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Hybrid HD Camcorder from Hitachi

03:31 - Wednesday 29 August 2007 by THG Reporting Team

Hybrid technology is now becoming available in camcorders: Hitachi’s DZ-HS 500E/501E series features hard drive and DVD storage.

These HD camcorders are the second generation from Hitachi. So we can at least expect good workmanship and high image quality. The two models differ with regard to zoom and resolutions: The HS 500E offers a 30x optical zoom and 0.8 megapixel resolution at a recommended price of 580 euro. Its big brother, on the other hand, has a 15x optical zoom and 1.3 megapixel resolution and is priced at 680 euro.

Hitachi has also announced another full HD camcorder for the IFA, but the manufacturer is keeping the lid on this one. What’s special about it is that this new camcorder is equipped with a accelerometer that can sense when the camera has slipped out of someone’s hand or fallen from the table. In this case the data stored on the hard drive is automatically protected. The details of how the system works are not yet clear. Presumably, the read/write head is quickly retracted from the disk, as it is with notebook HDDs that are so protected.

www.hitachi.com IFA: Hall 23/102

AzureWave: DVB-S2 PC Tuner Card and Wireless LAN Access Point

AzureWave will be presenting its new DVB-S2 receiver AD-SP 400 for PCs at IFA. The PCI tuner card includes a Common Interface so that it is also capable of receiving HD TV broadcasts.

The switch from digital DVB-S to DVB-S2 provides a 30% increase in the data rate, which means better image quality. The new S2 standard also includes enhanced encoding, modulation and error handling procedures. The AD-SP 400 card offers numerous other functions, including Multi Still Frame Picture and Time Shifting.

A new wireless LAN access point is also being presented; the AzureWave NR580-2 is equipped with three antennas to give better transmission and reception quality. A particularly nice feature is its support of the new IEEE 802.11n draft 2.0 standard. Of course, older B and G protocols are also supported.