Panasonic's "professional" AG-HSC1U 3CCD AVCHD camcorder

AVCHD isn't just for the consumer kiddies anymore, Panasonic just announced its upcoming AG-HSC1U, which Panny claims is the world's smallest 3CCD professional HD camcorder. There's not much denying this thing is small -- a mere 1.12 pounds -- but we're having trouble pinning down the "pro" features on this thing. The main difference, other than the slick grey / black paint job, is the inclusion of a 40GB HDD with the package, which can offload video off of the included 4GB SDHC card to let you keep on shooting. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like you can record straight to the hard drive, a feature found on some higher-end HD cameras. Most everything else sounds pretty familiar, like the three 1/4-inch 16:9 CCDs, since it's all in the AG-HSC1U's "consumer" counterpart, the HDC-SD1, though the HSC1U does bump the aperture to f/1.8. The good news is that Panasonic's pricetag isn't too outlandish: a mere $600 more than the SD1 -- a lot to pay for a 40GB HDD, but not too bad for a pro HD cam, whatever that means.

[Thanks, Randall]

[andyo @ Feb 5th 2007 8:39PM]

This one bumps f-stop FROM 1.8 in the other model, TO a brighter f/1.6.

[Dave @ Feb 5th 2007 9:39PM]

Great, now we get to confuse HD (hard disk) with HD (high def).

[Rob @ Feb 6th 2007 9:21AM]

HDD = Hard Disk Drive
HD = High Def

[michael @ Feb 10th 2007 8:30PM]

I have the Japanese version of the HDC-SD1 - which will be released here in the U.S. in March. Wow, great camera. I usually shoot with a Panasonic P2 and this camera, for its size and cost, rocks. Importing to Final Cut is a chore since Apple doesn't have AVCHD import capacity yet, however the camera has an HDMI connector and the Blackmagic card ($295) on the Mac works perfectly. You can import the footage as DVCPRO HD and go from there. Looks much better than the HDV footage I've shot. Great product for the money! When 720P AVCHD camera's come out, this will be the ultimate format (for a while).

[Walt @ Mar 7th 2007 3:29PM]

Apparently, from Pana's site, this unit also has 3 audio record choices: agc, no agc with clip prevention, and no agc...completely manual.