Sony Likely to Announce DCR-TRV950(E) at NAB or by No Later Than April 7th

by Robin Liss

Published on Mar 26, 2002 12:00 AM
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Following up the story which Camcorderinfo.com broke on March 4th about the much anticipated replacement for the Sony DCR-TRV900, the DCR-TRV950 we have new information on a possible release date. A source with close information regarding the DCR-TRV950E has indicated to Camcorderinfo.com that the DCR-TRV950E will be released in the first week of April, specifically before April 7th.

This update changes earlier information which Camcorderinfo.com received that told us the DCR-TRV950E, the replacement for the very popular DCR-TRV900 would be released in June. However, questions still remain about the release date of the camcorder.

April 7th is when the National Association of Broadcasters Annual Conference starts. In the past, Sony typically has announced new camcorders at conferences. That the two dates coincide seems like no coincidence. However, it many would question why Sony would release a consumer camcorder at a professional conference.

Another question is if Sony is going to release the camcorder at NAB, will it be a US version? It seems unlikely that Sony would release the DCR-TRV950E, the European version of the camcorder at NAB, a US conference. However all the information that Camcorderinfo.com has received regarding the camcorder has been about the European version. At this point, it seems very likely that the DCR-TRV950 will be released at NAB, however questions still remain. Below are the details that we know about the DCR-TRV950 (taken from our March 21st Article):

The DCR-TRV950E is the European version of this new camcorder, which will almost certainly be released in the U.S. with similar specs a few months after it is released in Europe. The camcorder has three, Mega Pixel (1,070,000) CCDs. No other three CCD camcorder on the market today has CCDs at such high of a resolution. This is really a revolutionary, ground breaking step in camcorder development. The camcorder includes a 12x optical zoom.

For digital stills the camcorder includes a Memory Stick slot and can save stills at a maximum resolution of 1152 x 864 pixels. The camcorder has a USB slot for transferring stills from the camcorder to the PC. The camcorder also has a built in flash and an intelligent accessory shoe.

The camcorder includes the new MPEG-X feature. Previously, there were recording limits on the number of seconds of video that could be recorded in MPEG format to the Memory Stick, however the MPEG-X feature allows for unlimited (up to the Memory Stick's capacity) recording of video. Sony did not specify what resolution the MPEG videos were recorded to the Memory Stick at.

As for other enhancements, the camcorder now has Bluetooth capability, similar to that includes on the DCR-PC120BT and other new Sony models. The Bluetooth wireless connection allows the camcorder to connect to other Bluetooth devices, and when used in conjunction with a Bluetooth enabled phone or the normal, land line phone adapter the camcorder can surf the web and send and receive email with both still and MPEG video attachments. The camcorder also includes the USB streaming feature which has been added to other new Sony camcorders. The USB streaming feature makes it easy to use the camcorder as a web cam via the USB port.

The camcorder also includes playback zoom, the ability to zoom in on parts of a video during playback. The camcorder has 6-hours of continuous recording capability using a new battery type NP-QM91. Currently we don't have any details on the new battery type however. The camcorder includes DV in/out and all the standard connections. The camcorder also includes hologram autofocus, a more accurate autofocus that is able to zero in on difficult, low light and low contrast objects. To our knowledge, hologram auto focus has not been included on any Sony camcorders yet, however it has been included on Mavica digital still cameras.