At a pre-NAB press conference in New York yesterday, the video vendor says to expect new ENG camcorders at NAB that will meet the demand of broadcasters for "smaller, lighter" gear. But it declines to give details. It also slashes the price on its P2 memory cards by 20% and offers new software and hardware aimed at taking some of the kinks out of the P2 workflow.
NAB 2011
Panasonic To Unveil ENG Camcorders At NAB
Panasonic has developed new camcorders for ENG, but broadcasters will have to wait until NAB to get a look at them.
The demand from TV broadcasters is for “smaller, lighter” cameras, said VP Joe Facchini at the Panasonic’s pre-NAB press conference in New York yesterday, and Panasonic’s intends to meet that demand with new products at NAB.
However, neither he nor other Panasonic execs on hand would provide any details.
Panasonic currently enjoys a large share of the broadcast ENG market with camcorders and related gear built on its P2 solid-state recording format. For TV station newsrooms, the prime camcorder is the AG-HPX370, which sells for less than $10,000.
In a move that will benefit all P2 users, Panasonic said that it was slashing the price of its P2 memory cards by an average of 20%.
The top-end 64 GB card was reduced 30% to $695; the 32 GB card, 25% to $480; and the 16 GB, 15% to $380.
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Facchini suggested that Panasonic would not be making cards with capacity greater than 64 GB. “It seems to be the right size,” he said.
Panasonic also introduced software aimed at taking some of the kinks out of P2 workflow.
Among the offerings is the AVCCAM Importer software, which will allow users to edit video files from P2 cameras with Apple’s Final Cut Pro without first having to convert the files to ProRES422 files.
The software will be available this summer as a free download off the Panasonic website.
To facilitate storage and retrieval of P2 content, Panasonic is offering the AJ-SF110 Video Ingest software and AJ-SF100 Linear Open-Tape (LTO) Archive software.
The AJ-SF100 software is for archiving P2 files to LTO, Blu-ray or other storage devices. The AJ-SF110 software is for ingesting via IEEE 1394 or SDI. It converts the footage of a video recorder to P2 files such as AVC-Intra 100/50, DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV.
The AJ-SF100 and AJ-SF110 software will be available in May at suggested list prices of $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.
On the hardware side, Panasonic announced the AJ-PCD30, a three-slot P2 drive with “super-speed” USB 3.0 interface. According to the company, the unit can offload AVC-Intra 100 footage at more than 15X real-time and transfer files from all three slots simultaneously
The AJ-PCD30 P2 will be available this summer at a suggested list price of $2,255.
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