Toshiba America Consumer Products, L.L.C., ("Toshiba") announced today the introduction of the gigashot digital camcorders. Part of the company's gigastyle family of products. gigashot camcorders, like the gigabeat digital audio players, are hard drive based models that use some of the most innovative storage devices in the marketplace.

"When it comes to devices like digital camcorders, the consumer demands simplicity. With large capacity, compact hard drives built in, the consumer never needs to worry about the right disc or tape to buy. This, tied with the inherent simplicity of gigashot's interface, means that we can offer a product that is technologically advanced yet simple for the consumer to operate," said Yoshi Uchiyama, Group Vice President, Toshiba America Consumer Products Digital A/V Group. "Clearly there is a huge opportunity for Toshiba to leverage its rich history in TV and Digital Audio Video as well as digital storage technology, to offer consumers complimentary products like gigashot that help maximize the entertainment experience."

gigashot camcorders combine a high quality video camera with a still camera, all in one easy to use package. With the capability of snapping digital photos while continuing to shoot video, gigashot makes it exceedingly simple to catch those special moments in either still images or video. Designed with convenience and ease-of-use in mind, and leveraging Toshiba's industry renowned 1.8" hard drive, both gigashot camcorders are compact and easy to carry while providing the user with high quality video.

High Quality
Both gigashot models use MPEG-2 video encoding for all video recordings. What this means to the consumer is extremely high quality video recording every time and the ability to burn to DVD quickly and easily without any reduction in resolution caused by the conversion of video formats. Consumers can select from different bit rates (or quality settings) to suit their needs. Up to 13 hours of high quality 9.6 Mbps recording is possible for example using the 60GB* GSC-R60 at its highest quality setting. If the consumer needs more recording time at a still high quality video level (6 Mbps) for example, up to 20 hours is possible (10 hours with the 30GB* GSC-R30). With as much as up to 55 hours of recording time, there is never any need to buy additional media.

The new Toshiba GSC-R30 (30 GB*) and GSC-R60 (60 GB*) models feature built in 1.8" hard disk drives, a 2.5" diagonally measured LCD screen (210k pixels), and a 2 Mega Pixel color CCD Sensor. Both models also come with an SD memory card slot. In addition, both models offer an electronic image stabilizer to correct hand movement while filming and a gravity sensor for protection in case the camcorder unexpectedly falls to the ground. The GSC-R60 comes with a docking cradle that includes a USB port, Ethernet connectivity, an AC adaptor and an A/V output.

Simplicity and ease-of-use
gigashot hard disk drive camcorders offer ease-of-use. Because of hard disk drive random access, fear of overwriting existing video is gone, there are no tape formats to worry about and file management is simple. gigashot offers an intuitive menu system and the jog control on the camera corresponds with on-screen menus.

Gigashot enhances transfer of content by including USB 2.0 and Ethernet /S-Video/AV interfaces. Users can transfer content to their PC and selected Toshiba DVD recorders for playback and editing purposes, and in turn can save the content onto a hard disk drive or burn it on a DVD.

Toshiba's gigashot includes AC/DSEE and PowerProducer software so there is no need to buy additional software. The bundled software allows instant recognition of the camera, still image editing, video editing, DVD authoring and burning. It even offers a 3 button "burn to DVD" option for the ultimate is simplicity.

Pricing and Expected Availability