Sanyo announce IDC-1000Z

Oct 3, 2000 at 04:00:00 GMT

We saw some sneak images of this camera at Photokina, today, Sanyo make it official. The IDC-1000Z uses 730MB iD discs (Magneto Optical), much along the same lines as Sony's CD1000 but with nearly 5 times the storage on each disc. The IDC-1000Z is a 1.5 megapixel digicam with a 3 times optical zoom lens and USB/IEEE1394 connectivity.

Phil says: Interesting, it's certainly an unconventional camera, Sanyo chose to put the disc tray on the side of the camera instead of the back. 730MB is certainly plenty of storage and it'll probably work out with a pretty cheap $/MB, unfortunately with only 1.5 Megapixels and 3 x zoom (surely they could have got a 6x or 10x zoom in that barrel) it's a little wasted. Now, 730MB with 3/4 megapixels and a 10x zoom.. That would sell.

Sanyo IDC-1000Z specifications

Imager	1/2" 1.5 megapixel (1.39 megapixels effective)
Image sizes	1360 x 1024, 1024 x 768, 640 x 480
Image modes	TIFF (YCbCr), JPEG Fine, JPEG Normal
Sensitivity	Auto, ISO 100, 200, 400
Lens	38 - 114 mm (35 mm equiv.) F2.4 Built in ND filter (?)
Focus modes	Auto, Manual
AF Focus distance	Normal: 60cm - Infinity Macro: W: 3cm - 60cm, T: 20cm - 60cm
Shutter speed	Normal: 16 - 1/500 sec (1 - 16 sec "slow shutter") High Burst rate: 1/15 sec - 1/2000 sec Animation: 1/30 sec - 1/2000 sec
Metering	Center Weighted Average, Spot
Manual Exposure	Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority
Bracketing	3 images, +/-2 EV in 0.5 EV steps
White Balance	Auto, Fine, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Manual preset
Flash	Pop-up, Guide No. 6.8
Flash modes	Auto, On, Off, Anti Red-eye
Burst rates	1360 x 1024 - 7.5fps 1024 x 768 - 7.5fps 640 x 480 - 30fps
Audio	Audio recorded with video clips, Audio annotations can be added to images, "Voice recorder" allows for longer audio clips to be recorded (camera features a Mic input socket).
Storage	730MB iD PHOTO disc (MO)
Storage capacity (still images)	1360 x 1024 TIFF ~ 260 images 1360 x 1024 JPEG Fine/Normal ~ 1000/2000 images 1024 x 768 TIFF ~ 450 images 1024 x 768 JPEG Fine/Normal ~ 2000/4000 images 640 x 480 TIFF ~ 1200 images 640 x 480 JPEG Fine/Normal ~ 6,000/1,1000 images
Storage capacity (movies)	640 x 480 30fps Video ~ 8 minutes 640 x 480 15fps Video ~ 16 minutes 320 x 240 30fps Video ~ 20 minutes 320 x 240 15fps Video ~ 40 minutes 160 x 120 30fps Video ~ 60 minutes 160 x 120 15fps Video ~ 120 minutes
Connectivity	USB & IEEE1394 (FireWire)
Power	Included Lithium-Ion battery (1600mAh)
Size	93 x 88 x 140 mm (3.7 x 3.5 x 5.5 ")
Weight	525 g (18.5 oz)
Available	8 December 2000 (Japan)
Price	160,000 YEN (~US$1,500)