Sony Europe Press Release

New CompactFlash (TM) Type II hard disk drive with unique Cybercapture (TM) technology delivers increased storage capacity for all photo enthusiasts and professionals

Paris, 31 October, 2005 - Sony Europe’s Recording Media & Energy (RME) division today announced the launch of its first 5GB CompactFlash™ Type II media, under the new COMPACTVAULT™brand. The new COMPACTVAULT provides the latest addition to Sony’s removable media range, enabling storage of up to 1600 images (1) or four hours of MPEG 4 recording. The one-inch hard disk drive boasts a native transfer rate of up to 96.7Mbps, which is further maximized when the COMPACTVAULT is used in conjunction with future Cybercapture enabled products, providing even faster recording of images and higher quality of videos, in what is termed AV mode.

The new COMPACTVAULT media is compatible with all products with a CF Type II slot(2). Once the images have been recorded onto the COMPACTVAULT media, they can easily be transferred onto computers running Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP, either directly through a PC’s CompactFlash Type II slot or in the case of many laptops via a PCMCIA adapter.

“The COMPACTVAULT is the next step in the development of our removable media family”, said Céline Haffner, Product Manager, Sony RME. “It offers high storage capacity for state-of-the-art digital cameras, such as the new Sony Cybershot R1. In addition, we expect to see devices becoming available in the future that take full advantage of our Cybercapture technology. By moving the file system from the hardware device onto the hard disk drive itself, the Cybercapture technology will allow an even higher recording rate of still pictures in multi-shot mode as well as higher quality recording of moving pictures, on a COMPACTVAULT running in AV mode.”

The 5GB COMPACTVAULT will be available from November 2005.

1 - Based on an average picture file size of 3MB
2 - The latest compatibility information will be available at www.sony.net/compactvault/

COMPACTVAULT and Cybercapture are registered trademarks of Sony Corporation.