Storage catalyst: video everywhere and everything

At CES last week , the big news was tablets, internet TV, and 3D TV. In addition to these major themes, there was a whole host of products that caught my eye (no pun intended).

Video was definitely the overarching format at the show. Everything from 3D movies to video conferencing, to even surveillance / security. It’s no surprise that video has become the most sought after means for not only sharing content (e.g. YouTube), but also to communicate (e.g. Skype), and especially create. Just browse any website, and video is a given. We want to video everything and anything, no matter where or when. Over the last few years the idea of the pocket video camera was brought to life by Flip and we were given the power to video everywhere and everything we wanted….well almost.

What about under water, or while snowboarding, mountain biking, even driving? A class of camera called “action cams” is taking hold…these ruggedized cameras enable consumers and businesses to video nearly everything and/or everywhere.

Check out these new cameras that allow you to take video to another level: Oregon Scientific’s ATC9K – this ruggedized camera can mount to nearly anything and is waterproof up to 20m. Midland’s XTC series of Action cams will be available up to 1080p with an assortment of mounts – even for your car. Contour was another company that displayed their Contour GPS camera that is full 1080p and “utilizes a 135° wide-angle rotating lens that delivers a true high quality image that captures all the action with minimal distortion and fish-eye.” Liquid Image is yet another that introduced their latest Summit and Impact Series goggle cams. Liquid Image has a whole host of solutions for water sports, offroad sports, snow sports, and coming soon…motor sports and surfing all recording in full HD 1080p resolution.

From a storage perspective, these cameras boast anywhere from 32GB to 64GB of flash memory, but we all know where most of this video will end up…on hard drives. The perfect compliment to mobile action cameras is mobile storage. With the limited amount of storage on these devices, one of Seagate’s new GoFlex ultra portable Mac drives is the perfect action cam companion. At 1.5TB of storage, you can empty that 32GB flash card 46 times before filling the drive.

It is interesting to see what these new “action cams” will enable in terms of personal and commercial video capture. Your scuba trip to the Caymans, your snowboarding trip in the Rockies, perhaps a way to record directions to your favorite hangouts, or while traveling. The fact that products like this are available and we are using them tells me that we have an insatiable appetite for video, not only consuming it, but creating it.

I just wonder when we’ll be able to mount them to Tom Brady’s helmet and experience what he experiences on the football field. Maybe Belichick is already working on that 🙂

Talk about reading defenses….Check it out.