The consumer-grade Panasonic SD9 supports 17 mbps, FWIW. I suspect that would be the minimum for "enhanced mode."

I think the 150 is actually the replacement for the DVX100.

Sounds sweet to me.

Here's hoping for 24Mbps (I know, but one can dream), higher than 12x zoom (14x? 20x? hell, Canon did THAT), time lapse (like in the 100a) and, oh, I don't know, under $3500 CDN?

One can dream.

Yes, one can dream.

sincerely,


ian

Eugenia,

But you don't really need to buy more and more and MORE SD cards.

Say the 150 has...4 slots (for arguments sake).

You only need one 2 Gb SD card, but you could spring for more and kit out with four 2Gb (or 4, or 8, or 12, or 16Gb if you desire) cards per camera and you're done. No more tape, either. Just swap and dump.

I wonder if Panasonic will offer a hard-drive to dump to like they have for P2 cards?

Doesn't one of the consumer AVCHD cams from Panny come with a 40Gb hard-drive unit to "dump" to?

No more tape. Yay!

sincerely,


ian

Actually the lack of a hard drive makes it *less* expensive.

Bit rate does not determine image quality; the efficiency of the image processor does. The HV20 has Canon's Digic DV II processor, which is the key to its high image quality.

Then it wouldn't be an AVCHD camcorder.

Press releases now updated with product photos -- sorry I didn't have these ready before I left the house yesterday (had to bail out early to take the wife to the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo for V-Day).

What is Panasonic thinking??? They're coming out with a consumer AVCHD camera (HDC-SD9) that will record at 17mbps, but limiting the newly announced "professional" AVCHD cameras to 13mbps???

I would assume that this is temporary. Still, it's odd.

I think you guys need to read the the AG-HMC150 press release more carefully. It says "In addition, an enhanced mode with a higher bit rate is planned to be incorporated into the HMC150 for higher-level use."

Thank you Chris. I did indeed miss that. It makes the HMC-150 a heck of a lot more interesting to consider. I sure hope they are talking about 17+mbps (theoretically comparable quality to 35mpbs MPEG 2). That could be a heck of a camera if the CCDs are high quality (and truly high res).

I think AG-HMC150 will be well accepted. Sounds great for the second cam.

It also has an HDMI port, hopefully HDMI 1.3b supporting 10-bit (or better) 4:2:2. I just hope the CCDs are better than 960 x 540.

It would be nice if Panasonic would give us a ballpark idea of what kind of price tag to expect on the HMC-150. This could be a sweet camera for shooting 720p.

The price will have to be a lot less than the Sony Z7 which has both SD and tape recording capability. May be by the fall Sony will have FX1/FX7 replacement too!!!

Ron Evans

It ends up having all of the recording formats that I expected (http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...036#post823036) but I’d be surprised if it gets released with only one memory card slot. Still, using flash over a standard hard drive is a great idea because of the reliability.

I'd be willing to bet that they are using their 960x540 1/3" chips.