Audio Video News

Many home theater enthusiasts grumble about the slow pace of the development of digital television without considering the cost of the transition for broadcasters—approximately $2 million per studio. The great change isn't occurring only in our viewing rooms, but also in studios throughout North America.

Panasonic hopes to make the move to digital a bit more affordable for broadcasters with a new line of affordable production gear to debut at this year's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention, to be held April 6–11 in Las Vegas. Among the new tools are the world's first standard definition/high definition studio camera with variable frame rate capability, a new professional HD videotape recorder with two-hour capacity, a mini digital video camcorder for the 24 frame progressive (24p) format, and LCD-based production monitors.

The company is making a major push into the professional digital video market this year. "NAB 2002 promises to be another major milestone for Panasonic. Having established ourselves as the primary supplier of news production equipment with the cost-effective and scalable DVCPRO 1/4" digital format, our next business goal is to also become the primary supplier of digital program production tools, as this market also transitions away from existing analog formats," said Stuart English, vice president of marketing for Panasonic Broadcast. "At NAB 2002 we will expand our arsenal of 24p-capable digital production products to cover many price points and quality levels."

English made particular mention of new HD and DV cameras capable of variable-frame and 24-frame progressive image capture. "These new, 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, and dramatically reduce the costs-of-entry into high-quality digital television production." 24 frames per second is a progressive standard; 60 fields per second is the interlaced standard for 490i.

Storage is also an area of emphasis for Panasonic. "This year, we are introducing two HD MPEG servers—which iDVR-100 and iDVR-200—that have been previewed for the past several months at Kenneth Cole's flagship store in New York City," English added. "In the field of HD program distribution, Panasonic will debut a new DVCPRO HD VTR that extends the capacity of a single DVCPRO HD cassette to 124 minutes (in either 720p or 1080i), which is critical for cost-effective program delivery of syndicated programming and sports production in HD."

In addition to new HD studio cameras, Panasonic will introduce an ultra-compact multi-format DTV camera, the AK-HC900, capable of multiple frame rates including 60 fields and 24 frames per second. The AK-HC900 is "capable of capturing film-like 24fps progressive high definition images, and its compact size opens new avenues for high definition television program production, sports coverage . . .and scientific imaging," according to a February 14 announcement.

Also to debut: the AK-HC931, described as "the first studio camera to support variable-frame-rate capture . . . exceptional 480i . . . easily upgradeable to 720p, 1080 line interlace, and 24 frames per second progressive acquisition." The AK-HC931 weighs less than ten pounds and features three image sensors, each of them a 2/3" 1 million pixel, 1280 x 720 progressive scan, charge-coupled device. The camera is unique in having an internal scan converter that enables a legacy video 480i output from progressive scanned images.

Other Panasonic equipment to bow at NAB: a new multi-format frame rate converter and two HD/SD-capable LCD monitors—the 18" BT-LH1800 and 15" BT-LH1500, both designed to meet the exacting needs of high-definition, standard-definition, and computer-based production. The manufacturer claims that the thin, lightweight monitors incorporate "the most advanced LCD display technology and take up less space in the studio, on the desktop, and in mobile vehicles than CRT monitors. Displaying brilliant, highly color-saturated images, these compact monitors offer true color reproduction and familiar user controls for contrast, brightness, and chrominance levels." Accuracy and reliability are even more important to those producing DTV programming than they are for those receiving it. According to the most recent NAB statistics, 248 television stations are now broadcasting digital signals.