Panasonic AG-HMC70 3-CCD AVCHD Shoulder-Mount MiniDV Camcorder, 12x Optical Zoom, 3" LCD Monitor, SD/SDHC Memory Card Slot,

The Panasonic AG-HMC70 is a 3-CCD AVCHD Shoulder-Mount Camcorder. It provides entry-level professionals with an easy-to-use, high-quality, solid-state HD recording solution at an affordable price. As the first shoulder-mount camcorder in Panasonic's professional AVCHD line-up, the HMC70 utilizes the AVCHD High Profile video codec, which offers similar image quality to HDV 1080i at about half the bandwidth.

This second-generation, affordable HD format offers longer recording times and half the storage requirement of older systems. As easy to use as a digital camera, the HMC70 records onto standard SD/SDHC cards to assure a fast tapeless production workflow. It gives you fast access to content without fast forward or rewinding and footage is immediately available to editing systems without the ingest delay and additional cost of a playback deck.

SD and SDHC cards are widely available and content can be played back in AVCHD-compatible consumer products with SD card slots, including Blu-ray players (Panasonic DMP-BD10AK Blu-ray Disc Player), Sony Playstation 3, computers (using an AVHCD decoder software) and a growing number of large HD flat screen displays and front or rear-screen projectors. Using just one 16GB SDHC memory card, the HMC70 can record over 2.6 hours at 13Mbps, the HMC70's highest quality mode, or up to 6 hours at 6Mbps, the camera's extended recording mode.