Sony places Blu-ray in its VAIO RM HD video editing system
Sony has announced the RM HD Video Editing System, a high definition video authoring desktop PC centered around a writable Blu-ray disk drive. It's hard to judge how serious a demographic that Sony is targeting with the RM: on the one hand they've thought to include 1TB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a writable Blu-ray drive, plus a USB Jog dial and a copy of Adobe Premier 2; on the other, the system is running off nothing more than a single Core 2 Duo processor -- what, no quad core? -- and doesn't include FireWire 800. Form factor wise the RM HD goes against the grain, as Sony's designers oddly chose to split the unit into two sections. Fortunately, the black aluminium finish means this is one good looking desktop machine: then again, any kind of focus on aesthetics tends to make video pros a little suspicious that other, more important internal components are being ignored in the name of shallow looks. Our gut feeling is that high-end video pros will probably want to skip the brand name and bundled peripherals in order to get the most bang for their buck -- that means they're much more likely to take the option to custom build their PC (either that or they'll opt for betterequipped machines from other brands). In other words, the RM will probably only appeal to a select group of prosumers with cash to burn on the RM's attractive case design, as all that branding and gear adds up to a $3,500 price tag.
[Via Crave]
