Camcorder round-up: Hi-def gets smaller and smaller

It's been a big week for small camcorders. Hitachi has unwrapped its fabled Blu-ray shooters, Canon and Panasonic have weighed in with the smallest HD camcorders, like, ever, and Sony has trumped them all with a teenycam so small it's already lost three down the back of the sofa.

After the rumour mill wound itself up into a right tizz over the last few weeks, Hitachi has officially unveiled the world's first Blu-ray camcorders, the DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H. As expected, both will record to mini Blu-ray discs and the DZ-BD7H will record to both hard drive and Blu-ray disc. Both camcorders are capable of recording one hour of 1,920x1,080-pixel footage to Blu-ray.

Inside both camcorders is a 1/2.8 inch, 5.3-megapixel CMOS sensor. Outside both there's a 10x optical zoom with electrical image stabilisation, microphone jack, HDMI outputs and the usual 69mm (2.7-inch) widescreen LCD.

The hybrid Hitachi DZ-BD7H will transfer video from its 30GB hard drive to Blu-ray at 2x speed, or copy to standard DVD for showing footage to anyone unwilling to fork out several hundred pounds for a Blu-ray player. Basic in-camera editing and playlists are also on the cards.

The DZ-BD70 and DZ-BD7H will begin selling in Japan later this month, and will be available in overseas markets from October. No prices yet, but we'll keep you posted.

Click through for more pictures of these diminutive new camcorders.