http://www.digitalcamcordernews.com/posts/2007/08/hitachi-dz-bd70-dz-bd7h-tn.jpg

Today just seems to be the day for camcorder announcements, and Hitachi has joined the club by officially unveiling the world’s first Blu-Ray camcorders. The Hitachi DZ-BD70 will record to mini Blu-Ray disks and the Hitachi DZ-BD7H will record to both hard drive and Blu-Ray disk, which is what I would call the ultimate hybrid camcorder.

Both the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H are capable of recording one hour of Full HD (1920×1080) footage to Blu-Ray Disc (BD). BDs have 5 times the capacity of regular 8cm MiniDVDs and can be played in any compatible Blu-Ray player.

Both camcorders also feature a 1/2.8″, 5.3 megapixel CMOS sensor with an effective 2.07 megapixels for video and 4.32 megapixels for stills. You will also get a 10x optical zoom (electronically stabilized) and 2.7″ widescreen LCD on the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H.

Video on the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H can be output via HDMI, S-video or USB 2.0. Thankfully, Hitachi has also included a microphone jack on both camcorders.

The hybrid Hitachi DZ-BD7H also includes a dubbing capability, which allows you to transfer your video from the 30GB hard drive to Blu-Ray disc at 2x speed. This lets you do some basic in-camcorder editing without the need for a computer. You can even downconvert to standard definition and dub to regular DVD-R or DVD-RW media for playback in that “old” DVD player.

If you are using the HDD or a BD-RE disc (re-writable version of a BD disc), Hitachi says you can do basic editing functions such as split, delete and connect right inside the camcorder, no PC required. You can also create and rearrange playlists of your clips.

The Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H will begin selling in Japan later this month, and will be available in overseas markets starting in October. Right now, no price point has been announced.

http://www.digitalcamcordernews.com/2007/08/hitachi-dz-bd70-and-dz-bd7h-bu-ray-camcorders#more-1012

Full specs of the camcorders can be found here (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.phileweb.com/news/d-av/200708/02/18967.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DDZ-BD70%2Bmbps%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG)

It uses a 8cm BD-RE (7.5GB, approx. $20).

Blu-ray will be unrivaled in this market. Solid-state media is more expensive and HD DVD has no cheap solution for writable.

The difference is that solid state media cameras are meant to download the footage to other media, and then reuse the card over and over again.

20$ a disc is very expensive.

Both sony and panasonic has dvd media HD camcorder, cant record as much but they are cheaper for storage.

The difference is that solid state media cameras are meant to download the footage to other media, and then reuse the card over and over again.

20$ a disc is very expensive.

Both sony and panasonic has dvd media HD camcorder, cant record as much but they are cheaper for storage.BD-RE is rewritable. What are you talking about?

I like HDD camcorder more than ODD camcorder

If you read carefully the DZ-BD7H has both.

Hopefully it has decent quality optics, sensor,processing and onboard editing functions.

Wonder if they'll ever release one with a full size BD.

It uses a 8cm BD-RE (7.5GB, approx. $20).

Blu-ray will be unrivaled in this market. Solid-state media is more expensive and HD DVD has no cheap solution for writable.


This is my next camcorder :) Excellent

Why isn't this in the Blu-ray section? Just wondering.

I'm a HDD camcorder fan myself. The only optical camera I'd use would be XDCAM.

http://gizmodo.com/assets/images/gallery/4/2007/08/medium_983769224_315bbd6874_o.jpg

Fixed. :p

Nothing like putting the flamebait out there. And yet another thread bites the big one.

Nothing like putting the flamebait out there. And yet another thread bites the big one.
Relax Francis, it was a joke... note the smiley. ;)

Oh that's right... how careless of me...

I like HDD camcorder more than ODD camcorder
+1

ODD camcorder = yuck.

How good will it be a error correction/stability as using a camcorder can shake the optical pickup quite bad, and the data layer is quite close to the surface?
I notice it says the disks will play in "compatible" players, any word on which won't be compatible?

Why isn't this in the Blu-ray section? Just wondering.


Probably because this is the world's first camcorder to use the high definition optical disc formats.

Why isn't this in the Blu-ray section? Just wondering.

I'm a HDD camcorder fan myself. The only optical camera I'd use would be XDCAM.

You're more than welcome to post Camera's that record to HD DVD discs in this forum .

You're more than welcome to post Camera's that record to HD DVD discs in this forum .

Are there any?

Are there any?
Nope, and not many burners or media out in the wild either. Word on the street is they are having difficulties getting it to work.

You're more than welcome to post Camera's that record to HD DVD discs in this forum .

I'm a HDD fan for cameras as I stated. Even if the Blu-ray discs are $10 for 60 minutes of recording that's expensive compared to an "all you can eat" HDD camera with 40-60GB of storage.

I realize the conundrum for manufacturers. They don't want to leave the media companies out in a lurch but progress is progress.

Eventually solid state will usurp both technologies. I've already seen 32GB thumb drives.

scratch that

http://www.techdigest.tv/2006/04/the_64gb_usb_fl.html

64GB. Of course the price is ungodly high but I imagine in 5 years your typical consumer cam will be HD and very small with little moving parts.

Let me not stray too far off topic though as I do like the idea of a Blu-ray camera and I'm glad the Hitachi is here. The more HD competition the more the prices come down.

Nope, and not many burners or media out in the wild either. Word on the street is they are having difficulties getting it to work.

I see, thanks for the info.

so this means. i can soon start making my own high res porn videos!!!

I am sure Paris Hilton is delighted as well, with this amazing piece of equipment :)

so this means. i can soon start making my own high res porn videos!!!

I am sure Paris Hilton is delighted as well, with this amazing piece of equipment :)

Geez, I guess I'm in the minority as I haven't slept with her.

I hope you took your Hepititus A through G shots. :eek:

I don't see anything in the specs that were provided by the OP's link that this will do xvYCC/x.v.Color which is 30 million colors instead of 16.7 million. There are HD Camcorders out that already do this.

And this is a BD only camcorder - why is it in this forum?

Cost of the Mini BD Discs:

New York — Verbatim and Imation announced the shipping of the first wave of Mini Blu-ray recordable/rewriteable (BD-R/RE) media to reach the consumer market.

The new 8cm 7.5GB discs provide approximately one hour of continuous video capture time on a single side in 1920 by 1080i high definition, and approximately two hours of video capture time with images recorded at 1440 by 1080i.

Verbatim will make Mini BD media available in August in Japan, where the new Hitachi BD-compatible camcorder will be launched. Verbatim will begin shipments of the media to other parts of the world, including North America, when the new BD-compatible camcorders become available locally.

Ths discs include a proprietary hard-coat finish with anti-static and anti-scratch properties, Verbatim said.

The media is produced at Verbatim parent MKM’s optical disc manufacturing facility in Mizushima, Japan.

The discs will retail for $20 each “initially,” according to a Verbatim spokesman.

Imation’s TDK branded discs will begin shipping in the United States in September at suggested retails of $24.99 for -R and $34.99 for -RE respectively. TDK manufactures these discs and supplies the product to Imation for sale under the TDK Life on Record brand.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6465071.html

Wouldn't it make more sense to put a 120GB 2.5" notebook hard drive in one of these things? Then you could store HOURS of HD recordings instead of /an/ hour, then dump it out to your PC via USB or Wi-Fi when you want. You could even put a Gigabit Ethernet connector in the darn thing for cheap and make it REAL fast to off-load the video.

Oh, wait, it's better this way because it pushes Blu-Ray. Yay, go Blu! :rolleyes:

This is a solution for idiots. Fortunately, there's a potential buyer for this thing born every minute.

Wouldn't it make more sense to put a 120GB 2.5" notebook hard drive in one of these things? Then you could store HOURS of HD recordings instead of /an/ hour, then dump it out to your PC via USB or Wi-Fi when you want.

Close (http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/08/sony-intros-hdr-sr5c-camcorder-with-100gb-hard-drive/)

BLu Ray is everywhere. Hitachi...another huge CE company adopting Blu Ray. Seems the hardware manufacturers already see Blu Ray as teh industry standard for next gen video. Besides, the Blu Ray logo is sooo cool!:D

^^ Ok, now that that proclamation is past ;) ...

what do these cameras use as the codec to compress the video it records? None of the PR releases seem to say...

BTW - I never did like the cameras with built-in DVD drives - didn't seem smooth, and I would always worry abouyt moving around to suddenly...

This is a solution for idiots.
anyone who doesn't like to do things like u is clearly an idiot. nice.

anyone who goes on holiday and wants to record many hours of footage will probably be pleased to have a removable method of storage, instead of relying on one built-in hdd.

I think the point of the post was that Blu Ray is expanding into a new area and a major CE manufacturer has adopted the technology.

From the latest update to the article:

The Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H will begin selling in Japan later this month, and will be available in overseas markets starting in October. Right now, no price point has been announced the MSRP for the DZ-BD7H is $1,600 and the DZ-BD70 will set you back $1,350.

So right in the ballpark of other HD Camcorders. The one with both HDD and BD seems like a bargain, actually.

As far as codec, I thought I remembered reading somewhere that this uses AVCHD; the same as used by Sony & Panny on their HDD & Flash media HD Camcorders (a variation of H.264 developed by Sony & Matsushita; which Canon is also planning on using in an upcoming camcorder). The more mature HD codec for camcorders is HDV; which is typically a tape-based format based on MPEG-2. This is what the non-HDD Sony's and the Canon HV20 use. So far reviews seem to favor HDV as far as video quality goes vs. AVCHD; but they are still fairly early in the AVCHD life-cycle, so I'm sure this will change.

Here (http://zunixe.com/the-first-hitachi-blu-ray-camcorder.htm) is a link from an earlier report which confirms H.264 as the codec used. Doesn't specifically say AVCHD; but I'm guessing that's what it' use.

Yes it does AVC, which basically translates into AVCHD in camcorder terms. I'd assume it will play back on all current Blu-ray players(edit: got it wrong the player has to have BD-RE Ver.3.0/BD-R Ver 2.0 playback, the PS3 definitely has this feature)

It also has dual writing capabilities to both Blu-ray and DVD, the Blu-ray is at 2X too !!! MPEG2 for the DVD.

It does a full 1920 x1080 frame like the JVC but with a sensor the same size as the Canon ones (1/2.8), this camcorder is starting to look more and more attractive, surprising considering it's a Hitachi

And TDK is doing the blank media :)

damn, that's pretty cool if only it weren't so ugly. lol. my sony HC1 cam eats through $19 (canadian) HDV tapes every 63 min. and i generally don't reuse the tapes for fear of dropouts or lubricant issues. i don't wanna start using regular minidv tapes cuz i started the cam with a couple of hdv tapes and don't wanna mix tapes.

if they can make that thing not ugly and relegate that HUGE blu-ray logo in a small corner somewhere, and enough NLE programs start supporting blu-ray, then i might think about it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to put a 120GB 2.5" notebook hard drive in one of these things? Then you could store HOURS of HD recordings instead of /an/ hour, then dump it out to your PC via USB or Wi-Fi when you want. You could even put a Gigabit Ethernet connector in the darn thing for cheap and make it REAL fast to off-load the video.

Oh, wait, it's better this way because it pushes Blu-Ray. Yay, go Blu! :rolleyes:

This is a solution for idiots. Fortunately, there's a potential buyer for this thing born every minute.

Except its a whole lot simpler for people to just take the disc out of the camcorder and put it in a BD player and have it play back. Belive it or not, having to download from a HD to PC then burn to disk is complicated for a lot of people.

I can't believe somebody posted something to this forum that might have suggested the one format was ahead of the other format. Where's a moderator when you need one, this poster should be banned for life.

anyone who goes on holiday and wants to record many hours of footage will probably be pleased to have a removable method of storage, instead of relying on one built-in hdd.

Yes, because it's easier to keep track of ~16 mini-discs (at $20 each!!) than it is to keep track of one camera with a hard drive. Not to mention that with appropriate design, it's as easy to swap a hard drive as it is a disc.

I can see someone exhausting one hour of vacation video time. 16 hours?

Except its a whole lot simpler for people to just take the disc out of the camcorder and put it in a BD player and have it play back. Belive it or not, having to download from a HD to PC then burn to disk is complicated for a lot of people.

Unless they're at a friend's place where said friend didn't spend $600 on a BD player, yes? Easier means exist, like, I don't know, a freaking composite, USB, or HDMI cable from the camcorder directly to the TV, maybe?

I stand by my statement - this is a product marketed to idiots.

Kudos to the guy who posted the below link. Sweet irony that it's a Sony:

HDR-FR5C (http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665156112)

Ahhhhh the old "simplicity" rant.

Have any of you seen some of the ingest tools with HDD cameras? It's as easy as popping up a menu and choosing clips. You can transfer the clips to your laptops harddrive.

Optical disc recorders (consumer) are for lazy people IMO. If they cannot be bothered to transfer and edit their video then I shudder to think about what the quality of their "productions" are.

I'd like to see BD optical camcorders employ flash support as well. There's no reason why both cannot be supported other than cost.

I can't see the specs page at work, does it record in 5.1 surround?

I can't see the specs page at work, does it record in 5.1 surround?

Um, how exactly would you get 5.1 sound to a camcorder? You'd need a whole crew around you holding boom mics or something.

Yes, because it's easier to keep track of ~16 mini-discs (at $20 each!!) than it is to keep track of one camera with a hard drive. Not to mention that with appropriate design, it's as easy to swap a hard drive as it is a disc.

I can see someone exhausting one hour of vacation video time. 16 hours?
depends how much you shoot and how long you're on holiday. my last trip to the states was for a month, while one of my mates is just back from a 2 month trip to new zealand. 2hrs footage a week is kinda limited, particularly if you can't be assed to edit while you're out there. keeping track of rolls of film was never an issue in the past, so not sure why it should be a problem with mini-bds. just keep them in the same case as the camera. while swaping a hard drive is an interesting solution, but not entirely practicle. it also doesn't play in bd or dvd players, negating the convenience aspect. while bd decks are currently expensive this is not going to remain the case for long, so mass adoption is quite likely.

Nice!

I am in the market for a new camcorder, this might be just the ticket.

Um, how exactly would you get 5.1 sound to a camcorder? You'd need a whole crew around you holding boom mics or something.

Many Sony models record sound in 5.1. I don't know the tech behind it but they can

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&categoryId=3556

it would be cool if it had component or hdmi inputs so that we could record hd programs to bd-re's. maybe in the future there will be home recorders.

Um, how exactly would you get 5.1 sound to a camcorder? You'd need a whole crew around you holding boom mics or something.

Simple, they have 5 mics inside of it, well that's how the Sony camcorders work.

it would be cool if it had component or hdmi inputs so that we could record hd programs to bd-re's. maybe in the future there will be home recorders

I remember some of the early VHS camcorders had video inputs, those huge ones like cannons.

I'm pretty sure we'll see home DVR BD-R recorders, wait what am I thinking they already have them, only problem is only in Japan.

those camcorders, at least the ones I looked at the specs on, just have stereo mics. They're just doing some sort of processing to achieve a pseudo 5.1

putting a bunch of mics in that close proximity wouldn't produce a good surround effect anyway.

Sorry made a mistake on my last post, it's the newer panasonics that have 5 mics. But yes alot of them just do a pseudo 5.1 with 2 mics.