Well the rumors are true. Panasonic today announced the launch of the Panasonic HDC-SDT750, the world’s first consumer 3D camcorder. A dual “3D conversion lens” and a 3MOS image sensor will allow users to create video that can be viewed on 3D compatible TVs.
The HDC-SDT750 is a fully functional 2D camcorder,as well. It will ship with a 3D conversion lens which will record right and left eye images at once to create a final product that can be viewed to a 3D effect. Videos are captured at 1080/60p. By using an AVCHD compatible device like a 3D Blu-ray player, 3D images can be read from an SD card and displayed on a 3D screen.
The unique 3MOS triple image sensor system processes red, green and blue colors separately to produce what Panasonic calls “rich color quality.” With the 3D lens not attached, the SDT750 uses a 12x optical zoom f/1.5 Leica Dicomar lens.
According to Panasonic, there are a couple of notable changes to the camera’s performance with the 3D lens attached: the camcorder’s maximum aperture setting dips to F3.5 with the lens attached, and use of the camcorder’s control ring is limited to white-balance adjustments when shooting in 3D.
Audio is a 5.1 channel audio recording system that captures sound through five microphones.
Other Features of the Panasonic HDC-SDT750 Include
- Auto Power LCD automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen according to the shooting environment for comfortable use in a variety of different lighting situations.
- Large 3.0″ touch-screen LCD allows icons to be easily operated by touching them with a fingertip. On the LCD, recorded 3D images are displayed only as the 2D images that were recorded with the left lens.
- Eco Mode automatically turns off the power when the camcorder is not operated for five minutes, reducing wasteful energy use and saving battery power.
- Pre-Rec allows for the camcorder to continuously record three seconds of content into internal memory. Then, when the record button is pressed, the three seconds immediately prior will have been recorded
Pricing and availability
The Panasonic HDC-SDT750 arrives in October at an MSRP of $1399.95.
