Panasonic debuts DVCPRO P2 Series AJ-SPX800 camcorder

At NAB 2004, Panasonic showcased its next-generation DVCPRO P2 series AJ-SPX800 camcorder, offering the extensive benefits of solid-state memory recording and IT domain integration, elevating news acquisition to a new level of speed and cost efficiency.
The AJ-SPX800 combines a high performance 2/3-inch 3-CCD camera with 24fps/30fps progressive and 60 fields interlace DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 format P2 card recording, supporting a wide range of requirements for newsgathering and newsmagazine production.
By eliminating all moving parts from the camera recording path, Panasonic has ensured the AJSPX800 is extremely reliable and resistant to environmental hazards, such as the shock, vibration, cold, dust, moisture and humidity that threaten camcorders based on mechanical recording transports. AJ-SPX800 images are stored on a P2 card using MXF file format to ensure IT compatibility for file transfer.
The AJ-SPX800 is a breakthrough in camera design. Quite apart from eliminating the mechanical transport, which provides silent operation and vastly improved reliability under adverse operating conditions, P2 offers the fantastically high-transfer rate, IT capabilities, MXF file format and metadata support to optimize news workflow efficiencies.
The AJ-SDX800 features three 2/3” 600,000-pixel, IT CCDs; with a sensitivity of F13 at 2000 lux; and minimum illumination of 0.09 lux (at +48dB), or 0.01 lux (at +48dB plus with +20dB Digital Super Gain). It is also equipped with an advanced 12-axis matrix color correction system, and gamma curves specially optimized for the demands of field news acquisition. For audio, the camera supports two or four 48kHz/16-bit PCM audio channels.
The AJ-SPX800 features five PC card-sized P2 card slots, providing up to 80 minutes record capacity at DVCPRO resolution with 4G P2 cards. At DVCPRO50 studio quality, the AJ-SPX800 provides up to 40 minutes record capacity on five 4G P2 cards. A unique advantage of the DVCPRO P2 series is that recording time increases as the capacity of available P2 cards increases.
For example, with five 16GB P2 cards, the AJ-SPX800 camera will offer over 2½ hours of DVCPRO50 quality recording.
(GB)