Sinclair Orders P2 HD For 12 News Operations

The Sinclair Broadcast Group has made a large-scale purchase of Panasonic’s AG-HPX370 P2 HD shoulder-mount camcorders to outfit news photographers at its 12 markets producing local news.

Sinclair, a longtime user of Panasonic’s DVCPRO tape-based gear for ENG, has also made recent purchases of AG-HPX170 P2 HD handhelds for use in the field by its video journalists and multimedia journalists, AJ-HPM200 P2 Mobile recorder/players, and AK-HC1500G multi-purpose 2/3” 3-CCD HD cameras, which serve as studio cameras on news sets, teaming with Ross Overdrive Automated Production Control Systems and Telemetrics’ pan/tilt/zoom systems.

“Our ongoing objective has been to move to a tapeless IT infrastructure for newsgathering, and for the past several years we’ve made incremental investments in Panasonic P2 equipment to advance that goal,” said Del Parks, Sinclair’s VP of operations and engineering. “This broad purchase of HPX370s now allows us to entirely replace our aging, tape-based ENG cameras with a modern format and enables us to shoot HD in the field,” he added.

Parks said that by the end of this year more than half of Sinclair’s news-producing stations would be fully HD-ready. HPX370s will also be assigned as production cameras in its HD-equipped master control stations.

“We put the HPX370 up against 2/3” camcorders, and determined that the camcorder’s new sensors gave us excellent sensitivity for news,” Parks said. ”And because the HPX370 supports interchangeable lenses, we’ll be able to use Fujinon HD ENG lenses with 2X extenders on the camcorders we have in the field.”

The Sinclair markets with local ENG operations are: WLOS-WMYA Asheville, NC, WBFF Baltimore; KGAN Cedar Rapids, Iowa; WICD-WICS Champaign/Springfield, Ill.; WCHS-WVAH Charleston, W.Va.; WSYX-WTTE Columbus, Ohio; WKEF-WRGT Dayton, Ohio; WZTV Nashville; KOKH Oklahoma City; WEAR Pensacola, Fla.; WGME Portland, Maine; and KABB San Antonio, Texas.

Panasonic new product introductions at NAB included the AG-3DP1, a 3D P2 HD twin-lens shoulder-mount camcorder; the AG-HPX250, the company’s first P2 HD handheld camcorder with AVC-Intra recording; two new AVCCAM HD handheld camcorders, the AG-AC160 and AG-AC130, with Full HD imagers and a new, wider 21X HD zoom lens; AG-HPD24 P2 portable deck with 3D synchronized record/playback, native 24p recording with variable frame rates and 24-bit, four-channel audio recording in AVC-Intra 100/50; the AJ-PCD30 P2 three-slot drive with a super-speed USB 3.0 interface; and the BT-LH910, a 9-inch LCD monitor with newly-developed 3D assist functions.

Other customer announcements made at the show included:

• The company  is supplying NASA with AG-3DA1 3D camcorders, BT-3DL2550 3D LCD monitors and Toughbook laptop computers to document the training and preparation leading up to the June 28 launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station.  While at the station, the astronauts will conduct a number of scientific missions that they will capture with the 3DA1.

• NFL Films (Mount Laurel, NJ is moving to file-based, 24P solid-state acquisition with its investment in an array of Panasonic P2 HD gear including  AJ-HPX3100 master-quality, 1080p 2/3” P2 HD camcorders and  AG-HPD24 P2 portable decks,  as well as BT-LH910  9” LCD monitors.