Hitachi Announces New Mini-BD Camcorders

 

BlurayCam_LeftAngle3 Hitachi, this week announced two new HD camcorders that can record full 1920x1080 resolution video onto 8cm mini-BD-R and BD-RE discs.  The DZ-BD70A and DZ-BD7HA camcorder should be available in October at a list price of $1,299 and $1,499 respectively.

Both new models feature:

  • 5.3 megapixel CMOS image sensor
  • 10x optical zoom
  • 7.5GB mini-BD disc recorder capable of storing 1 hour of 1920x1080 video or 2 hours of 1440x1080 video
  • mini-DVD-R/-RW/-RAMs are also accepted for recording SD content
  • SD card slot for storage of 4.32 megapixel still photos

The DZ-BD7HA model adds a 30GB hard drive into the mix, capable of recording 4 hours of 1920x1080 video or 8 hours of 1440x1080 video without the need for blank media.  Video stored on the hard drive can be edited and copied to/from mini-BD discs within the camcorder itself for the maximum flexibility.

So, just a recap.  We now have numerous Blu-ray video players, a Blu-ray gaming system (PS3), a growing selection of BD-recordable drives for the PC, and BD-recordable camcorders.  Add to that the BD-recordable video devices available throughout Asia, and you can see that in just over a year Blu-ray has gone from a "concept" to a full-fledged multi-media format.

HD DVD, on the other hand, has video players from one manufacturer, a video game/PC add-on (from that same manufacturer), and notebook PC-only recorder (and did I mention it's from that same manufacturer?).  Oh, and that recorder -- it will only burn at 1x speed, on single-layer (15GB) write-once discs.  The "fully-featured" drives have been "coming soon" for over a year now, yet are still nowhere in sight.  And that's the format that claims to have the "completed spec."

Now, which format do you want to take over as the next-gen optical disc format?

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