SONY
Slightly larger than bite-size, the Cyber-shot DSC U10 has several special effects modes.
Integrated technology Not long ago, technology in the home had well-defined domains. The PC clan was ruled by Microsoft, Intel and Dell presiding over the home office. The television and stereo were king and queen of the living room, courtesy of consumer electronics giants Sony and Philips.
plays a vital role
in Sony’s new
product lineup
By Tim Ryan
tryan@starbulletin.comThe advent of MP3 music files, personal video recorders, game machines, digital cameras and other media and services sparked a digital revolution. It's no longer clear who controls which bit of home turf, leading to a battle for dominance in home entertainment.
Compaq Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. now sell MP3 music players that plug into home-stereo systems. Apple Computer Inc. is pitching its new iMac as a digital-entertainment device. Sony Corp. keeps rolling out Vaio computers that focus on "integrating" multimedia applications.
Consumers have gotten the message. Sales of these devices took off this year. U.S. shipments of MP3 digital music players for listening to songs downloaded from the 'Net jumped by more than 50 percent this year, to 7 million units, according to researcher International Data Corp.
Even high-definition television -- the perennial next big thing -- seems to be taking off. As programming choices grow and the price of an HDTV setup dips below $1,000, sales are picking up. By the end of next year, nearly 6 million U.S. homes should have HDTV sets, according to the Yankee Group Research Inc. Some 7.7 million American homes are expected to have networks to tie their digital gear together, with growth spurred by a new standard for wireless links: WiFi.
"The single most compelling driver in the industry today is wireless networking," said Karl Okemura, vice president of Sony Hawaii Co.
Sony has always had a knack for cranking out gee-whiz products. The company has been in a rush for the last few years to have its products "talk" to one another, through its trademarked Memory Sticks or wireless Bluetooth technology. At the recent Sony Expo in Honolulu, consumers could see the company's product-to-product communication in action.
It was amazing to remove a Memory Stick from a Sony digital camera and pop it into a puka on a 50-inch television set to see the photos in nearly IMAX proportions and clarity.
Sony has also improved the clarity and quality of its plasma televisions, miniaturized its digital cameras, added features to its PDAs and improved pixel quality and night-vision capabilities of its Handycams.
It may be neighborhood, neighborhood, neighborhood in real estate, but at Sony visual quality, communication and size matter.
Here's a look at some of the newest Sony products shown during the expo:
SONY
The Clié PEG-NX70V has MP3, camera and wireless Internet capabilities.
>> Cyber-shot camera -- The DSC U10 is the sushi-size camera getting a lot of media attention. It measures a tiny 3 3/8 inches by 1 3/16 inches by 1 5/8 inches, with a 1.3 MegaPixel effective Progressive Scan Super HAD CCD image sensor. It includes features such as an auto focus, four-step manual focus, MPEG movie mode (without audio) and special-effects capabilities such as sepia, solarization, black-and-white and negative art picture modes. It connects by USB port and is Windows and Macintosh compatible. Cost: $200.
>> Personal Digital Assistants -- The entry-level Clié PEG-SL10 is now priced at $150, accessible to students with features like a high-resolution, monochrome screen.
The PEG-NX70V ($600) and PEG-NX60 ($500) are enhanced by Palm's new OS 5 operating system. This allows users to move beyond simply using their PDAs as a note and address book, enabling them to take photos and record video clips, voice memos and wirelessly browse the Internet on a Wi-Fi network with an optional Sony wireless LAN card ($150), in addition to playing MP3 audio files and video games.
The new handhelds have a high-resolution color LCD screen (320 x 480 pixels), a flip-and-twist LCD screen design, integrated MP3 player, built-in AV remote controller application, jog dial navigator and a Memory Stick removable media slot.
The Clié PEG-NX70V has a digital camera that can capture still images and video clips. The camera features 2X digital zoom and can take VGA-size images (640 x 480 pixels) and record MPEG4 compression video clips. With a 128MB Memory Stick media card, users can store up to an hour of continuous video.
>> Flat Panel Plasma WEGA TVs -- The 42-inch KE-42XBR900 (1,024 x 768 pixels) and 50-inch KE-50XBR900 (1,365 x 768 pixels), $12,000 and $15,000 respectively from Sony's new XBR series, feature two-piece plasma panel/media receiver units and the new WEGA engine system which displays brilliant images on the new high-definition panels. The proprietary WEGA Engine delivers superb picture quality from any video source by minimizing the number of digital-to-analog conversion processes.
The Digital Component Processor fine-tunes the signal and makes adjustments to improve overall contrast and sharpness before the image is displayed on the plasma panel.
An ultraslim, floating glass panel display is connected via proprietary cable to the supplied Media Receiver Unit, a convenient set-top box component for connection to any video and audio source. The MRU houses the WEGA engine system and all necessary inputs, as well as a Memory Stick media slot for viewing JPEG images converted to high-definition quality.
Other features include a "Favorite Channel" function for previewing and selecting from eight channels, built-in speakers totaling 40 watts audio power, with TruSurround sound processing for a cinematic experience.
>> Digital Network Recorder -- The SVR-3000 ($500) allows up to 80 hours of recording time with an 80-gigabyte hard drive that features the subscription-based TiVo service. This next-generation recorder can connect to any TV set and work with digital satellite and cable systems. It also enables consumers to record favorite programming, as well as play, pause, fast-forward or rewind "live" television broadcasts as they're being watched.
Viewers can replay live TV for up to 30 minutes, fast-forward or rewind a program's original speed, create their own instant replays and use the slow-motion feature for complete viewing control. The new recorder, based on the TiVo service platform, is equipped with two USB expansion ports for future connectivity to peripheral devices such as digital cameras and CD players.
>> Digital Photo Printers -- The DPP-EX5 and DPP-EX7 models use dye sublimation technology, a process that creates durable lab-quality prints in vivid color, monochrome, sepia or paint tones. The compact design of the DPP-EX5 ($200), at 3 1/4 inches tall and no bigger than the dimensions of a sheet of paper, allows users to have a photo lab next to their computer or television.
The DPP-EX7 ($450) has a large 3.8-inch color touch-screen liquid crystal display for viewing, editing and customizing pictures prior to printing, bypassing the need for a computer. Simply put your flash memory card into the printer, press one button and wait 90 seconds for a 4-by-6-inch print. The printers include built-in editing tools to adjust image sharpness, contrast, brightness and size, select and merge images and incorporate messages into any print.
The printers are PC and Mac compatible via a USB connection and Sony-supplied software drivers. The DPP-EX5 can also connect to a television for larger viewing and photo editing. Each printer has one dedicated slot for Memory Stick media; the DPP-EX7 has an additional slot for Type II PC cards for other types of flash media used with a PC card adapter, including SmartMedia and CompactFlash, among others.
Each print is laminated with Super Coat 2 laminate to seal and protect photos.
>> Handycam -- The DCR-IP220 ($2,000) packs a 2.1-megapixel imager for higher quality video and still images (1,600 x 1,200) in a compact, barrel-shape design that offers 530 lines of horizontal video resolution to produce stunning video clarity and definition of even the subtlest colors.
The DCR-IP55 ($1,500) features a fold-down hand grip, and its 1.0-megapixel CCD offers 520 lines of horizontal video resolution and still image resolution of 1,152 x 864, with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics.
Both models feature 10X optical/120X precision digital zoom, SteadyShot picture stabilization and, new to MICROMV Handycam camcorders, a NightShot infrared system for recording in total darkness, pop-up flash and Hologram AF -- an auto-focus feature designed to achieve accurate subject focus with minimal contrast in dark conditions.
The MICROMV tape is 70 percent smaller than a MiniDV tape and provides up to 60 minutes of high-quality digital video footage. It also has a 64K memory chip that allows for a multisearch function to access different recorded sections of the tape as one would a DVD, creating a thumbnail image of each recorded scene on the tape.
Thumbnail images are created from the start of every recorded scene, and by engaging the multisearch function, users can instantly access the scene of their choice. In addition, an index titling function helps identify each thumbnail image with either a preset caption or a customized scene title.
Like all Network Handycam camcorders, these new models can connect to the Internet without a PC when used in conjunction with an optional Bluetooth adapter or a compatible Bluetooth cell phone.
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