At CES 2007, Sony has announced 16 new camcorders ranging in price from $280 to $1400. Sony"s new camcorder line will be available in March 2007 and will feature optical image stabilization. New features on high-end models like automatic slow shutter speed have been introduced to help deliver better low-light video quality.
At $1100, the cheapest HD camcorder able to capture video at 1080i-resolution would be the HDR-UX5 AVCHD HD Handycam. It records directly to DVDs and can play back discs on Blu-ray disc players. At $1400, the top of the line product is the Sony"s HDR-HC7 HDV able to shoot full HD 1080 video and six-megapixel stills.
New hard-drive based models using standard definition are the 30GB DCR-SR42 ($600), 30GB DCR-SR62 ($650), 40GB DCR-SR200 ($850), 40GB DCR-SR300 ($1000) and 60GB DCR-SR82 ($750). The latter boasts 41 hours of recording time and a 25X optical zoom lens. Three entry level models use miniDV tape while one step-up gets you miniDVD discs. Using these miniDVD discs is the $450 DCR-DVD108 which features a 40X optical zoom lens and is compatible with dual layer DVD+R discs.
Competitors JVC, Panasonic and Sanyo have also announced new camcorders at the show.