Sony's DSC-M1 digital camera

We think the design is sorta fresh just on its own, but what Sony really hopes will impress us about the Cyber-shot DSC-M1, their new 5.1 megapixel digital camera, is that it can also pull double duty as a mini-camcorder. We'd be all dismissive and everything, since tons of digital cameras can record video clips, but it's not exactly just a marketing gimmick. Yeah, its 2.5-inch LCD can swivel around and rotate 270 degrees, but the DSC-M1 also has this unusual hybrid recording mode where it can automatically record five seconds of video before and three seconds after every time you take a pic, the idea being that this way you won't accidentally miss any of those future precious memories. They use an MPEG-4 video codec to keep the file size down, but either way you're still going to need a mighty Memory Stick to store all those extra clips you'll be recording. Anyway, the DSC-M1 should be out in December with a retail price of $600. (Click to see some more pics.)

[Thanks, Naresh]

[Mark @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

How can it record five seconds of stuff before you take the picture? Does it have some kind of pre-cognitive abilities built in to detect when you're about to take a photo?

[TheZodiac @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

are sony cybershot designers take ques from SE?

I thought so!

http://killerconcepts.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=8167#8167

[Craig @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

Anybody who wants a good camera that can take decent video too should look no further than the Canon S1 IS. It has a 10X optical *stabilized* zoom lens and can capture video at 640x480, 30fps (yes, that's DVD quality) in two different compression levels (as well as some lower resolution and framerate quality levels as well). Showing video I shot on it from a recent tennis tournament to a friend prompted him to ask me if the Canon was a DV camcorder. Oh, and it saves directly to AVI files, so no mucking around with DV tape, *and* it uses really cheap CompactFlash cards, so you don't have to spend a fortune on Sony's proprietary Memory Schtick media.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

Does it weigh 7 ounces too?

[Chris Gunton @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

...that you put it in a mode where your going to want to record the video before and after the shutter release. while in this mode it continually records 5 seconds worth of video. when you press the shutter button it saves the previous 5 seconds, the photo, and a further 5 seconds.

all sounds pretty sweet to me. now if only the video was good enough to take photo-quality stills with...

[PixelBrat @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

I'm usually a sucker for this type of thing... small and light-weight video cameras that take flash memory rather than tapes, but as usual Sony has screwed it up by using their proprietary memory stick format that is considerably more expensive than compact flash cards. I'll wait for the copy-cats to come out with one that uses a cheaper memory format.

[Paul @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

If it was a non-sony camera, you would most likely see it utilize either mini-SD or xD.

[Art @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

I can't see any difference between memory format.
Why is CompactFlash any better than others? For those who like it very much, please realize that all manufacturers will move to smaller formats anyway. Price is not that much different these days whether it's Memory stick, duo, pro. SD, MMC, RC-MMC, miniSD, xD, etc.

[inziga @ Dec 19th 2005 12:04AM]

What is with the brushed metal?