Digital Trends

You know the drill—HDD and flash memory-based high-def camcorders are hot as blank tape and disc models fall out of favor. Recently we reviewed two newly introduced hard disc drive editions—the JVC GZ-HD40 and Canon Vixia HG21. Now it’s Panasonic’s turn for a new AVCHD high-def model but this one only records to SDHC cards. Since there’s no drive, disc or tape mechanism it’s incredibly compact and lightweight (13.4 ounces loaded versus 19 for the HG21). And after getting a world of grief from reviewers including yours truly, the company has moved from a trio of CCD chips to three CMOS sensors. Hopefully this will bring Panasonic back into the game but there’s a lot more to camcorders than imaging devices. Let’s see if our friends from Osaka have something to cheer about—or if they have to go back to the drawing board…