Panasonic HS700 and TM700 appear

Panasonic in a late-night launch extended its 3MOS camcorders with a pair of top-tier models. Together, the HS700 and TM700 both shoot full widescreen 1080p video at 60FPS but carry very high resolution 14.2-megapixel sensors that are useful both for large still images and better motion. In full video mode, the 3MOS sensors cut down on half of the noise in the shot and simultaneously improve sensitivity to detail in low light.

Either also takes advantage of the new visual techniques rolled into Panasonic's recent Lumix camera updates. They carry new 46mm, 12X lenses and draw on Intelligent Resolution to boost the zoom to 18X by using pixel processing that purportedly allows digital zoom without an overly pixelated end result. Panasonic's second-generation image stabilization also plays a part.

Differences between the cameras are slight and hinge mostly on storage: the HS700 captures to a 240GB hard drive, while the slightly more compact TM700 has 32GB of built-in flash. Either has an SDXC card slot and take as much as 27.5 hours of extra video with a 64GB card. Normally, the HS700 and TM700 can respectively hold 102 hours and 13.6 hours of footage.

Details are short on the launch date or price, but Panasonic promises final information within a month of when the camcorders ship.

By Electronista Staff