Panasonic
Panasonic has announced a UK launch date and a price for its DVD-RAM video recorder. The DMR-E20 will reach the stores later this year and retail for around £1,300. The model is the company's second DVD-RAM recorder. Its debut unit - the DMR-E10 - is already on sale in Japan and the US.
The recorder stores MPEG2 standard video on 4.7Gigabyte DVD-RAM discs, which Panasonic translates as around two hours of high quality images or six hours of low standard footage. Panasonic also intends to market double-sided DVD-RAM discs which can store up to 9.4Gigabytes of video.
There are two key differences between the DMR-E20 and its predecessor. The first is that the new model can record on to write-once DVD-R format discs as well as re-writable DVD-RAM ones. Unlike DVD-RAM discs, DVD-R discs can be played back in most current DVD video players. However, Panasonic insists that from 2002 all its new DVD players will be DVD-RAM compatible.
Panasonic is keeping its options open as to which form will replace the VHS VCR. Just launched in Japan is a hard disk video recorder, the NV-HDR1000, that can record up to 25 hours of analogue TV footage on its 30Gigabyte hard drive.
MP3 in Jungle
Artec is set to shake up the MP3 market with a tiny player that offers more storage than most of its larger rivals. The £200 Jungle I is roughly the same size as a credit card, yet the makers have squeezed in 96Megabytes of embedded flash memory. Most similar units have only 32 or 64MB. The player is strictly MP3 only, although it can store around an hour and a half of CD-ish quality tunes. It is only available via the net, from www.mp3players.co.uk
ONnet
ONdigital, which introduced the internet-through-your-TV system, ONnet, to subscribers last year is offering the system to anyone with a set. Available via www.lastminute.com, the system comprises a decoder box and a wireless keyboard, below left. It offers five email accounts, which can send both voice and images as attachments. Courtesy of the system's picture-in-picture facility, users can read a web page while watching a TV programme.
Would-be sofa surfers sign up for a 12-month period, paying £4 a month for the first three months. The downside is that it rises to £8 a month for the next nine. Users have to pay for the cost of the phone calls.
