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Full Version: Built in 20/40/60G Hard Disk?
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I was just thinking - music appliances such as the iPod and countless other imitations are shipping wtih in-built hard disks. Most are at least 20G, some more, in a relatively small form factor, and at a pretty low price point too.

Why not do the same with digital SLRs? I think it would definitely be more cost effective vs memory cards, and 20/40/60G would be more than enough for most people's needs. I mean, do you know anyone with 20G of memory cards? The cost would probably be more than the SLR itself Smile

In terms of size - I'm sure there's room to fit one on. Even if it makes the camera slightly more chunky, I'm sure people won't mind. Remember, in SLR-land, chunky = pro Big Grin


What do you think?
Sounds interesting!!!
At first, I think that the battery wouldn't last long, but it seems to work in the iPod.
My friend has an archos jukebox (like an ipod, but plays videos also) and has a camera attachment Tongue

I don't know much about harddisks and memory cards, but I would guess its not as good to bump a hard-disk while it is reading/writing than a memory card (solid state), although we all hope not to bump our cameras around. I don't know how true this is, just thought it up, didn't do any research Tongue
shuttertalk Wrote:Remember, in SLR-land, chunky = pro Big Grin
Well said =)

Most memory cards are the same size as these tiny HDD in the iPOD etc so If you took out the memory card and card slot it would give you enough space to put a hdd in it, even the iPOD mini's 4gb hdd would a hell of a lot of pics to fill =)
I think Adam's point about the amount of jostling that a camera gets when recording compared to an mp3 player might cause a few problems but they seem to be doing ok with the smaller drive based memory cards so far.

The other thing that would bug the hell out of me is that very few cameras support USB2 and transferring large amounts of images off would take forever.
StudioJ Wrote:The other thing that would bug the hell out of me is that very few cameras support USB2 and transferring large amounts of images off would take forever.

Good point - if you install a high-capacity drive, it would be silly of manufacturers not to install a high speed interface for transfer as well...

Even transferring a gig of data to my laptop (had USB 1.1) took about 30-45 mins...
I hope you've changed over to a memory card reader since then? Doing a shoot in RAW or a day long event in jpg I couldn't handle waiting that long, I'd drain my laptop battery just transferring images!
StudioJ Wrote:I hope you've changed over to a memory card reader since then? Doing a shoot in RAW or a day long event in jpg I couldn't handle waiting that long, I'd drain my laptop battery just transferring images!

Now why didn't I think of that! I reckon a significant portion of the battery drain on the camera was by the data transfer...
Sounds like firewire might be needed in cameras, I would like to see WiFi or some other wireless netowrking so it can directly send all pictures taken to a laptop on the fly.
WiFi would be wonderful if it came about, the Nikon D2H has it touted as an "add on" but it is really limited only to studio work.

Nikon D2H @ DPReview

Lets hope it becomes more widespread.