Hitachi boiling up a Blu-Ray camcorder

When camcorders with mini-DVD recorders inside of them first hit the scene, geeks moaned as loud as the technologically clueless cheered: the convenience of not having to deal with tape was great, but the whole MPEG-2 compression thing coupled with the half hour recording time definitely ruined the party. Fortunately for both groups, Hiroto Yamauchi, a marketing guy for Hitachi -- a company which currently makes a line of interestingly-named Wooo DVD camcorders -- has revealed that the company is hoping to bring out a camcorder based off a mini Blu-Ray format within one to two years. The idea is sound in theory, but the current non-existence of both an 8cm Blu-Ray player/recorder drive and the actual physical discs makes this little more than a distant dream. A distant dream that could easily be shattered if the Blu-Ray medium as a whole fails, which is probably why this announcement takes the form of a long term promise, and not a short term commitment.

[ZRX @ Oct 3rd 2006 8:35PM]

Go a little smaller than 8cm and you might as well make a Blu-ray UMD..........

[richard @ Oct 3rd 2006 8:40PM]

according to my calculations an 8 cm Bluray would be able to hold 6.6 gbs aka 288 mins of recording, not bad

[MD @ Oct 3rd 2006 8:58PM]

Sorry, you're a little off. Not sure how you calculated that one. A 8cm Blu-ray disc holds :: drum roll :: 15GB SL, and 30GB DL. That's right, a mini Blu-ray holds as much as a full size HD-DVD Disc. hah!
(for all your flamers, there's no point in arguing, this point was brought out at a Blu-ray convention I had to attend)

[Mike @ Oct 3rd 2006 11:54PM]

... and we all know how successful DVD-based camcorders are/were. Disc-based formats do not translate well too camcorders since it's a whole lot more difficult to pull the content OFF of the disc for editing.

[Deluxe @ Oct 3rd 2006 11:38PM]

Yeah *Takes disc out of camcorder and puts into drive*. That was /so/ difficult.

[dave-o @ Oct 4th 2006 11:01AM]

I dont get it. With HDD technology what it is today, I see no reason to make any mainstream cameras with disc-based recording. 15-30GB on a small HDD would still be quite inexpensive. In another year, 15-30GB of flash memory will be quite affordable too.

I have a Sony mini-disc cam and it has truly been annoying. Would much prefer HDD or flash storage.

[J @ Oct 4th 2006 1:06PM]

i guess the real advantage would be if you are doing a lot of recording away from your computer.

[E71 @ Oct 4th 2006 3:36PM]

I thought Hitachi is part of camp HD-DVD?

[omeg12121293 @ Oct 4th 2006 8:37PM]

does that mean you can play the disc on a ps2 or any other blu-ray playing device?

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GI

[mario @ Oct 5th 2006 8:49PM]

I�ll love to have this... i love my dvd based camcorder, and i can wait to use a disc 10 times the actual capacity of a mini dvd.