Yes they are coming in September. Camcorders capable of recording on Blu-ray discs. This is a major breakthrough for the Sony format. At $1299 and $1499 for the two models being offered, consumers and prosumers alike will be able to record with Blu-ray disc technology.
However there is a down side. Consumers don’t exactly trust the camcorder record-to-disc technology. I don’t trust it. And Blu-ray discs, from rumors around town, are 10x more sensitive than standard discs. So how will these cameras withstand the rigorous abuse of the average consumer? Only time will tell.
The saving grace is that the flagship model, the DZ-BD7HA, is what they call a hybrid model that is capable of recording not only on a Blu-ray Disc but also on a 30GB built-in hard disk drive. So why even use the disc then? Well, you will want to clean that hard drive off after storing 4 hours of full resolution 1980×1080 video. And Hitachi makes this extremely easy.
A built-in method of transferring the data from the hard drive to a Blu-ray disc comes standard on the $1499 model. So, set your transfer and go to bed. When you wake up you should have a Blu-ray disc ready to pop-in to your Blu-ray Disc player or Playstation 3.
The lesser model, the DZ-BD7HA, will sell for $1299 but is only able to record to disc. For another $200, how could you possibly pass up the built-in hard drive and transfer to disc functionality?
America’s Home Video look out. America’s homes are going hi def.
