Panasonic introduces the new AG-HMC80 professional AVCCAM HD shoulder-mount camcorder that features both solid state DV as well as HD recording capabilities. The HMC80 features a professional 3-chip 3 Megapixel 3MOS imager for capturing 1920x1080p Full HD or 1280x720p AVCHD video and 10.6 Megapixel still images.
The AG-HMC80 uses MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 high profile encoding and offers four professional AVCCAM HD recording modes, including the highest-quality PH mode (average 21 Mbps/Max 24Mbps), the HA mode (approx.17 Mbps), the HG mode (approx.13 Mbps) and the extended recording HE mode (approx. 6 Mbps). It can also records standard-definition DV directly onto SD cards in the AVI Type 2 file format and offers squeeze, letter box and side crop options.
The Panasonic AG-HMC80 has a built-in stereo microphone. It supports SD/SDHC memory card up to 32GB and offers HDMI output, USB 2.0, composite output, analog component (BNC x 3) and IEEE 1394 output. HMC80 will be available in September for $2895.
