All photo enthusiasts and professionals have a new CompactFlashâ„¢ Type II hard disk drive with Cybercaptureâ„¢ technology.

Sony Europe’s Recording Media & Energy (RME) division launched the 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 or four hours of MPEG 4 recording. The one-inch hard disk drive boasts a transfer rate of up to 96.7 Mbps, which is further maximized when the COMPACTVAULT is used with future Cybercapture enabled products.

The new COMPACTVAULT media is compatible with all products with a CompactFlash Type II slot. 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, laptops via a PCMCIA adapter, either directly through a PC’s CompactFlash Type II slot.

“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.�, said Céline Haffner, Product Manager, Sony RME.

The 5GB COMPACTVAULT will be available from November 2005.