You may not be familiar with the term, the product, or maybe even the concept, but iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable Storage) is big…in Japan. There, the compact, ruggedized storage is turning up in devices such as Hitachi’s plasma TV, which features a slot to hold these hot swappable HDDs. The consumer version of the drive contains—don’t be surprised—content protection firmware, in this case from the SAFIA group that can be triggered by content owners (TV stations, studios) to control who can record a TV show or movie.

The iVDR Consortium itself began in 2002 by companies including Canon, Fujitsu, Hitachi, SANYO, and Victor Company of Japan, joined later by the likes of Seagate and Maxell. However, the concept of creating a removable hard disk drive industry standard, one compatible with a broad range of devices from AV to PC’s, never really caught on with U.S. consumers.

But Maxell, better known for its pro and consumer tape and disc products, saw a need for pros to have such a high-speed layoff capability for storage in a form factor that easily fits in a palm or back pocket.

Now, working closely with Panasonic and Ikegami, Maxell has developed an even tougher version (drop it from 4 feet onto a hard surface without worry) that offers more connection potential, with eSata, Firewire, and USB ports.

The aim? Allow broadcasters and others shooting with Panasonic P2 cards (Hitachi will also be using P2 for an upcoming HD camcorder–see Cynthia Wisehart’s blog entry today) to safely offload the cards on location, quickly returning them to use.

In the Maxell booth, I saw a near final version of the minimal docking station that can attach to the back of a shoulder-mounted camcorder. Expect to hear the term “Field Tough Media” tossed around when Maxell refers to the iVDR; I can at least attest that it is a tight little piece of hardware, very light at 181 grams (0.4 pounds), and should add nothing to the feel of a camera on your shoulder (though building up superstructures of storage and batteries and wireless communications really looks to be getting out of hand).

So the negatives that Panasonic has endured with P2 shooters needing to handle pricey small solid state storage cards that need downloading to be reusable is finally getting some alternative solutions. This looks like a pretty good one. The drives aren’t really much more pricey than what you’d buy in the consumer realm, and you getting 10-bit, 4:2:2 recording securely put away into an easy to handle form factor. The 160GB drive and adapter will be available Q2 2008, followed by a 250 GB drive in Q3 2008. While the SAFIA secure data encryption isn’t implemented in the pro version, Maxell employees told me it could be implemented easily enough if there was enough interest. Get more info at www.maxell.com.