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Back to Full Sony Mavica CD1000 Review
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	*	2.1 megapixel CCD, up to 1600x1200 images
	*	10x optical , 2x digital zoom
	*	Records movies with sound
	*	JPEG, GIF, TIFF, and MPEG file formats
	*	Built-in CD-R for 156 megabytes of image storage!

Manufacturer Overview
More than any other single company, Sony has dominated the digital camera market the last few years, thanks in large part to the easy computer interfacing offered by their Mavica(tm) line of floppy-disk based cameras. They've also been active at the high end of the market, with products like the DSC-D770 and DSC-F505, which caught the eye of many pros and advanced amateurs for their excellent optics and exposure control.

This spring (February, 2000), Sony stunned the digicam world by announcing no fewer than six new models. Part of this was a significant extension of their Mavica line, bringing the higher end up to the 2 megapixel resolution range, while incorporating a number of enhancements in the basic camera electronics and signal processing as well. This resulted in a significant improvement in image quality and flexibility relative to the prior Mavica models, but the chore of packing 2.1 megapixel files onto 1.44 megabyte floppy disks meant some tradeoff in image sharpness (lots of JPEG compression), coupled with a capacity of only 4 maximum-resolution images per floppy.

Now, Sony's rocked the digicam world again, by incorporating a 3-inch (77mm) CD-R drive into a Mavica body, providing 156 megabytes of removable, archival storage, in a format that's compatible with just about every consumer computer on the market today. The increased capacity has also given Sony the breathing room they needed to really maximize the image quality achievable with their 2.1 megapixel sensor and excellent signal-processing electronics. By allowing much lower levels of JPEG compression (and even an uncompressed TIFF storage mode), the new MVC-CD1000 is finally a Mavica that takes a back seat to no competitor in terms of image quality.

Earlier this year, we were fortunate to receive one of the very first CD1000 Mavicas in the country, and wrote up our experiences with it in our First Look report. Now, we've fleshed out our coverage into a full review of the camera, including our usual panoply of test images, shot under a wide variety of standardized conditions. Read on for all the details on what we called "the most significant digicam development in the last year!"


Highlights

• 2.1 megapixel, 1/3 inch CCD delivering up to 1600 x 1200 resolution images.
• 2.5 inch, color, TFT LCD monitor.
• Smaller, LCD optical viewfinder with data display.
• 10x, 6 to 60mm optical zoom lens (equivalent to a 39 to 390mm lens on a 35mm camera).
• 2x digital telephoto.
• Steady Shot function to (dramatically) decrease camera shake.
• Program AE, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Twilight, Twilight Plus, Landscape and Panfocus capture modes.
• Shutter speeds from 8 to 1/500 seconds.
• Automatic, Outdoor, Indoor and One-Push white balance settings.
• Built-in, popup flash with Automatic, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced and Suppressed modes and manually controlled intensity settings.
• Spot metering option.
• 10 second self-timer.
• MPEG movie record mode.
• Voice Memo record mode.
• E-Mail and Text (GIF) still image record modes.
• Manual focus option.
• InfoLITHIUM battery system.
• 156 Megabyte removable storage on three inch (77mm) CD-R media.
• Fast, ~3.5 second cycle time at full resolution.
• Average JPEG compression of only 7:1 (MVC-FD95 average was 18:1.
• Optional uncompressed TIFF file format! (A Mavica first!)
• USB computer connection for high-speed downloads without "finalizing" disks.
• Higher-capacity NP-550 InfoLITHIUM battery, to handle higher peak power drain of CD-R.

Executive Overview
The arrival of Sony's new Mavica CD1000 is quite possibly one of the most exciting events in the digicam world and probably the biggest news we've heard over the past few months. Building on the already impressive design of the MVC-FD95, Sony simply substituted a three inch CD-R drive for the 3.5 inch floppy drive - vastly increasing the camera's image capacity. Picking up where the floppy-based Mavica line seemed about to leave off, Sony continued with the "no cables" appeal of the Mavicas while integrating the much more versatile CD-R technology. The new drive gives the CD1000 156 megabytes of removable (yet archivable) storage capacity, far surpassing the 1.44 megabyte capacity of the 3.5 inch floppies. Combine this with the abundant features, 2.1 megapixel CCD and 12 bit digitization, and you have what we consider the "Ultimate Mavica."

As with the previous Mavica camera designs, the CD1000 seems like quite a handful at first glance. But the larger size, which accommodates the 10x zoom lens and three inch CD-R drive, is actually lighter than you might think, weighing just 35 ounces (990g). With image storage on the three inch CDs, you're free from the hassles of cables, download software and compatibility issues (although an included USB cable and output jack give you the option of connecting to computers without compatible drives). As we mentioned earlier, the CD1000 comprises essentially the same camera design as the MVC-FD95 (but with a slight rearrangement in control layout to compensate for the hinged rear panel that accesses the CD-R drive), so we'll just give a brief rundown of the camera's features here.

Like the FD91 and the FD95, the MVC-CD1000's "optical" viewfinder is actually a smaller version of the rear LCD monitor, complete with information display and menus. The "optical" viewfinder uses a tiny (and lower-power) LCD screen to show you what the camera's seeing (a little like an "electronic SLR" or single-lens reflex). We like the idea of being able to see the exposure settings, flash, etc. in the viewfinder, but we continue to find it a little difficult to navigate the menu system with your face so close to the camera, preferring the larger LCD monitor for those tasks. The MVC-CD1000 offers a 10x optical zoom with its 6 to 60mm lens (equivalent to a 39 to 390mm lens on a 35mm camera). The lens also features Sony's remarkably effective "Steady Shot" system that helps you hold the image steady when you're shooting at such long focal lengths. Focus ranges from 9.8 inches (25 cm) to infinity in normal mode and from an amazing 0.8 to 9.8 inches (2.0 to 25 cm) in Macro mode. Apertures range from a very fast f/2.8 to f/11. There's even a manual focus mode, where you can focus the lens by hand, using the ridged focus ring on the end of the lens, just like traditional manual focus lenses for film-based cameras.

Although there's no full manual control, Sony does give you both Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority exposure modes. In both, you select one value while the camera chooses the most appropriate corresponding one. There's also a Twilight and Twilight Plus mode that extends low-light performance (although not to true night-photography levels: use Shutter Priority mode for that), and a full Program AE for when you want the camera to do all the work. Landscape mode sets the focus at infinity and Panfocus allows you to quickly change focus from far away to close-up subjects. Both modes are perfect for fast action shooting situations when you don't have time to wait for the autofocus system. We were glad to see the inclusion of a manual (One-Push, as they call it) white balance mode in addition to the standard Automatic, Indoors and Outdoors options. We also appreciated the spot metering option, which gives you greater flexibility over your exposure in those high contrast situations. The on-board pop-up flash gives you some added control as well, letting you set its intensity level. When combined with one of the semi-manual modes and the capability of connecting an external flash, you have a good bit of control over flash exposure. There's also a sharpness control and an entire menu of picture effects, which lets you shoot images in black and white or sepia monotones, with a solarized effect or as negative art.

Aside from the traditional still capture mode, the MVC-CD1000 has a movie option that lets you record up to 60 seconds of images and sound in a 160 x 112 pixel size and up to 15 seconds at a 320 x 240 size. (Sorry, movie length is limited by onboard memory, which means that the vast capacity of the CD-R doesn't increase the length of movie you can record. - You just get to store that many more of them on a single disk.) Movies are recorded as MPEG files and most of the same exposure options are available as with still images. Additionally, you can record up to 40 second sound bytes to accompany your still images. Under the capture mode menu, the MVC-CD1000 gives you the added option of recording still images as black and white GIFs (good for capturing text or white boards) or e-mail compliant images (320 x 240 size for easier e-mail transmission) at the same time as higher-resolution ones. There's even an uncompressed TIFF option for the 1600 x 1200 and 1600 (3:2) image sizes.

The most exciting feature of the CD1000 is its ability to store images to a three inch (77mm) CD, which offers up to 156 megabytes of image storage. This makes it really easy for users to transfer images to a computer. Simply "finish" the CD, pop it out of the camera, and insert it into your computer's CD drive. If your computer's CD drive won't accept the smaller CD-Rs the CD1000 uses, Sony includes an "adapter donut" that you can clip onto the CD to make it the same size as a normal one. There's no cabling to figure out and you don't have to worry about using the AC adapter while downloading to save battery power. The camera does come with a USB cable for downloading images directly from the camera when you don't want to lose the disk capacity associated with "finishing" the CD. Also packaged with the camera are Sony's Picture Gear Lite and MGI's PhotoSuite and VideoWave, all compatible with Windows and Mac operating systems (except for Picture Gear Lite, which is Windows based). Picture Gear Lite simply allows you to manage and organize images, while PhotoStudio provides image correction and manipulation tools (complete with fun templates and creative image enhancement filters). VideoWave provides similar utilities for your MPEG movies, with the added ability to perform minor editing and add titles or music.

For power, the MVC-CD1000 runs on Sony InfoLITHIUM NP-F550 rechargeable battery packs. What's great about the InfoLITHIUM system is that the battery communicates with the camera about its power consumption. This appears to you as remaining battery time in minutes displayed on the LCD next to a battery symbol. The camera has an auto power-off option which shuts down the camera after three minutes of inactivity. This is great from a battery conservation standpoint, but we'd like to be able to adjust the timer somehow.

We already heartily approved of the MVC-FD95's flexible and creative exposure options and very nice image quality. In the MVC-CD1000, we see all the features we loved about the MVC-FD95 with the very exciting bonus of a CD-R drive for image storage. This revolutionary camera now provides what seems like infinite amounts of image storage (when compared to the 1.44 megabyte floppy disk) while continuing the hassle-free, "no cables" popularity of the Mavica line. Even more significantly, the enormous capacity of the CD-R has allowed Sony to use much more conservative JPEG image compression, resulting in a significant improvement in sharpness and image quality. Considering the Mavica line's impressive dominance of the digital camera marketplace during the past couple of years, we're certain that the advancement of the CD1000 model will continue in the Mavica footsteps and spark a new trend in the ever-changing digicam world.

From the front, the view is almost identical to the FD95, although the right side of the new model bulges a bit more to provide the diameter needed for the CD-R housing. You can't tell in this shot, but the handgrip on the CD1000 is slightly smaller than that on the FD95. The bulge on the left and bottom sides at the end of the lens houses the Steady Shot anti-vibration system used to reduce the effects of camera shake at long telephoto settings. This has been a feature of the top-end Mavicas since the FD91, although we think the Steady Shot system on the new FD95 and CD1000 is considerably more effective. (We haven't been able to test one of the new units side by side with an FD91, this is just our impression based on our recollection of the FD91's performance.)

The handgrip side of the camera is quite plain. On the older Mavica models, the handgrip also contained the opening for the floppy drive. Now it simply serves as the handgrip alone, accommodating the battery compartment which loads from the bottom of the camera. This view also shows the much-elongated top-mounted viewfinder of the CD1000. The new design is apparently to accommodate control buttons located on the other side.

On the opposite side of the camera are the majority of the controls, including the door latch for the CD-R drive. (The drive lives behind the camera's rear panel.) The Program AE, +/- buttons, and white balance controls have moved up from their positions on the FD95, and now live on the side of the viewfinder assembly. The A/V port has moved down to the bottom, underneath the lens barrel, while the external flash connector from the top of the FD95 has moved to just above the rear cover latch.

Many of the controls still remain on the back of the camera, although they've all moved above the LCD display screen. The "Display" button turns the information overlay for the LCD viewfinder on and off, while the "LCD" button does the same for the entire rear-panel LCD itself. (The tiny LCD that drives the "optical" viewfinder remains on at all times.) Also back here are controls for speaker volume, flash mode, spot metering, and macro mode. Menu navigation is controlled by a hemispherical rocker toggle control at upper right. The mode dial formerly on the back has moved to the top, and the power on/off switch is now on the right, where the floppy eject button was on the FD95. Additionally, the dioptric adjustment lever for the "optical" viewfinder has moved from the control side of the camera to a practically hidden spot underneath the eyepiece (we had to hunt to find it).

The top of the camera holds the mode control on the right, where it's easily reached by your right thumb. The shutter button is in the usual place, and the microphone has been moved atop the slanting front of the viewfinder assembly. The onboard flash and flash shoe mount round out the complement of top-panel accouterments.

The bottom of the camera holds the battery compartment cover, tripod mount, and (to either side of the tripod mount) side-mounted ports for A/V output and digital I/O (USB). Our one real complaint about the design of the CD1000, shared in common with the FD91 and FD95, is that the bottom really has too little flat area around the tripod socket. (Which at least is made of metal, to give credit where due.) This tiny footprint makes for a very unsteady tripod mount, which is all the more regrettable because it could have so easily been avoided: There's absolutely no reason (other than design aesthetic) for the tripod platform to be so tiny: It could easily have extended at least another half-inch or so in all directions, which would have dramatically improved tripod stability. (I guess we have to find one thing to dislike on every camera, and this is it for us on the CD-1000.)

We're not used to providing inside views of cameras we review, this is some kind of a first: Here are two views of the CD compartment, both with and without a CD in place. The entire back of the camera hinges open to provide access to the CD spindle.

As part of making the CD-R work in a handheld environment, we noticed that the Sony engineers have provided a very compliant mount for the CD: The whole mechanism "floats" on what feels like a stiff rubber suspension system, to reduce the effect of vibration while reading or writing the drive. It's not terribly clear in this shot, but the floating portion of the mechanism is the black-colored area on the right side of the compartment. We confess that the drive is the area of our greatest concern on the CD1000: CD-R technology requires fantastically close tolerances and precise head control. It made us a little nervous every time we inserted or removed a CD, with our fingers so close to the lens mechanism. Still, while we weren't overly rough with it (pretty darn cautious, given that this was one of only a few units in the world at the time of our initial testing), we found that the camera seemed to have no problems writing, even with pretty substantial amounts of handheld jiggling during the process. (I mean, we really tried to make it mis-write, but never succeeded, even when rapping it firmly on the top, sides, bottom, and back with our hand while it was writing a file. - Nary a problem.)

Shutter Lag / Cycle Times
When you press the shutter release on a camera, there's usually a lag time before the shutter actually fires. This time is to allow the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms time to do their work, and can amount to a fairly long delay in some situations. Since this number is almost never reported on, and can significantly affect the picture taking experience, we now routinely measure it with an electronic test setup. Likewise, we measure and report on how quickly the camera can take sequential exposures in various capture modes.

Like the FD95 it was based on, the CD1000 is fairly typical of digicams we've tested, slightly slower than average in its shutter lag timing in full autofocus mode (0.9 vs roughly 0.8 on average), and about average when prefocused or manually focused. As noted in the "Exposure" section earlier, the CD1000 does have an annoying characteristic in that the viewfinder display freezes momentarily whenever the shutter button is half-pressed. We did find though, that holding the shutter half-pressed (possibly in conjunction with manual focus operation) provided a potential workaround.

From shot to shot, the CD1000 is a bit slower than the fastest digicams, but faster than the floppy-based FD95, and quite surprisingly fast, considering that the CD-R has to spin up and stabilize for every shot recorded. The net result is shot-to-shot cycle times of only 5 seconds in maximum resolution mode, and 4 seconds at minimum resolution. Maximum-resolution TIFF files take quite a bit longer though, nearly 40 seconds to write.

Operation and User Interface
Like a few of Sony's digicams, the abundance of controls and buttons on the MVC-CD1000 may appear a little overwhelming at first, but its user interface is very uncomplicated once you get the hang of it. For the most part, the user interface relies heavily on the LCD display or the optical viewfinder color display as you sort through menu items. The absence of a small, black and white status display panel means you must use one or the other when altering settings. However, both the capture and playback menus are relatively simple to navigate. Overall, the layout of the external controls makes sense, with all the optical adjustments on the side of the lens and the exposure adjustments grouped together on the side of the camera body and on the rear panel. Once you get used to the layout, changing modes and settings is a snap.

Control Enumeration


Shutter Button: Located on the top right of the camera, this button sets the focus and exposure when pressed halfway and fires the shutter when fully pressed. When using the self-timer, the shutter button triggers the 10 second countdown.

Focus Ring: Located on the end of the lens, this ring adjusts the focus when shooting in manual focus mode.


Zoom Lever: Located on the front of the hand grip, this lever controls the 10x optical zoom and the 2x digital zoom (when enabled).


Play/Still/Movie Switch: Located on the top right side of the camera (behind the shutter button), this switch selects between Playback, Still and Movie capture modes.


Dioptric Adjustment Dial: Located on the underside of the optical viewfinder eyepiece, this dial adjusts the viewfinder to accommodate eyeglass wearers.


Pop-up Flash Button: Located on the left side of the camera, just beneath the pop-up flash, this button releases the flash into its operating position.


Program AE Button: Located on the control side of the camera, this button sets the following exposure modes:

• Automatic Exposure (no icon): Puts the camera in control of both aperture and shutter speed.
• Aperture Priority: Lets you control the aperture while the camera selects the shutter speed.
• Shutter Priority: Lets you control the shutter speed while the camera selects the aperture.
• Twilight: Adjusts the aperture and shutter speed for dark settings like night skylines and fireworks.
• Twilight Plus: Performs similar functions to Twilight mode, but also increases the camera's light sensitivity.
• Landscape: Sets focus for far away subjects.
• Panfocus: Allows for quick focusing of far away or close-up subjects.

Program AE +/- Buttons: Located to the lower right of the Program AE button, these buttons adjust exposure settings such as the aperture and shutter speed, depending on the exposure mode selected.


White Balance Button: Located to the right of the Program AE button, this button selects the white balance mode (Automatic, Indoors, Outdoors or One-Push).


One-Push Button: Located directly to the right of the White Balance button, this button sets the white value when in One-Push white balance mode.


Focus Switch: Located on the side of the lens barrel, this switch shifts between Auto and Manual focus modes.


Steady Shot Switch: Located just beside the Focus Switch, this switch turns the Steady Shot function on and off.


CD-R Access Lever: Located on the control side of the camera, on the edge of the CD-R drive, this sliding lever opens the hinged rear panel for access to the CD-R drive.


Flash Button: Located at the top left of the rear panel, this button controls the flash mode:

• Auto: Puts the camera in control of the flash mode.
• Red-Eye Reduction: Fires a small pre-flash before firing the full flash to reduce the Red-Eye Effect.
• Forced: The flash always fires, regardless of light levels.
• Suppressed: The flash never fires, regardless of lighting conditions.

Macro Button: Located to the right of the Flash button, this button places the camera in Macro mode.


Spot Meter Button: Located to the right of the Macro button, this button turns the spot metering function on and off.


LCD On/Off Button: Located just beneath the Spot Meter button, this button turns both the LCD monitor and optical viewfinder display on and off.


Volume Buttons: Located beneath the Flash and Macro buttons, these buttons control the camera's volume level.


Rocker Toggle Button: Located at the top right corner of the LCD monitor, this button has four arrows that navigate through menu screens in both playback and capture modes. Pressing the center of the button confirms menu selections.


Display Button: Located to the left of the LCD monitor, this button turns the information display on the LCD monitor on or off.


Power Switch: Located on the back panel of the camera (to the right of the LCD monitor on the handgrip portion), this sliding switch turns the camera on and off. The small green pushbutton in the center of the power switch is a safety interlock that insures the switch will only actuate when your finger is on it.

Open Batt Switch: Located on the bottom of the camera (on the battery compartment cover), this switch unlocks and opens the battery compartment.

Camera Modes and Menus
The MVC-CD1000 has a number of operating modes, selected via the Program AE button mentioned above. Because the LCD screen displays for them are virtually identical, we won't show the different displays separately here.

Automatic Exposure (no icon): In this mode, the camera controls both aperture and shutter speed, basing the exposure on existing light levels. The user has control over exposure compensation (EV), flash, white balance and metering.

Aperture Priority: This mode allows you to select the desired aperture setting (from f/2.8 to f/11) while the camera selects the most appropriate corresponding shutter speed. As in Program AE, you still maintain control over the flash, white balance and metering mode selections.

Shutter Priority: Similar to Aperture Priority mode, you control the shutter speed (from 8 to 1/500 seconds) while the camera chooses the aperture setting. You control flash, white balance and metering mode, if desired. Note that this mode is the best to use under very dim lighting conditions, as it lets you select very long shutter times.

Twilight: In this mode, the camera selects the best aperture and shutter speed settings for dark scenes like cityscapes and fireworks. It's main action is to prevent bright objects against dark backgrounds from washing out. It preserves color in neon signs, sunsets, etc.

Twilight Plus: This mode performs the same function as Twilight mode, but also increases the camera's light sensitivity, allowing higher shutter speeds under dim conditions.

Landscape: This mode sets the camera focus to infinity for shooting far away subjects.

Panfocus: In this mode, the camera's focus is set to quickly shift from close-up to far away subjects, good for action photography.

Movie Mode: This mode allows you to capture up to a 60 second 160 x 112 or a 15 second 320 x 240 or 320 HQ movie with sound. You have all the above exposure capabilities, including the ability to change from Automatic Exposure to any of the Program AE modes.

Playback Mode: This mode allows you to review captured still images and movies on the LCD panel. An index display puts up to six images on the screen at one time for quick review.

Capture Mode Menu: Pressing the up arrow on the rocker toggle button calls up the capture menu when in Still or Movie capture modes. From there, you have the following submenus:

• Self-Timer: Activates the 10 second self-timer mode.
• Effect:
  • Date/Time: Turns the date and time LCD display on and off.
  • Picture Effect: Accesses the Solarize, Black & White, Sepia and Negative Art picture effects.
    
    
• File:
  • Disc Tool: Allows you to Initialize or Finalize the CD-R.
  • Position Sensor: Turns the camera's Position Sensor function on and off.
  • File Number: Sets the file numbering to Series or Normal.
  • Image Size: Sets the still image sizes to 1600 x 1200, 1600 (3:2), 1024 x 768 or 640 x 480. In Movie mode, sets the image size to 320 HQ (High Quality), 320 x 240 or 160 x 112.
  • Record Mode: Sets the still record mode to TIFF, Text, Voice, E-Mail or Normal. In Movie mode, allows you to change the minimum record time (in response to a quick press of the shutter button) to five, 10 or 15 seconds.
    
    
• Camera:
  • Exposure: Sets the exposure compensation from -2.0 to +2.0 in 1/3 EV increments.
  • Flash Level: Sets the flash intensity level to High, Normal or Low.
  • Sharpness: Sets the sharpness level anywhere from -2 to +2.
  • Digital Zoom: Turns the 2x digital telephoto function on and off.
    
    
• Setup:
  • LCD Bright: Adjusts the brightness of the LCD displays.
  • Beep: Turns the camera's beep sound on or off.
  • Clock Set: Changes the camera date and time settings.
  • Language: Sets the menu language to English or Japanese.
  • Video Out: Sets the camera's video out signal to NTSC or PAL formats.

Playback Mode Menu: Activating the Playback menu pulls up the following submenus:

• Index: Pulls up a nine image index display.
• Delete: Deletes the currently displayed image with an option to cancel.
• File:
  • Protect: Write protects the currently displayed image.
  • Print Mark: Turns the camera's print mark on and off (date and time stamp).
  • Slide Show: Allows you to view captured images in a slide show format, as well as set up time intervals and the number of repeats.
  • Rotate: Allows you to rotate the image in 90 degree turns, counterclockwise and clockwise.
  • Disk Tool: Allows you to format or copy the disk, with an option to cancel.
    
    
• Tool:
  • Resize: Allows you to resize captured images.
    
    
• Setup:
  • LCD Bright: Adjusts the brightness of the LCD displays.
  • Beep: Turns the camera's beep sound on or off.
  • Clock Set: Changes the camera date and time settings.
  • Language: Sets the menu language to English or Japanese.
  • Video Out: Sets the camera's video out signal to NTSC or PAL formats.

Image Storage and Interface
As we expounded on earlier and touted as the camera's most interesting feature, the MVC-CD1000 records still images and movies to a three inch (77mm) CD-R. This eliminates a good deal of the hassle of downloading files from the camera to your computer. Instead of messing around with cables and driver software, you just take the CD-R from the camera and slide it into your computer's CD-R drive. An adapter comes with the camera to accommodate computers that don't accept the three inch CD-R format. There's also a USB connection and cable supplied with the camera for USB connections (the USB port is actually beneath the lens, protected by a small plastic cover). A small CD-R icon on the camera's LCD display lets you know how much of the disk is full and how many images have been shot. The MVC-CD1000 allows you to protect individual images on the disk from accidental erasure or alteration through the playback menu. The freedom of a CD-R drive has many advantages over saving images to floppies, the main one being an increased amount of storage space - 156 megabytes.

Using the CD-Rs in the camera is relatively simple. Whenever a new disk (or one that has previously been "finalized" is inserted, the camera will tell you that the disk needs to be initialized. Not being CD mavens, we suspect (but aren't sure) that this involves writing the "lead in" area for the next session, a roughly 9 megabyte area reserved for table of contents information for the session to come. (See Adaptec's CD-R site for information on the whole topic, including an excellent glossary.) Initializing the disc appears to be a more critical operation than normal CD-R recording, as the camera asks you to place it on a level surface and avoid vibration during the process. The series of screens at right step you through the process. Once a disk has been initialized, operation of the CD1000 is the same as that of any other Sony camera, regardless of media.

When you're done with a set of shots and want to set up the CD-R to be read in a conventional CD-ROM drive, you must "Finalize" the session. The camera leads you through a set of screens for this process also, similar to those shown above for the initialization process. Finalizing also appears to be a more critical procedure than normal image writing, since the camera again asks you to rest it on a flat surface. Our guess is that this process writes the lead out for that session, and goes back to fill-in the Table of Contents for the session in the lead-in area. The first lead-out on a disk occupies about 13 megabytes of space, subsequent ones require about 4 megabytes.

You get a well rounded selection of image sizes with the MVC-CD1000, from 1600 x 1200 to 1024 x 768 to 640 x 480. There's also a 1600 3:2 aspect image size which crops the top and bottom of the image slightly and an option for uncompressed TIFF. As noted earlier, a significant benefit of the increased storage capacity of the CD-R on the CD1000 is that Sony could use much lower JPEG compression ratios than on their earlier Mavica models. (For comparison, the maximum-quality JPEG on the CD1000 uses about a 6:1 JPEG compression, whereas the FD95 had to use 16:1 for the same image size. At low resolution the difference is 7:1 vs 19:1.)

Below are the approximate amount of images and compression ratios for the CD-R disc:

Notes for Mac owners: In order to avoid a 1-megabyte limit on writeable file size, Sony had to go with the Level 3 ISO CD standard, which supports larger data sizes in packet-writing mode. This means though, that Macs need a UDF format extension to be added to the Mac OS to enable reading of the resulting disks. NOTE that the "UDF Volume Access" extension that ships with OS9 is apparently not adequate to the task. Although Apple's UDF Volume Access claims support for version 1.5 of the UDF ("Universal Disk Format (tm)") specification, the Roxio UDF Volume Access Version 1.04 extension is apparently required to read the version of the UDF format used by the Mavica MVC-CD1000. We can, however attest to the fact that the iMac supports both the 77mm disk size, as well as the Adaptec Volume Access extension, as we were able to successfully read "finalized" CDs from the MVC-CD1000 on our slot-loading iMac. (A 400MHz DV model, running Mac OS 9.0.4.)

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