Today just seems to be the day for camcorder announcements, and Hitachi has joined the club by officially unveiling the world’s first Blu-Ray camcorders. The Hitachi DZ-BD70 will record to mini Blu-Ray disks and the Hitachi DZ-BD7H will record to both hard drive and Blu-Ray disk, which is what I would call the ultimate hybrid camcorder.

Both the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H are capable of recording one hour of Full HD (1920×1080) footage to Blu-Ray Disc (BD). BDs have 5 times the capacity of regular 8cm MiniDVDs and can be played in any compatible Blu-Ray player.

Both camcorders also feature a 1/2.8″, 5.3 megapixel CMOS sensor with an effective 2.07 megapixels for video and 4.32 megapixels for stills. You will also get a 10x optical zoom (electronically stabilized) and 2.7″ widescreen LCD on the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H.

Video on the Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H can be output via HDMI, S-video or USB 2.0. Thankfully, Hitachi has also included a microphone jack on both camcorders.

The hybrid Hitachi DZ-BD7H also includes a dubbing capability, which allows you to transfer your video from the 30GB hard drive to Blu-Ray disc at 2x speed. This lets you do some basic in-camcorder editing without the need for a computer. You can even downconvert to standard definition and dub to regular DVD-R or DVD-RW media for playback in that “old” DVD player.

If you are using the HDD or a BD-RE disc (re-writable version of a BD disc), Hitachi says you can do basic editing functions such as split, delete and connect right inside the camcorder, no PC required. You can also create and rearrange playlists of your clips.

The Hitachi DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H will begin selling in Japan later this month, and will be available in overseas markets starting in October. Right now, no price point has been announced the MSRP for the DZ-BD7H is $1,600 and the DZ-BD70 will set you back $1,350.

UPDATE: The Hitachi DZ-BD70 is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com.