Panasonic Announces 3D Camcorder SDT750

Following up on the five new compact cameras they announced last week, Panasonic announced three new HD camcorders today. The new Panasonic HDC-SDX1, HDC-SDT750 and pocket-sized HM-TA1 all offer full 1920 x 1080 HD video, the TA1 in MPEG and the SDX1 and SDT750 in the AVCHD format. Announcing three new full HD camcorders is pretty cool. But the big news here is the new Panasonic SDT750 is the world’s first 3D consumer camcorder. It uses a special 3D converter with two lenses to simultaneously capture left and right 960 x 1080 resolution images to create the 3D effect.

“As a result of research conducted through Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory, Panasonic developed a professional 3D system camera and successfully brought high-quality Full HD 3D images to the home for viewing on Panasonic VIERA Full HD 3D televisions. But now, Panasonic has taken it one step further and developed the world’s first consumer 3D camcorder, the HDC-SDT750 – creating a 3D ecosystem available for consumers in the home…”

Chris Rice
Senior Product Manager, Imaging
Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company

Panasonic HDC-SDT750 3D camcorder w 3D lens

The 3D conversion lens is included with the Panasonic SDT750 camcorder. The 3D effect can be viewed on 3D-capable TV sets by connecting the SDT750 with an HDMI cable or with SDHC memory cards through AVCHD capable players. Panasonic says the 3D effect will automatically be played with no setting changes on their Full HD 3D VIERA TV sets. I know very little about 3D video so I don’t know if there are proprietary systems involved that would make playback difficult on non-Panasonic 3D TVs.

Panasonic HDC-SDT750 camcorder 3D conversion lens

Besides its whiz-bang 3D video capture superpowers, the new Panasonic SDT750 also has solid camcorder credentials. The 3MOS sensor is based on the same technology as the Live MOS sensor used in Panasonic and Olympus Micro Four Thirds still cameras. It offers better low light performance and image quality than previous Panasonic camcorder sensors. The SDT750 also has a great lens – a 12x f/1.5-2.8 Leica Dicomar zoom equivalent to 35-420mm. The super fast f/1.5-2.8 aperture, 3MOS sensor and the new Hybrid O.I.S. image stabilization and four-axis blur detection should make it excellent for low light video. For controls the SDT750 has a 3-inch touchscreen LCD display and a manual ring around the lens that allows “fingertip control” of focus, zoom, aperture, shutter speed and white balance. It can also capture 14-megapixel still images as well as 2.1-megapixel frame grabs from video footage.

The Panasonic SDT750 3D camcorder should be available in October, just in time for that scary 3D Halloween movie you’ve been planning. The suggested retail price is US $1,399.95.