Hitachi will ship a new Blu-ray Disc camcorder to dealers in September.

The new DZ-BD10HA replaces Hitachi's first-generation Blu-ray Disc camcorder and will come in cheaper at $1,099.

The new model will be 20 percent smaller than the previous BD7HA model and offer a new 7-megapixel CMOS sensor along with the ability to record HD video to a Blu-ray disc, a 30GB hard disk drive or an SDHC flash-memory card.

The camcorder can burn a Blu-ray disc from video stored on the HDD or SDHC card without a PC, along with basic editing. The camcorder can also burn standard-definition DVDs from HD content on the HDD or SDHC card thanks to a transcoding feature. It can also snap 6-megapixel still images and features a 10x optical zoom with optical image stabilization.

The BD10HA will also offer face detection, a feature not previously available on the first-generation models.

The camcorder sports a 2.7-inch LCD and a mini HDMI output.