Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook: Panasonic debuts HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700 1080p camcorders (updated)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Panasonic debuts HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700 1080p camcorders (updated)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/09/panasonic-debuts-hdc-hs700-and-hdc-tm700-1080p-camcorders/

Panasonic's brewing up some 1080p goodies in the new HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700 (pictured) camcorders, both of which do up 1080p video at a nice 60 fps (or 60i or 24p), and record using a 3MOS sensor system. The new cameras are differentiated with a 240GB HDD in the HS700 and the 32GB of flash memory in the TM700, and act as a followup to the well-lauded HS300 / TM300 series. Both of the new shooters are otherwise pretty much identical, including SD / SDHC / SDXC memory card expansion, new 35mm-style wide angle lenses, 12x optical zoom and some gyroscope-based "Power O.I.S." image stabilization to beef up the experience. They can also do 14.2 megapixel stills and record 5.1 surround sound with the five built-in microphones. There's no word on price yet, but it'll be announced 30 days in advance of when they ship, whenever that might be. For reference, the TM300 hovers around the $1,100 mark currently, so we doubt these will be undercutting that unit on price. There's PR after the break.

Still have pricing on the brain? Panasonic is spilling the price beans on its HDC-TM55 ($530), HDC-HS60 ($700), HDC-SD60 ($500) camcorders, plus even the piddling little SDR-HD85 ($350), SDR-T50 ($270) and SDR-S50 ($250) shooters. All of these were announced back at CES and will be available by the middle of March.

Update: Amazon UK has revealed a price and expected arrival date for the HS700. Priced at £1,199 ($1,873), the camcorder is listed as scheduled for a March 1 release, so there won't be much of a wait for the wealthy among us [Thanks, Ron].

Gallery: Panasonic debuts HDC-HS700 and HDC-TM700 1080p camcorders