DanLin.net

Just a couple days after I bought my Panasonic HDC-SD1 they already announced the release of its successor. The HDC-SD3. Looks like it is pretty much the same as the SD1 but with slightly better image quality. watch.impress.co.jp has a write up about the differences in Japanese with lots of photos. In a couple of the photos you can see the external battery pack I mentioned in the last post for extended use. Looks like the accessories will be compatible with both cameras. It still does not look like there are any software improvements to the editing predicament most SD1 owners are currently having to deal with.

I have been shooting a lot of footage with my SD1 and so far I am thoroughly impressed. I can’t imagine the SD3 have any noticeable image quality improvement but if you can wait 6 months maybe the a SD3 is in your future. It claims to have “Full HD 1920″ which means the SD1 achieves its 1920 frame with some kind of software trickery. That’s if you buy into the fact that it 1080 interlaced is “Full HD” versus 1080 progressive (“Fuller” HD?). It gets released in Japan on April 25th with a slightly lower price tag than then the SD1 came out (50 U.S. buckaroos) so look for it around you U.S. neighborhood probably around mid summer. I probably wouldn’t have been able to wait that long anyways to make my purchase so no regrets here. Yet.

Here are some of the photos courtesy of watch.impress.co.jp: