By Yeong Ah Seng

PANASONIC'S Lumix DMC-TZ7 is a hybrid digital still/video camera.

At a time when the megapixel battle has apparently reached a peak and no longer carries much cachet, the trend now is to add high-definition video to digital-still cameras.

The TZ7 has a 10-megapixel resolution even though it comes with a 12-megapixel CCD.

With 12 times optical zoom, the Leica ultra wide-angle lens provides the equivalent of a 25mm to 300mm focal range for 35mm film.

It has a 3-inch LCD with 460,000 pixels, offering high-resolution playback.

The most significant feature of this Lumix camera is its AVCHD-lite video-recording capability.

AVCHD lite is a lower- resolution (1280x720) version of the full AVCHD format (1920x1280), but it's enough to turn the TZ7 into a HD-capable video recorder.

It has most of the features, including scene modes, one has come to associate with movie recording.

The day when still and video cameras become one, and are available at affordable prices, is closer than we think.

Some consumers may be prepared to pay more for the full-fledged features of dedicated video cameras, but most users would be satisfied with an easy-to-use, yet high quality, video-recording function on compact cameras that can tucked easily into the pocket.

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