In conjunction with vendors such as Verbatim announcing Mini-BluRay media, Hitachi announced yesterday their first entries into the Blu-ray disc camcorder market. Their two new models, the DZ-BD7H and DZ-BD70 are the first such units of their kind to be introduced. The former model is a “hybrid” model, coupling an internal 30GB HDD with a Blu-ray recorder, and the latter uses only Blu-ray media.

They are designed to use the new 8cm diameter BD, and both are set begin selling at the end of this month. Hitachi has high hopes for the camcorders, citing the quick adoption of DVD/HDD camcorders and of HD camcorders the past few years:

Non-tape media camcorders such as DVD and HDD camcorders have grown to dominate more than 80% of the camcorder market*3High definition camcorders have taken more than 30% of the consumer camcorder market*3, and are expected to continue growing.
You can read the full press release regarding these two new camcorders at Hitachi's site.