Canon Jumps Into Low-Cost ENG Market

Disciplined by years of uncertain revenue, TV stations have been paring down their costs wherever they can, including the newsroom. While they may have been willing to spend $30,000 for general purpose camcorders just four or five years ago, they now favor models under $10,000.

Canon has chosen to enter this challenging market with two new ENG camcorders, taking on incumbents Sony, Panasonic and JVC. First shown at NAB in April, the XF305 and XF300 are now available for less than $8,000.

“Today, we’re in a price-driven market,” said Larry Thorpe, national marketing executive for Canon USA. “There’s quite a portfolio of less-than-$10,000 camcorders and now we have two of them.”

Canon couldn’t have a more accomplished executive marketing its new camcorders. Thorpe’s accomplishments include heading the design team that built the groundbreaking RCA TK-47, the first automatic studio camera introduced in 1979. Later at Sony, he was integral to the launch of the Betacam ENG gear, the company’s first studio camera and then its early high-definition cameras. He took an early retirement package from Sony and joined Canon USA in 2004.

Thorpe said an advantage of Canon’s new camcorders is that both models use an MPEG-2 4:2:2 50 Mbps codec for capturing and recording native 1920×1080 video onto standard Compact Flash cards. 

Most competing camcorders still record at 35 Mbps, 4:2:0, which offers half the color resolution, he said. “Currently, we are a little ahead on those specs, plus we have a CMOS sensor that’s pretty impressive for a camcorder of this price.”

The XF305 at $7,999 includes an HD-SDI output, genlock and SMPTE time code (in/out) terminals for multi-camera or 3D productions. The XF300, minus those features, is priced at $6,799.

The economy is not the only force affecting how TV stations equip themselves. Most broadcasters are now programming not only for their news broadcasts, but for associated websites that operate around the clock and for various mobile services. 

For this, the new Canon camcorders allow low resolution frame grabs from the video. The cameras also offer stop-motion animation with frame recording, which allows a specified number of frames to be captured at a time. 

Even though Canon’s broadcast division has long focused on marketing high-end lenses, the new camcorder models can’t use them. Each camcorder comes with a fixed 18x HD L-series lens that cannot be removed from the camcorder.

“Our aggressive marketing is still clearly based on our portfolio of lenses that we will be happy to continue selling for those higher-end products made by Sony, Panasonic and others,” Thorpe said.

With the camera just now ready for delivery, no U.S. broadcaster has yet had a chance to experiment with the Canon units. Thorpe noted the camcorders will be sold for a wide range of applications through various Canon divisions. The broadcast division, he said, will sell the camcorders only to TV stations.

Alec Shapiro, senior vice president for sales and marketing at Sony Broadcast and Production Systems, said his company has no comment on Canon’s entry into ENG marketplace.

However, he acknowledged increasing interest by broadcasters in low-cost cameras, including Sony’s PMW-EX1R camcorder, priced at under $8,000. He said some stations use both the EX1 and optical XDCAM HD camcorders in combination.

Sony’s 2/3-inch sensor XDCAM HD models, which record 85 minutes of video on a single-layer 23 GB rewritable optical disc, are priced from $19,900 to $42,700. The XDCAM EX models, far lighter on features, use 1/2-inch sensors and flash memory cards for video storage.

“In the past, broadcasters would insist on 2/3-inch ENG camcorders, but more recently 1/3-inch sensors seem to be good enough,” said Shapiro. “That is strictly based on budget.”

A TV station can go to a Best Buy store and purchase a cheap HD camcorder and do news with it, he said. “That camcorder was not designed for ENG, but it makes very good pictures. It might last six months or a year, and then they toss it. I don’t think that’s a good strategy, but I wouldn’t question what a customer ultimately decides works for him.”

Dave Walton, assistant vice president of marketing and communications at JVC, also wouldn’t comment on Canon’s entry into the market. However, he agreed that sales of expensive ENG cameras are no longer what they used to be.

In fact, JVC was at the forefront of low-cost ENG movement with the introduction of its ProHD line. The latest model, the GY-HM7790U, priced at $10,995 and due for delivery this month, is a modular 4:2:2 HD camera that records to SDHC memory cards. There is an optional studio package.

The reason for lower-cost ENG cameras is not just the economy, but a paradigm shift in newsgathering, Walton said.

“The way newsrooms operate is fundamentally changing,” Walton said. “It’s no longer news just at 6 and 10 p.m. Now it’s around the clock, whether it’s for on-air or the Web. In order to address this situation, broadcasters have had to go to different types of equipment.”

Walton noted that his children and grandchildren don’t see TV news the way his generation did. “They say if it happened, why don’t I see it now? Why do I need to wait until 6 o’clock to see it? This expectation is fundamentally changing news and the way it is captured in the field.”

Panasonic is also addressing demand for low-cost cameras. When the company announced its P2 solid-state recording format in 2004, it introduced its first P2 camcorder, the AJ-SPX800, a 2/3-inch ENG camera priced at $19,500.

Today, the company’s AG-HPX370 HD camcorder is the company’s most popular news camera, though it’s priced at $11,700, slightly higher than the $10,000 level. It has a 10-bit, 4:2:2, full 1920×1080 resolution, AVC-Intra codec and smaller 1/2-inch CCD sensors.

It is followed in popularity by the AG-HPX170, a lower-cost 1/2-inch CCD camcorder priced at $4,895. In addition to the cameras, P2 cards have gotten cheaper and larger in capacity since the format was introduced six years ago.

Panasonic executives were not available to be interview for this article.