World’s First Blu-Ray Camcorder by Hitachi

[John McManimie]

I don't know if these are functional or prototypes:

http://www.techgadgets.in/digital-ca...er-by-hitachi/

[Albert Rudnicki]

It's beautiful :)

[Paulo Teixeira]

Original:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/do...20/hitachi.htm

English translated:
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babel...%2Fhitachi.htm

Easier to read summary:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english...070723/136497/

I was expecting a good quality CMOS sensor to be used in this camcorder and that’s exactly what it has but the disc capacity isn’t as high as I thought. 7 gigs is decent but 16.5 gig and 33 gig discs would have been perfect. Maybe it would have been too expansive to use higher capacity discs. Anyway that 7 gigs is most likely single layer so hopefully their will be 14 gig dual layer discs available.

[Simon Wyndham]

I'd buy that one in the foreground on looks alone!

[Bill Koehler]

7 GB (7,000,000,000) into one hour of recording works out to a bit rate of 15.55 Mb/sec. There is still a fair amount of work to be done to get it up to the maximum specification of 25 Mb/sec.

And it will be interesting to eventually see the price.
Is it really a worthy competitor to the Canon HV20?
Only time will tell.

I still find it interesting that no pro cameras have yet come out using AVCHD.
That I know of anyhow.

After all, the new stuff often debuts in the high end.
But not here.

[Robert Batta]

one more pic.
http://i.n.com.com/i/ne/p/2006-2/103...88_550x367.jpg

[Paulo Teixeira]

http://marketnews.ca/news_detail.asp?nid=2987

If only they included a focusing ring on both camcorders.

[Chris Hurd]

Don't forget the actual Hitachi (Japan) official page: http://av.hitachi.co.jp/cam/products_bd/index.html

[Bruno Donnet]

I think that the english pages are more usefull for most of the people visiting the forum --except Japanese people--... ;)
http://av.hitachi.com/camcorder/blu-ray/index.html

[Chris Hurd]

Even better. Thanks Bruno!

[Paul Izbicki]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

7 GB (7,000,000,000) into one hour of recording works out to a bit rate of 15.55 Mb/sec. There is still a fair amount of work to be done to get it up to the maximum specification of 25 Mb/sec.

And it will be interesting to eventually see the price.
Is it really a worthy competitor to the Canon HV20?
Only time will tell.

I still find it interesting that no pro cameras have yet come out using AVCHD.
That I know of anyhow.

After all, the new stuff often debuts in the high end.
But not here.

Why would they? As far as I remember (?) there is no TC component in the AVCHD spec, as it was announced. Sorry, no reference.

[Chris Hurd]

Good point Paul -- however I believe there is a TimeCode component in AVC Intra? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong please.

[Paul Izbicki]

You are correct, oh mighty Karnak, AVC does have TC, but it isn't available on all Pana cams- not HVX200 or 500. Starts at 2000, I believe.

Pi

[Jamie Allan]

I still find it interesting that no pro cameras have yet come out using AVCHD

Cos they're using AVC-intra for the Pro cameras with the higher data rates I rekons.

No point in getting excited about a blu ray camera, bit of a buzzword thing don't you think? How many consumers have blu ray players ? Whats the point in buying one if blu ray doesnt become the more adopted HD disc format? Nobody can say which one is gonna come out on top, the PS3 hasn't really helped the case IMO - overpriced and undersupported at launch, no major price drops planned, nobody seeing it as the all-seeing-all-doing media and gaming king that they touted it as apart from the fanboys...

Maybe I'm too cynical for a 20yr old?

[Paulo Teixeira]

Originally Posted by Jamie Allan

No point in getting excited about a blu ray camera, bit of a buzzword thing don't you think? How many consumers have blu ray players ? Whats the point in buying one if blu ray doesnt become the more adopted HD disc format? Nobody can say which one is gonna come out on top, the PS3 hasn't really helped the case IMO - overpriced and undersupported at launch, no major price drops planned, nobody seeing it as the all-seeing-all-doing media and gaming king that they touted it as apart from the fanboys...

The way I see it, why would you not want HD footage on mini Blu-Ray discs as apposed to standard mini DVD’s? That’s a full 7.5 gigs of storage for a single layer disc. Hitachi is in a very good position knowing that they will be the first company to advance to newer technology.

There are already around 5 million Blu-Ray units in people’s homes and yes that does include the PS3 and look how quickly PS3 sales got to be once Sony decided to decrease the price by 100 dollars. Sales went up by around 135%. People are already seeing it as a great media box and other than playing video games and watching Blu-Ray movies; you can serf the web, watch photos and view HDV and AVCHD files on a Data DVD. Because of that, your average consumer doesn’t need to know anything about authoring discs in order to play it on a PS3. If you think about it, the PS3 is the perfect compliment for a TV station just as long as the interns don’t use it for games when their working, On break that’s a different story. Anyway, If you don’t have a Blu-Ray player, it wont matter that much because you can hook up the camcorder to an HD TV thru HDMI or component.

Look how convenient the hard drive version is. You can record your footage on the hard drive and make Blu-Ray copies on the camcorder without using a computer. That’s a great way to give out copies to your friends.

Back in 2000, Hitachi was the first to release a consumer mini DVD camcorder and they sold so fast that Panasonic had to immediately make their own, and once Sony saw how popular they were, they decided to release their own version as well and now, even Canon has mini DVD based camcorders. The same thing will happen to this camcorder where the other companies will have to release their own version.