It has been reported that Hitachi will be releasing the world’s first Blu-Ray camcorder by the end of this year. The unnamed Hitachi camcorder will record to standard 8cm discs as well as 8cm Blu-Ray discs, which will hopefully net you a solid hour of recording time.

Not much is known, at the moment, about the specifics of the Blu-Ray camcorder, but we do know it will feature a 1/2.8″ CMOS sensor with 5.3 megapixels. It will record at full 1080i HD resolution: 1920×1080.

The image above is a prototype camcorder that Hitachi showed at CEATEC, and is not necessarily what the final camcorder will look like (I certainly hope not).

The question remains, how will a Blu-Ray camcorder be received? Is the segment of the population that owns a Blu-Ray player substantial enough to make a Blue-Ray camcorder marketable? Or will buyers simply be content to play their video footage directly from the camcorder?

Press Release (Japanese)

UPDATE: The Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H Blu-Ray camcorders have been officially announced.