Panasonic is proud to announce a new lineup of five high quality full-HD camcorders packed with powerful features for enhancing the shooting experience and monitoring your family.

The HC-W850 features Twin Camera™ enables shooting picture-in-picture video with a sub-camera located on the side of the LCD screen. The Twin Camera™ captures two scenes at once, such as a close-up shot and landscape shot in the same direction, front and side shots, or shots of the subject and person filming for even greater creative freedom and excitement while shooting.

The W850, V750, V550, and V250 camcorders include the new Baby Monitor feature which enables you to monitor a sleeping baby in another room through your smartphone when you are otherwise occupied. You can even speak to the baby using your smartphone or have notification sent to your smartphone when your baby's crying voice is detected.

The W850, V750, V550, and V250 camcorders also include built-in Wi-Fi. One-touch connection by NFC (Near Field Communication) enables you to quickly and easily connect to your smartphone without any complicated initial setup and allows remote control using your smartphone. For any smartphone without NFC function, there is also an easy connection feature using a QR code. You can also use Ustream to deliver live images of events to distant relatives and friends and easily share video and photos as they are recorded.

The W850 and V750 camcorders feature all-new lenses, sensors, and engines for significantly improving the image quality. The world's first 4-drive lens system*2 uses a 4-group lens system controlled by individual motors for enabling high-resolution and high-magnification zoom operation within a compact body size. A BSI sensor with an effective pixel count of 6.03 megapixels is used to expand the sensor effective area for boosting the sensitivity by approximately 1.3 times. The new Crystal Engine Pro+ provides processing speeds that are about 1.5 times faster than the previous engine. New, enhanced noise reduction has been implemented for reducing by about 20% delivering sharp, crystal-clear video images.

The Remote Pan Tilt Cradle accessory (sold separately) will also be launched with these camcorders. When connected to a camcorder, it detects a moving subject and automatically tracks the subject within a horizontal movement range of 180 degrees and vertical range of 15 degrees. If installed at a party, you can connect it to the camera's motion sensor to automatically capture the festive atmosphere. Also, if used together with the Wi-Fi Home Monitoring function, you can automatically track any pets that are home while you are away and monitor them from a remote location. In addition to the basic functions of capturing, viewing, and sharing video, Panasonic provides a wide range of advanced features for adding greater enjoyment and fun to your family time.

Not to detract from the product announcement (I really like these overcranking specs and the codec) but this selfie-mode really creeps me out, especially with these scary actors.

I can't help but think that this daddy-attention-whore, missing trains "for the shot" is truly bent on teaching the rest of the family how to be video bloggers rather than themselves. What happened to the beauty of shooting candid pictures of one's family, rather than trying to orchestrate a show for internet distribution? Is it just the future of society as seen through the eyes of corporate product designers or is this becoming the reality of today... everything destined for Facebook and YouTube to see how many Likes it can generate from willing gawkers. Strange days, really...

Ah, I love the sight of overexposed cyan skies in the morning!

@kurth

It is 3.4Mp cam downsized to 640x480, and superimposed to main image. As I understand it can either show you image on top, but not record or superimpose it. It does not record as second stream.

I was expecting someone to produce a true two-camera camera 20 years ago.

I'm more interested in that V750 camcorder. I use a TM700 for supplementary and live-event coverage, and it's been pretty wonderful. If this V750 is a souped-up version-- better slow motion, timelapse, hopefully better low-light conditions-- then it'd be a good purchase for me.

No detailed specs yet?

@Vitaliy_Kiselev With regard to event coverage, that really is a great application for this technology... you can literally eliminate the need for a shooting crew and still get basic production value coverage. I think my disgust for further elevation of selfies made me blind to seeing other interesting possibilities :)

http://www.trustedreviews.com/panasonic-hc-w850_Camcorder_review

Follow the ebay links at the bottom, where there's a pre-release w850 link with a more detailed spec list. Maybe a 1/2.3 sensor ?

And...yep, b&h has the full specs up -

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023343-REG/panasonic_hc_v750_full_hd_camcorder.html

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023342-REG/panasonic_hc_w850_twin_camera_full.html

Brian_Siano 8:32AM Just read the specs: MP4 mode records at 50mbps? Even at 60 fps? That is extremely enticing.

It doesn't give fps on the mp4 specs, but i assume its the same as AVCHD. Very interesting camcorder indeed. I still wish these new cameras had some sort of wired LANC control.

Thanks Ralph, I was looking at the v750 specs, I guess they are the same.

@kurth

Few posts above. Seems to be same, no?