Sony Mavica
Encyclopedia
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
camera
Camera
A camera is a device that records and stores images. These images may be still photographs or moving images such as videos or movies. The term camera comes from the camera obscura , an early mechanism for projecting images...
s which used removable disks as the main recording media. In August, 1981, Sony announced the Sony Mavica (Magnetic Video Camera) electronic still camera, the first commercial electronic still camera. It was not a digital camera, as its CCD sensor produced an analog video signal in the NTSC format at a resolution of pixels. Mavipak 2.0" diskettes (later adopted industry-wide as the Video Floppy
Video Floppy
A Video Floppy is a analog recording storage medium in the form of a 2" magnetic floppy disk used to store still frames of composite analog video. A video floppy, also known as a VF disk, could store up to 25 frames either in the NTSC or PAL video standards, with each frame containing 2 fields of...
and labelled "VF") were used to write 50 still frames. The pictures were viewed on a television screen. Otherwise, this camera is positioned as the "pioneer of the digital era".
The unreleased original MAVICA as well as the later ProMavica MVC-5000 and MVC-7000 were designed as single lens reflex systems with interchangeable lenses. At least the ProMavica MVC-7000 also featured lens mount adapters for Nikon and Canon lenses. The VF format soon evolved into the backward-compatible Hi-VF format, supported by the ProMavica MVC-7000 and the Hi-Band Mavica models.
The later Digital Mavicas recorded onto 3.5" 1.4 MiB 2HD floppy disks in computer-readable DOS FAT12 format, a feature that made them very popular in the North American market. With the evolution of consumer digital camera resolution (megapixels
Pixel
In digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
), the advent of the USB
Universal Serial Bus
USB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....
interface and the rise of high-capacity storage media, Mavicas started to offer other alternatives for recording images: the floppy-disk (FD) Mavicas began to be Memory Stick compatible (initially through a Memory Stick Floppy Disk adapter, but ultimately through a dedicated Memory Stick slot), and a new CD Mavica series — which used 8 cm CD-R
CD-R
A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
/CD-RW
CD-RW
A CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
media — was released in 2000.
The first CD-based Mavica (MVC-CD1000), notable also for its 10× optical zoom, could only write to CD-R
CD-R
A CD-R is a variation of the Compact Disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many optical medium, though the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session....
discs, but it was able to use its USB interface to read images from CDs not completely written (CDs with incomplete sessions). Subsequent models are more compact, with a reduced optical zoom, and are able to write to CD-RW
CD-RW
A CD-RW is a rewritable optical disc. It was introduced in 1997, and was known as "CD-Writable" during development. It was preceded by the CD-MO, which was never commercially released....
discs.
The Mavica line has been discontinued. Sony continues to produce digital cameras in the Cyber-shot
Cyber-shot
Cyber-shot is a line of digital cameras made by Sony. The first cyber-shot was made by Sony in 1996. The Cyber-shot range is well known for its proprietary InfoLithium battery pack, the trademark Carl Zeiss lenses, and overall design. Also, all Cyber-shot cameras accept Sony's proprietary Memory...
and Alpha series, which use Memory Stick
Memory Stick
Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998, and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks...
and other flash card technologies for storage.
Still video cameras with storage on 2.0" video floppy
- Sony MAVICA (1981) (Mavipak 2.0" VF, SLR design, 3 lenses, prototype)
- Sony Mavica MVC-A7AF (1986) (Mavipak 2.0" VF)
- Sony ProMavica MVC-2000 / MVC-2000 PF (prototype) (1986)
- Sony ProMavica MVC-5000 (1989) (Mavipak 2.0" VF, SLR design, various lenses)
- Sony ProMavica MVC-7000 (1992) (Mavipak 2.0" Hi-VF, SLR design, 5 lenses, 2 lens adapters)
- Sony Hi-Band Mavica MVC-C1 (1988) (Mavipak 2.0" Hi-VF)
- Sony Hi-Band Mavica MVC-A10 (1988) (Mavipak 2.0" Hi-VF)
Digital still cameras with storage on 3.5" floppy disk
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD5 (late 1997, early 1998, fixed focal length lens)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD7 (late 1997, early 1998, 10× optical zoom lens)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD51 (mid 1998, fixed focal length lens)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD71 (mid 1998, 10× optical zoom lens)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD73 / MVC-FD73CUSA / MVC-FD73K / MVC-FD73WR (1999, 640 x 480 pixels. fixed ISO 100. F/1.8 40-400 mm zoom. Shutter 1/4000 sec to 1/60 sec}
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD75 / MVC-FD75CUSA / MVC-FD75WAL (2001) (10× optical zoom lens)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD81 (1998)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD83 / MVC-FD83CUSA / MVC-FD83K (1999)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD85 / MVC-FD85WR
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD87 / MVC-FD87CUSA (2001)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD88 / MVC-FD88CUSA / MVC-FD88K (1999) (8x optical zoom)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD90
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD91 / MVC-FD91CUSA (1999) (14× optical zoom)
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD92 (2001)
- Sony Digital Mavica MVC-FD95 (2000)
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD97 (2001) (10× optical zoom, 4× speed diskette and Memory Stick slot, similar to MVC-CD1000)
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD100 (2002) (Floppy and Memory Stick)
- Sony FD Mavica MVC-FD200 (2002) (same as above but 2MP)
Digital still cameras with storage on 8 cm compact disc
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD200 / MVC-CD200CUSA (2001)
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD250 (2002)
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD300 / MVC-CD300CUSA (2001)
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD350 (2003)
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD400 (2002) (First camera to use laser-assisted low-light focus)
- Sony CD Mavica MVC-CD500 (2003)
- Sony Mavica MVC-CD1000 / MVC-CD1000CUS (2000) (same as MVC-FD97, except a CD-R drive instead of diskette and memory stick.)
MaviCap digital still image capture adaptors
- Sony MaviCap MVC-FDR1 / MVC-FDR1E (storage on 3.5" floppy)
- Sony MaviCap MVC-FDR3 / MVC-FDR3E (storage on 3.5" floppy)
Cameras of similar concept
There were other digital cameras that used disk storage as memory media.- Sony Hi-MD Photo MZ-DH10P, a digital camera/audio player that used Hi-MDHi-MDIn January 2004, Sony announced the Hi-MD media storage format as a further development of the MiniDisc format. With its release in later 2004 came the ability to use newly-developed, high-capacity 1 gigabyte Hi-MD discs, sporting the same dimensions as regular MiniDiscs.- Main features :* The...
MiniDisc-FormatMiniDiscThe disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record... - Panasonic PV-SD4090, a digital camera that used SuperDisk (LS120).
- Iomega Zipcam a prototype digital camera shown at ComdexCOMDEXCOMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
1999 that used 100 MB Zip disks - Agfa ePhoto CL30 Clik! Used IomegaIomegaIomega is an American producer of consumer external, portable and networking storage hardware. Established in the 1980s, Iomega has sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks. On April 8, 2008, EMC Corporation announced its plans to acquire Iomega for a consideration of US $213M...
's Clik! (later PocketZip) disk technology