Panasonic targets NAB for progressive products

Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Company will unveil cost-effective, multi-format standard definition and high definition acquisition products supporting 24-frame, progressive scanning at NAB 2002.
"NAB 2002 promises to be another major milestone for Panasonic. Our next business goal is to also become the primary supplier of digital programme production tools, as this market also transitions away from existing analogue formats,” said Stuart English, Vice President, Marketing, Panasonic Broadcast.
The company will introduce a new family of HD and DV cameras, capable of variable-frame and 24-frame progressive image capture to complement its AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera.
These flexible frame-rate and multi-resolution cameras and camcorders allow a much larger number of broadcasters and cinematographers to shoot either 60 field or 24-frame SDTV or HDTV film-style images.
Panasonic will also focus on programme distribution, playback-to-air and the related field of asset storage and management. This year, Panasonic are introducing two HD MPEG servers, the iDVR-100 and iDVR-200, and the DVCPRO HD VTR that extends the capacity of a single DVCPRO HD cassette to 124 minutes.
At NAB 2002, Panasonic will debut two configurations of a new multi-format DTV studio/portable cameras – the AK-HC931 - and an ultra-compact multi-format DTV camera – the AK-HC900.
The AK-HC931 offers 480 interlace performance and is upgradeable to 720-line progressive, 1080-line interlace and 24-frames per second progressive acquisition.
The compact AK-HC900 720p multi-purpose camera incorporates multiple frame rate capabilities including 60 and 24-frames per second over 60fps. The camera’s compact size opens new avenues for high-definition television program production, sports coverage, business communications, and government and scientific imaging.
AJ-HDC27 VariCam and the AJ-FRC27 Frame Rate Converter (FRC) will also be introduced. The FRC facilitates easy conversion of variable frame rate progressive scan footage captured by the AJ-HDC27 Varicam to 24-frame-per-second progressive post-production formats.
Panasonic have also announced the new 124-minute DVCPRO HD-LP studio VTR, capable of recording in 1080 interlace or 720 progressive, and which is especially suitable for broadcast sports production and program distribution applications.
New 24P Mini-DV Camcorder and the palm-size AG-DVX100 is equipped with three, newly-developed 1/3” progressive scan CCDs will allow the camcorder to capture high-sensitivity images in both standard 60-field-per-second NTSC (interlace scan).
NAB will also feature the Internet-Enabled Audio/Video Servers for Economical HD Video Playback and LCD-based production and display monitors.
Panasonic Broadcast, www.panasonic-broadcast.com
(GMcG)