While Toshiba may have lost the HD disc format war, this has not stopped them from continuing its development in high definition technologies, particularly when it comes to the source of HDTV content. The company has unveiled what it claims to be the world's smallest HDTV camera head, intended for capturing anything from HD surveillance and security to live broadcast footage from a motorbike in a race where the size of the camera really matters. It will showcase this at the National Association of Broadcasters in Las Vegas, April 14th to 17th.
The camera weighs 2.3 oz. (65g), its longest dimension is 1.6" (41mm) and uses Toshiba's proprietary 3CCD prism block to capture 1920 x 1080 interlaced video at 30 frames per second. It connects up with a video controller with a 3 to 30 meter camera cable to provide HD-SDI, RGB or Y/Pb/Pr (component) connectivity. Other features include auto/manual white balance, auto/manual/0dB gain control and down to 13 lux capturing.
With the size of the controller being close to the size of 3 DVD cases and weighing 730g, this currently makes it a problem to try making an ultra compact 1080i 3CCD camcorder from this technology. However, at least the small camera head helps bring HDTV footage to places where only standard definition and regular CCD HD cameras could go until now.
