"The quality of those types of devices haven't been up to par. But this is a true camcorder. It records high quality, MPEG-2, which is the same format that records on DVD, DVD recorders and DVD camcorders. With this device, we've actually improved the MPEG-2 encoding so that it's more efficient and it gives you a higher image quality. So we're able actually to fit over an hour of high quality video on a 2 gigabyte SD card."
The inclusion of a 2 gigabyte memory card is one reason why the small, palm sized camera carries a pretty big price tag. About 12 hundred dollars. It should arrive in stores next month. The advantages to recording to SD memory instead of tape…
"Obviously there's the size. Because the media itself is so small we're able to make the devices that record to it small. Secondly, it's more rugged."
And video files can simply be dragged and dropped onto a PC for editing. Panasonic has competition. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.