JVC Offers Sneak Peek of GZ-HD3 HD Hard Disk Camcorder

JVC flashed a tit at a few Japanese journalists, giving them a quick glance at its upcoming GZ-HD3 tapeless camcorder. The demo revealed a tiny shooter with a relatively large lens, packing 60GB of hard disk space that will yield five hours of HD goodness at its maximum quality. It should serve as a worthy little brother to JVC’s GZ-HD7 tapeless HD camcorder we reviewed a couple of months ago, but this new one should cost about $500 less. Find out what you get for your $1200, and peek at another pic.The GZ-HD3 won’t be using the HD7’s pixel-shifted full 1920×1080i resolution, instead laying down its MPEG2 footage at 1440×1080 using its three CCDs. Not to worry, that should still offer up some fine-looking HD footage. We’re also hearing that this latest camcorder will be able to record its video on those high-capacity SDHC flash memory cards, giving the camcorder even more storage space.

We’re happiest to see this latest Everio has a similar widescreen viewfinder to its big brother’s, which we liked a lot, and carries on that easy, ergonomic form factor (albeit a lot smaller) that made the HD7 a standout. Also, that $1200 price may be an educated guess by overzealous journalists, and if that’s indeed close to the camera’s final retail price, might we overzealously add that it could end up being a formidable sub-$1000 competitor after a few months on the market? JVC didn’t announce any official ship date just yet. [Digital Camcorder News]