Panasonic Pushes P2 Developments
February 22, 2005
Secaucus, NJ - Panasonic Broadcast has added new products and features to its P2 product family, and will introduce more new products at NAB, along with its partner companies such as Avid, Apple, EVS, Leitch, Pinnacle Systems, Thomson/Grass Valley and Quantel.
Introduced now is the AJ-PCS060, a portable hard disk unit with a P2 card slot that transfers the content of P2 cards to an internal hard disk drive.
The 2.5” 60GB hard disk drive can hold the contents of up to 15 4GB P2 cards, and the entire contents of a 4GB P2 card can be transferred to the internal hard disk drive in approximately four minutes. After the P2 content has been transferred, the P2 store can connect to an NLE or Server Ingest PC via a USB 2.0 interface and appears as an external disk drive.
Also introduced are new options for the AJ-SPX800 DVCPRO P2 camcorder include 24p frame rate recording and proxy video recording with three quality levels. Panasonic's AJ-HDC27 VariCam variable-frame-rate HD, AJ-SDX900 DVCPRO50 and AG-DVX100A Mini-DV models produce video that emulates the look of film. The software upgrade allows the AJ-SPX800 2/3” DVCPRO P2 camcorder to capture film-like 24p images as well as 30p and 60i.
The new proxy video option (AJ-YAX800G) permits the AJ-SPX800 to record a low-resolution video copy for viewing on a laptop or desktop PC and on a PDA, and in an emergency situation, for transfer by connecting to an ubiquitous cable modem, DLP or dial-up connection. With proxy video, a low-res MPEG-4 quality copy of the video (with audio) is recorded onto a postage stamp-size SD memory card at the same time as the high-resolution 25Mbps DVCPRO or 50Mbps DVCPRO50 video. Proxy video can be used for browsing and scripting or for transferring to a PC. With Panasonic’s proxy video option, users can select from three quality levels -- 1.5Mbps quality for on-air playback, 768kbps quality to transfer in almost real-time over a TCP/IP network, or 196kbps quality to transfer via a dial-up connection to the internet.
The new option for the AJ-SPD850 is an optical disc back-up, the AJ-DVD850 4.7GB DVD-RAM/DVD-R recordable drive. The drive easily installs in the available 5.25” bay in the AJ-SPD850. At less than $2 per DVD-R disc, the AJ-DVD850 is an economical solution for backing up and archiving DVCPRO or DVCPRO50 native video as a file, the company reports.
In the field, the portable AJ-PCS060 hard disk serves as an aggregation and transport device, storing the contents of P2 cards and minimizing the number of P2 cards needed. Back at the studio, it serves as a high-speed drive for transferring video into a station’s Local Area Network (LAN) or nonlinear editing system to speed access to the recorded content.
For quick and easy operation, the AJ-PCS060 simply has a large start button. The drive also includes LED indicators for copy status, drive capacity and battery life remaining. Its highly ruggedized design adds additional protection to the AJ-PCS060 against shock, vibration and external elements.
The drive supports Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems. It is powered by a 7.2V DC battery or a 7.9V AC adaptor.
The core DVCPRO P2 products eliminate transports and mechanisms, resulting in a significant maintenance cost-savings because of the absence of any moving parts that can break down or wear out from repetitive use.
The 24p software upgrade will be available in April in the AJ-SPX800. The AJ-YAX800 proxy video option will be available in May at the suggested list price of $1,200. The AJ-DVD850 DVD-RAM-R drive will be available in April. The AJ-PCS060 will be available in the Third Quarter 2005.
For more information, visit
www.panasonic.com/p2
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