NEC Corp has the world’s first digital motion camera that can record at broadcast quality – but it isn’t compatible with Digital Video Disk technology. Deciding to go it alone on the standards, NEC will be offering a 4.7 disk and camera to Japanese broadcasters next autumn at a cost expected to be similar to professional VTR systems. The company ignored the universally accepted DVD standard because NEC needed 4.1Gb per side to store the video data. While DVD-ROM can hold up to 4.7Gb, DVD-RAM – the standard used for re-writeable disks – is capable of unlimited rewrites only up to 2.6Gb. Furthermore, according to Masahiko Miyatake, NEC’s senior video development manager, DVD is difficult to use for editing broadcast data, having been designed as a peripheral storage device rather than as a method of continuously storing data. NEC would not be quoted on the cost of the disks, which are still at the research stage. Nor is it known whether NEC plans to license the standard externally.
