A professional AVCCAM HD shoulder-mount camcorder that features solid state DV as well as HD recording capabilities, making it ideal for customers who desire both formats. The HMC80 with its high-resolution 3-megapixel imager offers multiple AVCCAM recording formats and enhanced professional functions for stable, shoulder-mount shooting.

The HMC80 uses MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 high profile encoding – which provides a doubling of bandwidth efficiency and improved video performance over the older MPEG-2 compression based formats (e.g. HDV) – so recordings look clean and crisp, even during fast motion, without image degradation or dropouts. The camera offers useful solid-state recording functions including pre-record, interval recording, shot marker and metadata capture. Additional features include waveform monitor display, focus assists such as focus bar display and enlarged display, auto focus with face detection, white balance, mode display, zebra display, color bars, tally lamps, slow smooth zoom and soft landing, slow shutter and synchro-scan shutter functions, and three programmable user buttons. A wireless remote is also included.

It can also take 10.6-megapixel still images and store them as standard JPEGs on the solid state card. AVCHD recordings and stills can be directly played back from the SD card on a wide range of low-cost players including Panasonic Blu-ray players, laptop PCs and advanced game consoles.

Using just one 32GB SDHC memory card, a user can record three hours of full resolution 1920x1080 video and audio in PH mode, four hours at HA mode and 5.3 hours at HG mode. In the HE mode, the camera can record up to 12 hours of 1440 x 1080 HD content on a 32GB SDHC card. Up to 2 hours of DV content can be recorded on a single 32GB SDHC card.

• Records stunning 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 AVCHD video with high sensitivity

• Four professional AVCCAM HD recording modes: HA mode (approx.17 Mbps), HG mode (approx.13 Mbps), the extended recording HE mode (approx. 6 Mbps) and the highest-quality PH mode (average 21 Mbps/Max 24Mbps).

• supports the following HD formats in PH mode at 60Hz: 1080/60i, 1080/30p, 1080/24pN, 720/60p, 720/30p, 720/24pN; in HA, HG and HE modes, it records in 1080/60i.

• records 480/60i, 480/30p, 480/24p in standard definition DV directly onto SD cards in the AVI Type 2 file format and offers squeeze, letter box and side crop options.

• User-assignable manual focus ring functions (Focus/Iris/Zoom) for added control; time code/UB recording; time/date stamp; and two wired remote control terminals (for zoom, focus, iris, REC start/stop controls).

• Lens system captures super sharp images at up to 12X optical zoom and features a 40.8mm (35mm lens equivalent) wide-angle setting

• Optical Image Stabilizer (OIS) for smooth stable shooting

• Dynamic Range Stretch (DRS), which helps compensate for wide variations in lighting

• Cine-Like Gamma mode that gives recordings a more film-like look.

• Standard HDMI output (AVCHD only), USB 2.0 (mini B-type devices), composite output (BNC x 1), analog component (BNC x 3), IEEE 1394 output (DV only), and a built-in stereo microphone as well as a 3.5 mm external mic-in jack

• Features two locking XLR inputs with switches for mic/line, and +48V Phantom Power capability.

• Three-year limited warranty (one year plus two extra years upon registration).