During NAB 2004, Panasonic announced the successful sales launch of the DVCPRO P2 platform with purchase orders from several major U.S. media such as Media General, NY1, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Scripps Howard Broadcasting and Liberty Corp. NAB was also the scene of the debut of P2-compatible systems and products by P2 Alliance companies such as Avid. Dayang, Pinnacle, Quantel and Thomson/Grass Valley.
Plans for DVCPRO P2, according to Panasonic, follow the historical pattern of the DVCPRO/50/HD tape format. This means users can expect a wider range of P2 products, including a palm-style minicamcorder in 2005, and DVCPRO HD P2 products in 2006. In addition to DVCPRO-based P2 products, Panasonic will offer MPEG-based HD P2 minicamcorders for professional markets.
A statement from the company states that "DVCPRO P2 makes the acquisition of non-linear news, instant access and NLE editing in the field, a reality, and allows news networks and operations to take advantage of advances in IT technology, such as laptops, digital microwave links and access to wireless and broadband networks."
"By connecting ENG procurement with the IT world, Panasonic offers broadcasters a substantial workflow improvement, greater operational efficiency and significant cost of ownership savings," said John Baisley, President of Panasonic Broadcast, who declared the beginning of the ING era.
Some of the highlights by Panasonic where DVCPRO P2 technology brings improvements are:
- Compatibility. DVCPRO P2 supports DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 and offers a seamless migration path to DVCPRO HD.
- Workflow improvements. The ING stream includes high-speed file transfer, editing on laptops in the field if proxy videos are needed, support for standard archive and storage systems, and elimination of traditional ingest and scanning processes. Expenses on consumable media are practically eliminated.
- Low maintenance cost. The elimination of mechanisms and transports results in significant savings in maintenance costs as there are no movable parts or parts that can be spent with repetitive use within the recording units.
- Environmental stability. DVCPRO is resistant to shock or vibration and offers great resistance in extreme cold, dusty or excessively wet environments.
The P2 card consists of four SD memory cards. These can be rewritten up to 100,000 times without degradation in performance. The connector can withstand about 30,000 insertions and removals from the unit. A 4Gb P2 card records 16 minutes of DVCPRO and 8 minutes of DVCPRO50. Currently, Panasonic offers 2 and 4 Gb cards, but 8, 16 and 32 Gb products are expected as soon as larger capacities are available in SD cards.
Sony shows a mature product
While the XDCAM platform continues to be a technological novelty, what Sony offered at NAB 2004 cannot be categorized as a new product. The platform had already been presented during NAB 2003 and the products began to be shipped a few months ago. Sony's presentation focused, rather, on highlighting the maturity of the platform and the fact that more than 1500 XDCAM Prfessional Disc systems had been shipped during the first months of the year. These include camcorders, decks, and storage disks. Among the most avid customers for this technology, TV Globo from Brazil stands out.
The XDCAM system is also being used by NBC in a pilot program prior to its use in the Athens Olympic Games. Sony's optical disc technology will be used to create athlete profiles and provide news related to the Games. Scott Brady, president of news operations at NBC stated that "Sony's XDCAM systems offer great workflow advantages over traditional tape-based formats. We are particularly excited about their interoperability with Avid's NLE systems and believe both companies will provide technically robust solutions for tapeless recording, editing, storage and archiving. As a result, we will be able to record, review, edit and access materials faster than ever before."
Sony also reported that other major companies such as rental houses Bexel and Wexler, production companies Communications Four and State of Mindo Productions and stations WLS-TV and KPRC-TV have adopted XDCAM technology.
XDCAM systems record an original in high resolution as well as an audio and video proxy in low resolution but accurate in frames. From a camcorder or portable deck, ENG or EFP teams can transfer proxy information to laptop editors or the studio up to 30 times faster than in real time, so producers can immediately start writing scripts and editing programs. Field engineers, on the other hand, can transfer high-resolution shots as video or as data over IP networks, thus saving valuable time. In the case of compact, or studio, decks, proxy material can be transferred at a rate of 50 times the actual time.
Sony's optical disc storage technology seamlessly integrates tape-based products using standard DVCAM and MPEG IMX codecs. The total interoperability of disk and tape systems allows us to work on the return on investment of the installed infrastructure while opening the doors to new possibilities offered by the world of optical disc systems.
The strength of Sony's Professional Disc technology was also reflected in the fact that TDK, a company that participated in the development of the blue laser technology used by these systems, decided to exhibit for the first time at NAB. TDK provides the 23.3 Gb capacity optical media used in XDCAM systems.
For its part, Ikegami continued with its Editcam line of hard drive products (cameras and recorders). The new DNS-33W camcorder was designed to work with packets of a capacity greater than 100 Gb which represents more than seven and a half hours of DV25 video. Ikegami also showed off the DNE.31, a hard drive recorder that replaces VTRs but with DNS-33W features like touch-sensitive on-screen video monitoring.
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