Sony's New AVCHD Camcorders: High Definition Video for the Masses

by John Neely

Published on Jul 18, 2006 9:00 PM
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July 18, 2006 – In a major announcement today in New York, Sony launched the first ever camcorders to utilize the new AVCHD format for recording video to DVD and non-tape media.  The new HDR-UX1 is a DVD camcorder that will hit stores in September, and retail for about $1400.  The HDR-SR1, also announced today, is the first hard disk drive camcorder to record high definition video.  The HDR-SR1 will be available in October with an initial retail price of approximately $1500.

These new camcorders follow in the footsteps of Sony’s HDR-HC1 and HDR-HC3, high definition camcorders that record in HDV to standard MiniDV tapes.  The new camcorders mark an expansion of consumer high definition video to include new user-friendly media types.

Last week, Sony and Panasonic jointly announced plans to expand the AVCHD format’s compatibility.  The format was first launched on May 11th, with support for 8 cm DVDs, the media used in many consumer DVD camcorders. With last week's announcement, the format has been expanded to include SD Memory Cards, MemorySticks (a Sony card format), and hard disk drives.  Last week’s announcement also marked the commencement of AVCHD format licensing, and a long list of companies have expressed interest, including camcorder makers Samsung and Canon. 

Widespread interest in AVCHD is not surprising: it is the first high definition format to be compatible with major non-tape digital media.  Earlier this year, Sony released their first hard disk drive camcorder, the DCR-SR100 (Review, Specs, $999), while Panasonic announced plans to update their SDR-S100 (Specs, $1199), a  3-CCD camcorder which records to SD Memory Cards.

This new HD format should be mutually beneficial to Panasonic and Sony, if they manage to rally enough support to make it viable.  In addition to camcorder makers, software manufacturers are being courted for AVCHD support and licensing arrangements are being extended to DVD player manufacturers to round out the format’s support.  Sony’s release of new AVCHD-compatible camcorders today, coupled with last week’s announcements, suggests a promising start for the format.

At their press event today ,Sony already announced compatibility for the AVCHD DVD disks with the upcomming PS3 and other future DVD players. We expect even more players to have compatibility in the coming months. Desptite the apperances of being a "stop-gap" format, it seems that AVCHD may have legs.

However, sources inside Sony have indicated that users shouldn't hold out for Blu-ray based camcorders. AVCHD may seem odd considering the company's current push towards Blu-ray, the next generation of high definition optical disc format. Despite this, the sources indicated that Blu-ray isn't well sutied for use in a camcorder. Sony AVCHD may have a much longer lifetime than initially expected.