Ask corporation CitiDisk DV - The pulse 2: the best of J@pan Inc's newsletters - Brief Article

Japan, Inc., July, 2003

The CitiDisk is a portable storage widget that will take a DV stream directly from a digital camcorder and lay it down on the hard disk using an IEEE 1394 (firewire) connection. A clever idea when you consider how fiddly the process is now. Basically, the idea is that you get it straight to your hard disk rather than recording it onto miniDV tape first, buying a video capture card and transferring it over to the HD on your computer. Makes sense, I suppose. Or does it? Doesn't it just mean that you're buying this instead of a capture card? And wouldn't a capture card be cheaper? A little bit of shopping around will probably yield good results on that score, if you're prepared to invest the time.

Anyhow, the CitiDisk comes in 20, 40 or 60-gig hard-disk configurations and owners can store recordings for up to 80 minutes with the 20GB model and four hours with the 60GB version. It has a rechargeable lithium ion battery, dimensions of 77 x 136 x 24 mm and weighs 250g. Released in Japan in the middle of May, the CitiDisk starts from approximately [yen] 60,000, with a wide open range after that. Quite a bargain for all that power.

More info: www.askcorp.co.jp/shining/products /cdv.htm