In Brief: Broadcast camera uses flash memory cards

A new camcorder introduced over the weekend uses CompactFlash memory cards rather than videotape to produce broadcast-quality images.

SanDisk said the cards it invented were used in the new Grass Valley Infinity Series digital camcorder that debuted in the United States on Saturday. The camcorder has slots for two CompactFlash cards. It is the first camcorder introduced in the broadcast industry that uses non-proprietary, removable, solid-state flash memory cards as recording and playback media.

The cards have an 8-gigabyte memory capacity and offer various advantages over tape, including small size, greater durability, lack of image degradation and the ability to be used in a laptop for field editing.

The new camera opens a door to the broadcast media market and SanDisk Marketing Director Tanya Chang said the cards also "now have enough (memory) capacity to make them a viable alternative to the use of hard disk drives in professional camcorders."

Copyright 2006 by United Press International