm (4 inch) diagonal colour LCD viewfinder and uses Mini DV Cassettes. Despite the size, it weighs only 690gm.
RIGHT: Play Incorporated's low-price 'Snappy' video grabber and digitiser will soon be available in European PAL format. It turns any camcorder into a digital still camera. $199 in the USA.
The previous generations of analog camcorder, which most households already own, can now be used as a digital still camera. In the USA, Play Incorporated's $199 'Snappy' video grabber and digitiser has been available for some time. A European PAL tv format version was launched at Photokina, bringing the economical facility to turn any camcorder into a digital still camera.
