Hitachi's DZ-BD70 and 30GB DZ-BD7H hybrid Blu-ray camcorders: global in October

In case you didn't believe 'em the first time, Hitachi is back with more, much more, on the world's first Blu-ray Disc camcorder. First off, we're looking at an August 30th launch in Japan (rest of world, October) of two models: the DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H hybrid which packs both an 8-cm BD writer and 30GB disk are priced at ¥160,000 (about $1,347) and ¥190,000 (about $1,600), respectively. As we heard, each packs a 5.3 megapixel CMOS sensor delivering 2.07 megapixel videos or 4.32 megapixel stills. That translates to about an hour of 1,920 x 1,080 MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video on a single-sided, single-layer 8-cm BD disc or 4 hours to disk -- more if you dial-back the resolution. Both feature HDMI and Firewire USB 2.0 jacks while the hybrid packs a convenient one-touch dubbing function to share your vids with all those gaming grannys with Blu-ray players of their own.

Gallery: Hitachi's DZ-BD70 and 30GB DZ-BD7H hybrid Blu-ray camcorders: global in October

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[Via Akihabara News, thanks MB]

Read -- Press Release
Read -- DZ-BD7H / DZ-BD70

[Sebastien Gomez @ Aug 2nd 2007 3:14AM]

Hitachi--- oh boy not again!

Price----- is a little too high
Format--- Why the hell BLU-RAY
Quality--- not the best I've seen with other brands.

Sebastien Gomez

[Deluxe @ Aug 2nd 2007 6:00AM]

For a worlds-first, the price is fine.
For a HD camcorder, BD's make the most sense.
For quality, you're hardly in a position to form a valid opinion on a to-be-released product.

I reccomend garbage-bag ties for your lips :)

[SimbaDogg @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:15PM]

@Deluxe
hahaha, agreed

[MacGuru @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:42PM]

Why the hell blu-ray?

Have you seen a HD-DVD recorder anywhere???

[Tim @ Aug 2nd 2007 4:21AM]

HD vs BD, so hard to call. My moneys still on a late comeback from betamax.

[j.d.ripper @ Aug 2nd 2007 5:43AM]

Yeah, I'm stocking a couple hundred of those betamaxs in my basement, I know their comeback is imminent.
Finally I'll be able to sell them on ebay and I'll be rich !
The first step in my plan to take over the world !
muhhhaaaaaahaaaa .... muhhhaaaaaahaaaa .... muhhhaaaaaahaaaa

[Richard @ Aug 2nd 2007 7:57AM]

I can't help thinking it looks like the millennium falcon...

[E71 @ Aug 2nd 2007 8:07AM]

Ah Hitachi. Knew you'd come crawling back onto Sony's side.

Definitely the hottest small-size 1080p video cam out there.

[Jason @ Aug 2nd 2007 8:47AM]

To me, it looks more like brute shot from halo.

[friko @ Aug 2nd 2007 10:53AM]

lol, that's exactly what I thought. :D

[b_a_boone @ Aug 2nd 2007 11:08AM]

$500 this time next year, I can't wait lol! I don't think many people are going to run down to Best Buy for full HD cameras when very few people have over 720p and 1080i specs on their TV's. When it comes down to it HD has better content at the current time but the memory capacity will play a big role in the next 24months. Stand a lone DvD players will phase out slowly and media centers will start to take over or converted pc's. More storage same space consumption it's easy to see.

[Keith @ Aug 2nd 2007 11:25AM]

An interesting aspect of the format war that is not discussed often is the problems Toshiba is having producing HD DVD writers. As we can see here, those problems do not exists for Blu-ray.

[Rick wilson @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:14PM]

haaaaahhaaaaa! MINI Blu-ray discs hold as much as a FULL size HD DVD Disc... hee.

[Rick wilson @ Aug 2nd 2007 2:17PM]

oh, thats the internal hdd... oh well, blu-ray FTW! HAAA