LAS VEGAS – It was towards the end of a long day of press conferences but Sony’s big reveal today woke the crowd of assembled journalists this afternoon with its new solid state memory camera.
Sony cameras are, of course, very well known and used in the industry, but with the complete shift towards file-based systems, and the desire of broadcasters to limit their replacement costs going forward on newer, more expensive HD cameras – Sony was facing pressure from the industry to move towards a camera with no moving (i.e. breakable) parts.
While Panasonic and its P2 line gained share over the past couple of years, Sony stuck by its choice of optical disc cameras – its XD CAM line. Today though, Alec Shapiro, Sony’s senior vice-president broadcast products division, said XD, to Sony, has simply meant an open sort of name that could encompass anything, “not just optical disc,” he said. That was just before holding up the new, handheld XD CAM EX – as trade journos from around the world rushed up for pictures of the exec and his new toy.
It features 16 GB flash memory cards that will hold an hour of HD and is Sony’s way of catching up to Panasonic, which held its own press event just prior. (Sony isn’t abandoning its optical disc line though as it also unveiled new optical-disc based XDCAM products, including the PDW-F355 camcorder, PDW-F75 deck, and the PDW-U1 external drive. Since its introduction, 21,000 XDCAM units have been delivered worldwide.)
Sony also announced it has sold 150 HDC-1000 and HDC-1500 cameras to NEP – the largest mobile producer in the world – which is the company’s largest camera sale in its history, said Shapiro.
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During its afternoon, overly-scripted, press conference, Panasonic executives more fully outlined its plans for its P2HD and new 16GB cards coming next month (for US$900 each) and 32 GB cards ($1800) coming in the winter.
Among its numerous products launched today, the company also introduced the AG-HPX500, a new shoulder-mounted P2 HD camcorder that teams the production-quality of 2/3” 3-CCDs, DVCPRO HD, 4:2:2 sampling and independent frame encoding with interchangeable lenses and the creativity of variable frame rates.
The AG-HPX500 records in 32 high definition and standard definition formats, including 1080i and 720p in production-proven, 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD. The AG-HPX500 records on removable P2 solid-state memory cards in 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p; in 720/60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, and 24p; and in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV.
It’s suggested price is US$14,000.
So confident is the company in its products – and its solid state memory system – that Panasonic used the event to announce an industry first, a five-year limited warranty repair program on all full-sized P2 HD camcorders and select P2 HD field models, all at no cost to customers. The program goes into effect May 1, 2007.
With the purchase of AG-HPX500, AJ-HPX2000 and AJ-HPX3000 full-size P2 HD camcorders as well as the AJ-HPM100 P2 Mobile recorder/player and AG-HPG10 P2 Gear player/viewer/recorder, a customer will receive a five-year warranty (Panasonic Broadcast’s normal one-year basic warranty plus an extended warranty for years two through five), which will lower his total cost of ownership. Other no-cost benefits of the five-year warranty program include free software updates and asset management service through the P2 Asset Support System (PASS).
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Back to back press conferences from industry heavyweights – with back to back boasts about how extreme their cameras are. Panasonic featured the organizers of Alaska’s 1150-mile long Iditarod dog sled race singing the praises of the P2s and their performance in the snow. Sony, on the other hand, showed footage from a documentary maker shot with his XD CAM on the other side of the earth – in Antarctica, who sang the praises of his Sony and its performance in the snow.
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Apple’s press conference at the Venetian unveiled Final Cut Studio 2, an upgrade to the company’s video production suite which offers editors new tools. Final Cut Studio 2 includes Final Cut Pro 6, which introduces Apple’s ProRes 422 format for uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes and support for mixed video formats and frame rates in a single Timeline; Motion 3 featuring an intuitive 3D environment, paint and new behaviours; Soundtrack(R) Pro 2 with dozens of innovative tools for multitrack editing, surround mixing and con- forming sound to picture; Compressor 3 delivering powerful batch encoding for multiple formats with a single click; and DVD Studio Pro 4.2 for SD and HD DVD authoring. Final Cut Studio 2 also introduces "Color," a professional color grading and finishing application for ensuring consistent color and creating signature looks, says the press release.
The company also took the wrapper off its new Final Cut Server, a new server application that works with Final Cut Studio 2 to provide media asset management and workflow automation for post production and broadcast professionals. Final Cut Server includes a cross-platform client that enables content browsing, review and approval from within a studio or over the Internet. It automatically catalogues large collections of assets and enables searching across multiple volumes via an intuitive user interface.
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Omnibus CTO Ian Fletcher gave a little glimpse into how the green movement is moving into broadcast. Its iTX 1.2 master control and playout application, helps cut power consumption by 40% – and power usage is moving to the head of the line – at least in Europe – when it comes to broadcaster contracts, he said. One client, sent out “an RFP that talked about power consumption on almost every page,” said Fletcher.
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Just to make sure their broadcast clients know the cost of going to HD is going down, way down, Quantel’s Newsbox is now fully HD – at no additional cost. “It’s HD for free,” said senior product manager John Woodhouse. “It’s a massive hike in our price performance,” added company CEO Ray Cross.
Newsbox HD (the only version now available) is a self-contained unit that can ingest material, view rushes, choose shots, edit stories, review finished pieces and play them out to air. The SD version MSRP: US$200,000. The HD version: US$200,000.
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Surf back to Cartt.ca all week for regular updates from NAB 2007.
– Greg O’Brien
