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Good old Sony – never shy of claiming world firsts in the technology arena, the latest of which is the planet’s smallest and lightest high-definition video camera; the HDR-CX7, which was announced for the Japanese market in Tokyo this morning.
Previously revealed in the US and using the AVCHD compression technique we’ve already seen in several Sony and Panasonic camcorders, the ¥130,000 CX7 snares those world-beating crowns by sticking to solid-state storage instead of tape or a hard drive. Being Sony, the 450g, 69 x 67 x 131mm camera uses Memory Stick PRO Duo cards, with the HG variety favored for its higher transfer rates.
On the stats front, we’re looking at a 1080i image, with a measly 1 hour of top-quality footage squeezing onto an 8GB card at the top rate of 15Mbps. Drop down to the LP mode of 5Mbps and the same 8GB will hold just shy of three hours of HD TV, which is more like it.
Otherwise, the CX7 has a 6.1-megapixel resolution, a 10x optical zoom, HDMI output and a shooting time of just 45 mins with the included standard battery. Thankfully, standby time is a little longer at 95 minutes and an extended battery that runs to 2 hours 55 minutes is available.
This morning’s launch also saw a couple of less novel camcorders join the CX7 – the hard-drive-sporting HDR-SR7 (60GB, available next month in the US and Japan) and SR8 (100GB, Japan only). The smaller camera should sell for around ¥150,000, while the larger will be ¥170,000.
Both AVCHD models, the larger SR8 can record over 38 hours of 1080i HD TV before filling up.
(Crossposted to Tech.co.uk)
12:56 AM 
Mark Hiratsuka •
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