Panasonic Brings the SD10 and TM10 Camcorders to the U.S.

Weeks after their announcement in Europe and Japan, the U.S. will receive two new HD camcorders, Panasonic confirmed this morning. The HDC-SD10 ($549 MSRP), a memory card camcorder, and the HDC-TM10 ($599 MSRP), which offers 8GB of internal memory and a memory card slot, will arrive in stores in September.  

Most of the details about these camcorders are already known when the same models were announced in the U.K. Both feature full 1920 x 1080 interlaced video in the AVCHD format, a 16x optical zoom, optical image stabilization, and recent Panasonic standards like face detection, Intelligent Scene Selector, and AF/AE Tracking.

Once again, Panasonic is in pursuit of a “World’s Smallest…” title. This time, it’s the world’s smallest AVCHD camcorder that records in 1920 x 1080 (a specific title, to be sure). Whether this will remain a smart strategy for Panasonic is anybody’s guess. In the pursuit of pocket-sized HD camcorders, consumers are now faced with dozens of options, including considerably smaller and less expensive models like the Pure Digital Flip UltraHD or MinoHD, Sony Webbie CM1 and PM1, Kodak Zx1 and Zi6, and many more.

The Panasonic HDC-SD10 will be available in black only. The HDC-TM10 will come in black and silver. Both are due in September 2009.