Panasonic has announced another cool innovation in digital video and optical technologies - the world's first 3-CCD SD camcorder. The lightweight, super-portable SDR-S100 records MPEG-2 video onto SD memory cards and features a high-performance Leica Dicomar lens, 10x optical zoom and Optical Image Stabilisation. The SDR-S100's also sports a fast response time and rugged, shock-resistant design.

Most 3-CCD camcorders record fairly high-quality video using MiniDV tape, as opposed to lower-quality one-chip camcorders that record to MiniDV tape, DVD-R, hard drives, and memory cards. Panasonic is banking on a new generation of higher-capacity SD cards to enable the SDR-S100 to shoot plenty of video to a single card - video footage from SD-based camcorders is typically quite compressed in order to fit more than a few minutes of video on the card.

The SDR-S100 features high-performance image processing technology and a newly developed MPEG-2 engine designed to precisely detect and process fast movements. The camcorder records in the 16:9 aspect ratio, the same configuration as widescreen TVs, and the vertical zoom ratio is minimised to boost vertical resolution. The SDR-S100 also features a 2.8-inch LCD.

The camcorder can also capture a 3.1-Megapixel (2048x1512 pixels) still images. The SDR-S100 includes a rechargeable battery pack and a 2GB SD memory card. The Panasonic SDR-S100 SD camcorder is slated for introduction in October, with a targeted manufacturer's suggested retail price of $1199.

BIOS, Sep 06, 05 | Print | Send | Comments (0) | Posted In Camcorder