Panasonic's Full HD (1920 x 1080) HDC-HS60 can record up to 50 hours of movie footage in the AVCHD format to a substantial 120GB hard disc drive (HDD).

The HDC-HS60 is part of Panasonic's new crop of mid-range camcorders for 2010. It boasts a 1/4.1-inch CMOS sensor, 25x optical zoom lens, and 120GB internal hard drive.

The innovative SDXC SD card recording format brings with it a potential 2TB of storage capacity. In its present incarnation SDXC offers either 48GB and 64GB cards. You also get faster access than SDHC (SDXC's predecessor) with a theoretical transfer rate of up to 300 megabytes per second (300MBps).

SDXC is fully backward compatible with the SDHC format.

The HDC-HS60 has a larger image sensor, larger 35.7mm lens, which results in a higher effective pixel count than Panasonic's outgoing mid range HD camcorders. The lens has an automatic cover which opens and closes when you power the camcorder on and off.

Elsewhere there is Intelligent Auto with advanced face detection, a 5-megapixel still image mode and a 25x optical zoom lens (which can be extended to 35x)

At just 65.5x54.5x112mm and weighing in at 327g, the HDC-HS60 is extremely portable. A touch screen user friendly interface will likely broaden its appeal across casual users and serious hobbyists.

Panasonic HDC-HS60

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