Sony’s new Professional Disc recording media is a 12cm (5 inch) single-sided, rewritable optical disc with a capacity of 23.3GB. By achieving a track pitch of 0.32um with state-of-the-art manufacturing technology and by utilizing blue-laser technology, the disc media is able to attain high-density recording almost 5 times that of DVD using red-laser.

The XDCAM family includes the PDW-510 DVCAM and the PDW-530 MPEG IMX/DVCAM optical disc camcorders, the PDW-1500 optical disc compact deck, the PDW-3000 optical disc studio deck and the PDW-V1 optical disc mobile deck.

The PFD23 disc has been replaced with model PFD23A. Please note the following updates:

• The PDW-1500 recorder UPGRADED with the optional software, PDBZ-E1500 (announced on February 15th, 2007) for Linear Editing functions, can only use the PFD23A disc.
• In such case, writing speed of the PFD23A is improved from 2.0x to 2.4x.
• The writing speed performance remains at 2.0x when the PFD23A is used with the rest of the XDCAM products or the non-upgraded PDW-1500.

Flexible Platform:
The professional optical disc is a very flexible platform on which an assortment of data in a variety of formats can reside. The use of optical disc technology eliminates the restrictions inherent in proprietary tape footprints, and allows a variety of different video formats to be recorded using the same disc. It handles information as 'data files', and is therefore extremely flexible as to what can be recorded to it. In addition to video and audio streams, you can record a variety of metadata, such as date/time/location information, scripts, low resolution video and audio, etc. And the amount of metadata you record is completely up to you, since the information does not have to reside on a limited, predetermined area of the disc.

Largest-Capacity Optical Disc:
The superior disc capacity of the professional optical disc enables you to make high-quality yet long-duration recordings. Its 23.3-GB data capacity translates to a recording time of 45 to 90 minutes depending on the bit rate the camera operator chooses.

High Transfer Rate:
The professional optical disc's data transfer rate is 72 Mb/s from a single optical head unit and 144 Mb/s on a dual head deck, providing stable recording and playback of high bit rate data such as a 50 Mb/s MPEG IMX stream.

Quick Random Access:
The nonlinear nature of the professional optical disc alone provides tremendous benefit when handling audio/video content. When a recording is played back from the disc, its physical location on the disc does not impact the time required to access it. Recordings can be accessed in a fraction of the equivalent time taken to access information on tape, making it much easier and faster to locate source material. This is the beauty of random access, and all Sony PDW Series products are equipped with powerful features - delivering innovation to all your programming operations.

Highly Reliable, Durable and Re-usable Medium:
Optical discs have a natural advantage since they suffer no mechanical contact during recording or playback, making the format ideal for continuous use and re-use. Professional optical discs are also highly resistant to dust, shock and scratches, packaged in an extremely durable and dust-resistant cartridge. They are resistant to heat and humidity, and are X-ray resistant - factors that make the professional optical disc ideal for use in harsh field environments, and also allow for long media life and long-term storage.