Photokina - Canon's new Epson P-2000/4000 killer?

[Ian]

Epson has actually announced its own updated P-series image storage/viewers here at Photokina, but Canon has been inspired to produce its own challenger, the M-series Media Storage (pictured here is an M-60 with a 60 gigabyte storage capacity) storage viewer. It's been suggested that when the product comes to market next year that we'll probably see M-30 and M-80 models.

According to a Canon spokesman we talked to, Canon basically looked at the Epson P-2000 and decided to take the basic concept and improve on it where they could.

The result is a 3.7 inch VGA (640x480) screen that is up to around three times brighter, it's faster at retrieving and displaying images and it uses the same high capacity lithium ion battery as mid-range Canon DSLRs like the EOS-10D, 20D and 30D.

I asked if non-Canon RAW format files would be supported and, unsurprisingly, they won't - to start with at least. But, apparently, Canon is seriously considering support for 'alien' RAW formats in later releases of the Media Storage range.

Ian