Technology and Innovation

The VW Camper Van, vehicle of choice for surfers, and hemp shirt-wearing travellers the world over, has been given a makeover and a change of name. Enthusiasts can pay their respects to the all-new VW Microbus at Volkswagen’s impressively swish site. A movie shows off the Microbus’s new curves and illustrates the additional gizmos; such as a rear-view video camera, mounted above the license plate, that relays pictures back to a screen in the central roof console. And they’ve upgraded the original’s wheezy engine to a 230-horsepower V6 beast. Is nothing sacred? • For more concept cars turn to page 68.

Shutterbugs will be thrilled by Canon’s new six-megapixel digital camera. The D60 is based around the same design principles as its predecessor, the D30, but includes a raft of improvements. Its resolution has been increased by 100 per cent, and it has an upgraded 1.8-inch LCD monitor on the back. It can shoot three frames a second for a burst of eight frames, and has features to give better image quality in difficult shooting conditions. You store images on the 128MB CompactFlash card that’s supplied. All this in a lightweight yet strong cover and stainless steel chassis. You get the picture. Well, you will.

Both cameras have LCD screens and are available now.
The company has been busy and also rolled out a range of eight new MiniDV camcorders to accompany its still camera offerings. Pick of the pile is the NV-MX350 which comes with 3 x 570k CCDs for superior imaging, and a 10x optical Leica Dicomar Zoom lens. Prices will be announced imminently.
Other Panasonic goodies include an SD memory card slot, USB and DV-in/out sockets so you can copy your still pics and movies to your PC for editing. Bluetooth adaptability and the ability to send MPEG4 Video Mail movies complete the picture.

However, we are very satisfied with the speed of the product as configured out of the box – remember. 3.5MB/sec is all the sustained throughput you need to handle DV and HDV playback. Of course, if you intend to juggle large video files with the drive, we’d certainly recommend reformatting it before you start moving everything into it.
We’re happy to see a drive this powerful, yet so accessible and widely available. The problem at the moment is that the MSRP of the drive is on the high side (although we’re used to seeing prices of products like this fall quickly after they’ve been in the channel a while).

Multi Camera HD Production Studio
Perform live production with 2 Intensity cards and cameras plugged into your system using the included On-Air software! On-Air sync’s HDMI cameras, handles monitoring and recording, plus is so easy to use, it’s ideal for education, theater, corporate training and more.