Verbatim announces the first 7.5GB, 3-inch mini Blu-ray disc that's sized just right to give HD camcorders 1 hour of 1080i recording. [Verbatim via Digital Trends]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
There's no doubt that the HD Format war is in full swing, and just when the Blu-ray camp thinks they're going to catch up with HD DVD's full featured players, HD DVD raises the bar. We'll probably have to wait 'till CEDIA to get the official word from Toshiba, but for now Amazon has a few details about the new lineup, which will be available on October 1st and include three models: the HD-A3 ($299), HD-A30($399), and the HD-A35($499). One thing is for sure, this is going to be a completely different war by the time the holiday buying season rolls around.

Read -- HD-A3
Read -- HD-A30
Read -- HD-A35

[Via FormatWarCentral] 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Pioneer just announced that Blu-ray Disc player with "HD audio bitstream output" they alluded to with the launch of their BDP-LX70. In what appears to be an industry first for BD players, the new BDP-LX80 supports bitstream output of both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD high resolution lossless audio output over HDMI 1.3. Sorry, no DTS-HD Master Audio this time. Still, a worthy update from the LX70 assuming your home theater gear is properly matched to decode that signal. Something you'll want to check, and double-check, before dropping the tax inclusive roll of ¥210,000 or about $1,768. We could be wrong, but the move from the LX70 to LX80 appears to be a firmware change only so why all the fuss with a new model Pioneer? If true, then don't be surprised to find a hacked version of the firmware for the LX70 on the Internets soon enough. No word on a global launch -- Japan-only for now with a local release scheduled for October.
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After months of speculation and naysaying, Hitachi has finally launched its Blue-Ray and HDD/Blue-Ray camcorders on the world. With a launch date of 31 August for Japan, and October for the rest of the world, here's a gallery and the gen on what you can expect.
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There are two models to choose from: the hybrid DZ-BD7H, with its 30GV HDD and 8 cm disk recorder; and the simpler DZ-BD70, a BD single drive camcorder which can record approximately one hour of 1920x1080 full high-definition video (two hours of 1440x1080 high definition video) on a 8cm BD.
The DZ-BD7H can capture four hours of 1920x1080 full hi-def video, or up to eight hours of 1440x1080, and can copy from HDD to 8cm BD within the camcorder without external devices. Both cameras have a 5.3 mega-pixel CMOS, HMDI output, D3/D1 connector and weigh 705 grams (DZ-BD7H) and 650 g (DZ-BD70. Vital statistics are 80 x 87 x 165 mm.
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Filed under: Digital Cameras

In case you didn't believe 'em the first time, Hitachi is back with more, much more, on the world's first Blu-ray Disc camcorder. First off, we're looking at an August 30th launch in Japan (rest of world, October) of two models: the DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H hybrid which packs both an 8-cm BD writer and 30GB disk are priced at ¥160,000 (about $1,347) and ¥190,000 (about $1,600), respectively. As we heard, each packs a 5.3 megapixel CMOS sensor delivering 2.07 megapixel videos or 4.32 megapixel stills. That translates to about an hour of 1,920 x 1,080 MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video on a single-sided, single-layer 8-cm BD disc -- more if you dial-back the resolution. Both feature HDMI and Firewire USB 2.0 jacks while the hybrid packs a convenient one-touch dubbing function to share your vids with all those gaming grannys with Blu-ray players of their own.
Gallery: Hitachi's DZ-BD70 and 30GB DZ-BD7H hybrid Blu-ray camcorders: global in October
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