Panasonic Intros Cameras, Codecs, and Monitors
April 15, 2012, NAB, Las Vegas—Panasonic released a number of new products for the broadcast industry. After reporting the award of a technical Emmy, they announced many new equipment and software releases. Panasonic will be covering the Olympics in HD and 3-D as one of the official video equipment suppliers. Some of the 3-D content will be broadcast on NBC this summer.
The latest version of their AVC codecs are now upgraded to AVC Ultra. This new codec allows for full 1080P/60fps and is a class 200 lossless compression encoder. It offers 4:4:4 12-bit encoding for 2k and 4k video and will be native 4k for camera and workflow. The software package will include AVC Proxy for high-speed file exchanges. They expect the codec to become standard for next generation encoders, as the previous generation has, and will be available next year.
The P2 family has been changed to add a new micro P2 card. This addition will offer new storage capabilities to the 250,000 current users, with capacities of 32GB and 64GB and will be available next spring. The new card is the same form factor as a SD card and an adapter connects the micro P2 to existing systems. The adapter can take standard SD cards, but the storage speed will be much slower, because the micro P2 is optimized for high-speed I/O.
The AFCcam family now has a cinema version, the AF100. The camera gets a software upgrade for 2.39:1 aspect ratios and the upgrade will cost $250. The AC160A camera will record at a full 1080P/60fps and will cost $5,000. The AC130A will record at 1080P/50fps and will cost $4,000.
To watch the newly created videos, a set of LCD monitors. The BTLH 2170 21-inch screen will cost $4,500, the LH 1850 low power 18-inch monitor will cost $2,595. for those needing a projector, the PTD221K projects 20,000 lumens
A new service offering is the cell video uplink. They are using the Dejero Labs uplink package A-Frame to offer a cloud media management for production servers. Users will be able to upload their content at a number of Panasonic locations to hold their content for editing and offline storage. The service will cost $99/month.
See the video of the presentations at www.panasonic.com/nab
