Sharp Electronics introduced a new low price point into its digital camcorder line with the announcement of its lightweight Viewcam, model VL-NZ8U.
The full-motion digital camcorder is said to combine the compact styling of a digital still camera with miniDV video image quality, with a $799.95 suggested retail price point.
The VL-NZ8U weights approximately one pound without battery pack and cassette and measures 5 3/8 x 3 x 2 5/16 inches.
It sports a three-inch color LCD viewscreen that rotates 270-degrees for viewing at various angles. To further enhance video shooting quality, the LCD screen incorporates an onscreen recording guide, helping users to take better pictures and frame their images with the gridline guides. Additionally, the LCD screen provides low-light reflectivity for improved picture quality in all lighting environments.
The VL-NZ8U features a 680,000-pixel progressive scan CCD, delivering up to 500 lines of video resolution. It also has Sharp’s proprietary Digital Gamma Correction technology, which minimizes dark areas in a video by increasing the brightness of the subject while leaving the brighter portion of the image unaffected. For still image capture at 640×480 resolution, the VL-NZ8U also includes an SD/MMC memory card slot. Memory card and photo software are sold separately.
