The Flip-style camera market is about to get more competition as Panasonic has announced their new pocket-camera, the HM-TA1. Panasonic has always been highly-regarded for professional video cameras, but this is their first foray into the Flip world. The HM-TA1 will also serve double-duty as a web cam, so you can use it to shoot both HD video and for Skype or other video chats.
Spec-wise the Panasonic HM-TA1 shoots full HD video at 1920×1080 and 1280×720 or SD video at 640×480. The highest bit rate it records is 12mbps, or about half the quality on higher-end AVCHD cameras. It records to both MP4 and iFrame, the later being for Mac users. No external microphone jack is mentioned.
The camera also shoot 8 megapixel still photos (5 million effective pixels) and you have the ability to grab a still photo from any of your video footage. Also included is a built-in LED light for darker shots you come across…but the LED light does not work when the camera is in web cam mode.
The camera is set to be available at the end of August for a price of $169.95. More info is available on Panasonic’s web site here.
It’s a shame about omitting a mic-in jack. The audio quality from these types of cameras is usually pretty bad. Without a mic-in jack, I don’t expect this one to be much better.
If it’s relegated to primarily video, then these types of camera’s will begin facing competition from Android and iOS smart phones. In the meantime, the Kodak Zi8 remains the winner in this category because of the mic jack.
And by the way, their videos were pretty lame. I expect more from a company like Panasonic.
You know I look at that specs on that cam and it just makes me wonder how some of these companies arrive at the decision as to how they are going to make a product.
It is amazing that Panasonic would put out what appears to be just another “also ran” in the flip style pack. After all this is the same company that in the dying days of mini DV tape based cams produced the formidable GS400.
DV cams were developed for another three or four years after that camcorder and nothing came close to it… even Panny’s own clone of it, the GS500!
How hard would it be to make the video quality a little better than the pack, give the unit sound capability a little better than the Vado or Zi8. Simply evaluate the competition and do it all just a little better?