Hi,Webmaster wrote:'Video floppy disk' seems to be the correct name for these things. I'm surprised to see that they're still available on eBay and elsewhere on the web.
As far as I can tell (please correct me if I'm wrong) these disks are commonly labelled 'MP-50'. I think these are the same as Canon's VF-50 and Nikon's VF-10 disks. I'll probably get some MP-50's just to make sure
Jarle
Yes, I've stumbled across the same information based on the photo of the diskette you e-mailed me. These things are the same disks used by the early Sony analog still video cameras.
The key is in the use of the Sony-trademarked 'VF' logo. I saw that in the photos, and then ran a search on the thing as a trademark and worked it backwards from there. So, you have lots and lots of disks available on eBay for the QV. How nice of Nikon to use a 'standard' item like that.
The 2" disks I have are, indeed, exactly like normal 3.5" computer diskettes, only smaller. It's like they were left in a pocket and run through the laundry - where they shrunk to 2". The main difference is that the data disks have metal drive hubs, not plastic, probably for tolerence reasons. They never became popular because they only held 500kB of data when the 3.5" ones held 1.44 MB and yet both styles fit into a shirt pocket. So, there was no advantage to the physical size over the data capacity.
Besides which, diskettes are dead and we're all using USB memory keys to transport data via sneakernet these days.
As far as shot capacity, I see what they did. The thing needs two tracks to capture a frame, which is made up of two fields - remember that the original 480 line video signal is interlaced using two fields - so you get to choose between recording both fields for more resolution, or recording only one if that's all the resolution you need (and effectively doubling your storage).
I really like the size of the thing. It's cute!
It's more along the size of what I was once expecting the various makers to come out with in the way of DSLRs - based on HD video camera chips, and using smaller interchangeable lenses. This was when the state-of-the-art was still 2 MP around the time that the original D1 came out.
The D1, of course, used a physically larger imager and, so, also used the larger 35mm system lenses. So, the rest is history.
I suppose the long series of delays for HDTV helped us get to where we are. We're only just getting there for HDTV, and it was originally supposed to all happen in the mid-1980's. Those delays just pushed the resoultion of still camera chips out way past what the video chips need to be, and that makes me *very* happy.
Stan