Sanyo to open our eyes to a new concept in digital photography

I choose to use one hackneyed term, "déjà vu," to summarise a rather hackneyed promise, this time from Sanyo, who claim "digital photography will never be the same again".

Now where did I recently read such sentiments? Oh yes, on Canon's invitation to the, then, secret, launch of what turned out to be the Canon EOS-300D back in August.

And where have I spied Sanyo's ambitious declaration? In an invitation to witness the launch of their new secret digital photography product at the exclusive London nightclub, Sketch. That's a familiar name, despite your reporter being rather ignorant of London night life… of course! This was the same venue Canon used.

Sanyo's Xacti DMX C-1

We're pretty certain the secret new product isn't as new or as secret as Sanyo UK might be hinting. Sanyo recently launched its interesting hybrid 3.2 megapixel still and video 'Xacti' camera in Japan at the beginning of this month.

Sanyo says the Xacti DMX C-1 Pocket-Size Digital Movie Camera, which records onto SD memory cards, is the world's smallest and lightest digital movie camera and the world's first camera that can record 3.2 megapixel still and video images simultaneously. The invitation rather gives the game away by showing a product silhouette that is identical to a Xacti.

The Xacti uses MPEG4 to record as much as half an hour of VHS-quality VGA resolution 30fps video onto a half gigabyte SD card. While shooting video, if you press the stills button, a 3,2 megapixel still will be recorded. The camera has a 5.8x optical zoom lens, equivalent to 38-220mm in 35mm system terms. Xactis cost ¥75,000 in Japan, or about £410 and Sanyo is making some 10,000 of them a month.

Sanyo UK asks:"Let Sanyo open your eyes to a new concept in digital photography…" and the big day, and it is 'day' rather than night, as the invitation says 11AM, is on Thursday, 13th November.

Even Sanyo would admit that their brand that is not synonymous with digital camera fame and fortune, especially not in the UK, so I suspect news of the forthcoming launch will be greeted with some curiosity. We'll be there to bring news on what the fuss is about.