Did anyone catch the segment on Good Morning America this morning (30 Jun 99) when Diane and Charlie tried out the new digital cameras from Sony and Sharp. The Sharp was esp. interesting in that it would also record 30 sec. of MPEG w/ audio. It looked about the size of the Fuji MX-2700. It is supposed to be available July 99. Unfortunately they didn't give the model numbers, and when I went to GMA's website but they hadn't updated it with today's synopsis yet.

-- Debra Scarborough (dscarbor@erols.com), June 30, 1999

Answers

Sony Mavica product line does record in MPEG with Audio format too. The FD-91 and my older FD-81 both do that. Based on the resoultion settings, the recording time varies. You can record 30 seconds of AVI file (MPEG W/Audio) with Sony. Specially outdoor Sony does a good job. I have used the FD-91 with 14X zoom and SteadyShot for that purpose, and I am very pleased with the results. My new Sony DSC-D700 (PCMCIA based unit), I have used it for snapshot only "so far", the selector switch does not have a "Movie" choice (FD-91 & FD-81 have the choice on the function selector switch), I assume the D700 does not support the MPEG with Audio recording function (I might be wrong, I am still getting familiar with functions of the D700 camera). There are many cameras on the market that support this function, not just Sony & Sharp. And it is not a new function.

-- Fred (tabarrok@frontiernet.net), June 30, 1999.