Toshiba's HD Gigashot Camcorders Say No to AVCHD

Toshiba's kinda late to the HD camcorder battle, so it's dispatching not one but four heavyweight contenders today. Of these four, two higher end Gigashot A models will shoot HD video at 1080p resolution with 60 fps; both will be equipped with 1/3" 2.36MP CMOS sensor and HDMI. Their only difference is the storage capacity at 100GB (188,000 yen) and 40GB (158,000 yen). The main body measures at 78.1 x 79 x 135.4 mm, and will be shipping at around mid-Nov 2007.

The other two belongs to Gigashot K-series, and will sport a lower res 1/3" 1.35MP CMOS sensor. It can record at 720p max. Their retail prices are lowered to 128,000 yen for the 80GB and 108,000 yen for the 40GB. In addition to recording directly to hard drive, the Gigashot K-series can take SHDC as well. Other details are sketchy as of this writing, but it's certain that Toshiba camcorders will only adopt MPEG-4 AVC rather than AVCHD - a H.264 implementation advocated by Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and others. So I guess this is more iPod & Apple TV friendly than Sony's AVCHD HandCams.