Sony Promotes Memory Stick for Video

Sony has set a new course for its Memory Stick memory card with the recent announcement of several products that target mobile video applications.

The new devices make it possible to record hours of television or other video onto a Memory Stick and then watch it on the move. In Japan, where they will first appear, Sony is targeting commuters who commonly make railway or subway treks of an hour, says Shoko Yanagisawa, a company spokesperson.

/The PEGA-VR100K video recorder is part of Sony's Clie Gear range of accessories for its Clie personal digital assistants (PDAs). Like a conventional video recorder, the device contains a tuner for analog terrestrial television and input connectors on the rear to hook it up to other video devices, such as a satellite tuner or videocassette recorder, as well as connectors to link it to a television.

In place of the cassette or DVD slot, it has a slot that accepts all flavors of Memory Stick card. The smaller Memory Stick Duo cards can also be used with an adapter. Recording is in MPEG-4 at 15 frames per second and can be set at one of four quality levels. "High quality" records 384 kilobits per second at 320-by-240-pixel resolution, and "long play 2" records at a 64-kbps data rate at 176-by-144-pixel resolution.

This means a 1GB Memory Stick can store between 250 and 1000 minutes of video depending on the resolution selected, while a 128MB Memory Stick will hold between 30 and 130 minutes of video, Sony says.

The company's newest Clie, the PEG-UX50, is already set up to play such video. Movie player software can be downloaded to enable playback on a number of other recent models.

Recording is started by pressing a button on the device or, if you have a Clie, through a timer function. Sony's Video Utility software can set the timer or connect to an online electronic program guide. The timer data is written to the Memory Stick while it is still in the Clie and then read by the recorder when the Memory Stick is transferred, Yanagisawa says.

The recorder measures about 6.4 inches square by 1.2 inches thick and weighs 16.5 ounces. It will be available in Japan in November, priced around $256. Sales outside of Japan are a possibility, although Sony has not set plans yet, she says.

Other Handheld Options

If you lack a Clie or want an alternative, Sony also offers a couple of other ways to record video on memory cards.

The first is a handheld video unit, the MSV-A1. The clamshell form factor device, which is 3.8 inches long by 2.4 inches wide by 1 inch thick when closed, has a 2.5-inch display and accepts the smaller Memory Stick Duo memory cards.

It includes a TV tuner, so it can be used as a portable television or video player, and it can also record video onto the memory card, says Mina Naito, a company spokesperson.

Battery life is around one hour, and you need 64MB of capacity to record an hour of video. The 4.7-ounce device will cost around $385 when it hits the Japanese market in November. Sony currently has no plans to sell it outside Japan, Naito says.

A recently announced range of 15 television sets, ranging from a 61-inch Plasma Display Panel set to a 28-inch CRT model, can also record television programs on memory cards, according to Sony. They will hit the market between October and November and join existing models of the Handycam digital video camcorder and Cybershot digital still camera, which also offer some memory card video-recording capability.

Both the Clie PDAs and the MSV-A1 can be used to view video on the move. A notebook computer can also be used and offers a longer battery life, although it requires more space, according to Sony.

Memory Stick Persists

Sony's Memory Stick Pro cards have helped make the mobile video push possible. Until Sony launched the cards this year, Memory Stick capacity was stuck for some time at a 128MB maximum. The new cards are available in capacities up to 1GB, offering much more space for high-quality video.

While these cards have helped solve the storage crunch, one other remaining factor could hinder the popularity of portable digital video: price. A 1GB Memory Stick Pro card costs around $430, according to PCWorld.com's Product Finder. That's a considerable investment and, in some cases, more than the price of the PDA that might be used to view the video.

Users don't necessarily need a large capacity card, according to Sony: a smaller capacity model will work well, albeit with a shorter recording time and lower quality.

"If you have a 128MB card, then you can record an hour of television and watch this on your commute," says Yoshikazu Ochiai, a Sony spokesperson in Tokyo. "If you record over this each evening, you don't need a big card."

Sony is not the first to push digital video on PDAs. Almost three years ago, Sharp installed an MPEG-4 video player in its Zaurus PDA and sold a companion video recorder that used memory cards. Sharp's unit had a lower resolution and could record two hours of video onto a 64MB card.

Sony's announcement comes on the heels of the debut of a portable digital video camera from Matsushita Electric, which uses Secure Digital cards to record video. The company, better known as Panasonic, will launch the camcorder in Europe in October.