Record HD video to hard drive, BD, and flash

(Credit: Hitachi)

Few things work better for getting consumers to adopt a new format than making it convenient. Hitachi's follow-up to its DZ-BD7HA Blu-ray camcorder does just that. Along with being able to record videos and stills in full HD (1,920x1,080) to a 8cm BD/DVD drive (that according to Hitachi is 20-percent quieter), you can capture "up to 4 hours 20 minutes of 1,920x1,080 video or 8 hours 40 minutes of 1,440x1,080 video onto the built-in 30 GB HDD." There's also an integrated SDHC slot that'll let you record video and stills to flash media, too.

While having access to three recording options is handy, what's equally convenient is a single-button dub from the hard drive or SDHC cards to the BD drive--either in high def for Blu-ray Discs or it will transcode HD video to standard-definition DVDs. There are built-in editing tools as well for cutting up your content before it hits a disc.

Look for the DZ-BD10HA ($1,099) in September 2008.

[Wes#1]

I can see where it might be convenient to record " 4 hours 20 minutes of 1,920x1,080 video" on this unit's hard drive, then use the " single-button dub" feature to copy this to the built in Blu-ray disc drive... But how many of the tiny (8cm) BD discs would it take to hold it all?? And would this dub be 1:1 speed?? Information, please!

[joshua.goldman]

According to Hitachi:
When dubbing from either the hard drive or the SDHC card slot the camcorder will prompt you the number of discs it will take to dub all the scenes that have been selected. Each 8cm BD-R/RE discs can hold 1 hour of Full HD (1920x1080 HX mode) video, which means it would take 4 full discs plus another that is only a third full to transfer 30GB of video. The dubbing speed is rated at 4x so a full hour of HD video will take 15 minutes to transfer to a BD disc.