Hitachi DZ-BD70A Blu-ray and DZ-BD7HA Hybrid HD Camcorders

Hitachi unveiled two new HD video camcorders that can record video onto Blu-ray media. Touted as the world's first Blu-ray Disc camcorder, Hitachi unveiled the new DZ-BD70A and DZ-BD7HA camcorders.

DZ-BD70A
The DZ-BD70A is a single drive camcorder capable of recording 1 hour of Full HD (1920x1080) high definition video on a standard 8cm single-sided Blu-ray disk (BD-R and BD-RE). For natural colors, the Hitachi camcorder uses a 5.3 megapixel CMOS image sensor and HD quality 12-element lens system. For additional media storage, the camcorder is equipped with an SD card slot - great for storing digital still images taken with the camcorder. The still image resolution is 4.32 megapixels, which is pretty decent. As is common to many other camcorders, the DZ-BD70A features a Photo Capture feature to grab a still frame from any video and save it as a photo onto the SD card (at 2.1 megapixel resolution). As an added bonus, the DZ-BD70A can also record videos onto DVD discs.

DZ-BD7HA
The DZ-BD7HA is a hybrid model offering both an internal 30 GB hard drive and Blu-ray recording capability. The 30GB is good for up to 4 hours of Full HD 1920x1080 HX mode video or almost 8 hours in HS mode (1440x1080). With the touch of a single button, videos on the internal HDD can be burnt onto a Blu-ray disc or DVD (thanks to the Transcoding feature). So you won't have to wait until you get access to a computer when you want to share your videos.

Both camcorders feature 10x zoom (non-spherical lens), and come in a sleek, round body. HDMI and component video output are available for video playback. A built-in Interactive Guide available on the camcorders help those that are new to them.

The DZ-BD70A Hitachi Blu-ray camcorder is priced at US $1,299, while the DZ-BD7HA Hybrid HDD/Blu-ray camcorder comes at US $1,499. Both camcorders will hit North America in October 2007.