Engadget got a tip on Sony has officially announced some new Sony HD camcorders, the Sony HDR-SR5 and Sony HDR-SR7 are two of these. Both HD camcorders are tapeless, recording to hard disk drives in the now prolific AVCHD format. You can also record in Sony’s x.v. color space if you want to throw down the thousands of dollars for a display that supports it. Both camcorders also feature 5.1 surround sound recording, 2.7″ LCDs, and 10x optical zoom.
The Sony HDR-SR5 will record video footage to a built-in 40GB hard drive. It features a 1/3″ ClearVid CMOS sensor and 4.0 megapixel still recording capabilities. You can also take 2.3 megapixel pictures while recording video.
Sony’s HDR-SR7 is almost identical except for the 60GB HDD and a larger 1/2.9″ ClearVid CMOS sensor. The SR7 will be capable of 6.1 mega pixel still images.
Engadget believes Sony says pre-orders will be available as early as Thursday with June being the launch date. Prices seem to be are set at $1,294 $1,100 for the Sony HDR-SR5 and $1,696 $1,400 for the HDR-SR7. You can pre-order
UPDATE: Press release
If my information (several sources) is correct, the Canon HV20 has the highest quality video picture sharpness with miniDV tape.
So I wonder why those “latest” tapeless AVCHD camera’s with “newest” compression techniques, produce a less impressive picture quality.
Georges, it is because AVCHD is compressed so much more than HDV. Because of this there is more noise and motion artifacting than HDV. Theoretically it could meet or surpass HDV’s quality, but AVCHD camcorders right now only record at a data rate of 12-15Mbps, far short of the max 24Mbps.