Panasonic Unveils World's First Hand-Held Solid-State Memory High Definition Camcorder; Revolutionary DVCPRO HD Camera Records in HD and SD on P2, and 720p Variable Frame Rate Recording

Business Wire, April 17, 2005

LAS VEGAS -- Customer Commitments include NRK (Norway), Birns & Sawyer, 17 U.S. TV Stations

Representing a quantum leap in camcorder technology, Panasonic Broadcast introduced today at NAB 2005 the AG-HVX200, the world's first 1080i/720p/480i multi-format camcorder.

Offering flexibility and versatility never before available to video professionals, the AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 hand-held camcorder provides 1080i and 720p recording with the production-proven image quality of 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD. The AG-HVX200 shoots on a P2 card in 1080/60i, 30p and 24p; in 720/60p, 30p and 24p; and in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO or DV. By eliminating all moving parts from the camera recording path when shooting on a P2 card, Panasonic has ensured the AG-HVX200 is extremely reliable and resistant to environmental hazards, such as the shock, vibration, and humidity that threaten camcorders based on mechanical recording transports.

"Television viewers have been promised that high definition will deliver beautiful, widescreen image and audio quality into their homes. To deliver on this promise, professional video users need to shoot with a cost-effective HD camcorder that is not bit rate starved or suffering from motion artifacts," said John Baisley, President, Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Company. "The AG-HVX200 is the revolutionary HD camera users have been dreaming about, and have also come to expect from Panasonic.

"The AG-HVX200 inherits many of the functions of our popular, shoulder-mount AJ-HDC27 VariCam(R) camcorder, including the exceptional DVCPRO HD quality images, variable frame rates to capture fast-speed and slow-speed action, and a cine-like gamma curve and cine-like color matrix to emulate the look of film. In addition, the AG-HVX200 has a Mini-DV tape recording capability that allows customers to shoot 16:9 images on DV tape and edit with existing workflow."

Seventeen U.S. TV stations; Birns & Sawyer, Inc., a premiere Hollywood, CA rental/sales firm; and NRK, the public broadcaster in Norway; have all placed orders for the AG-HVX200.

"NRK has a long experience of working with handheld cameras in many different applications. We are excited about the development of the AG-HVX200. In particular, its 720/50p capabilities (in PAL mode) and the IT capabilities of P2 are an important step for NRK towards a progressive HD migration," said Arild Hellgren, technical director in NRK.

Steve Smith, Vice President of Engineering and Technology, Liberty Corporation, who is purchasing AG-HVX200s for four of its stations converting to DVCPRO P2, said, "Our number one priority was to find a small, handheld camcorder to use in daily operations, and Panasonic's new P2 recording camcorder fulfills this need incredibly well, plus it records in both standard definition and high definition."

Tailor made for production and postproduction, the DVCPRO HD format offers users cost-effective, proven intra-frame compression, where each frame stands on it own for editing, and its full 4:2:2 color sampling allows the image to hold up under color correction. Additionally, the DVCPRO HD format includes robust uncompressed audio, which is perfect for audio sweetening in post production. In addition, established third-party nonlinear editing systems such as Apple, Avid and Canopus are available to work with the AG-HVX200 and DVCPRO HD via the IEEE 1394 interface.

"Apple and Panasonic have delivered many industry firsts, such as a Firewire enabled high definition VTR and native support for real-time DVCPRO HD in the Emmy Award-winning Final Cut Pro editing software," said Rob Schoeben, Apple's vice president of Application Marketing. "This year the combination of Final Cut Pro 5 with P2 support and Panasonic's new solid state HD camcorder will change the economics of professional HD production forever."

"Avid was one for the first companies to support both Panasonic's DVCPRO HD and the P2 series of products, so we are excited to see these two technologies coming together with the launch of the handheld P2-HD AG-HVX200," said Chas Smith, General Manager of Avid Video. "Given our knowledge and experience around these formats, we expect to deliver support in Avid products right around the time of the new camera's debut. Most importantly, our customers can look forward to ongoing compatibility and interoperability between our companies' products, given our mutually strong commitment to MXF."

"The AG-HVX200 handheld camcorder is impressive. The P2 format has been making great headway in ENG. Adding the outstanding quality of DVCPRO HD capture and flexibility of the handheld form factor makes it even more compelling for broadcasters," said Hiro Yamada, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Canopus. "EDIUS's realtime mixed HD/SD format editing, full frame rate resolution output, scalable design and a fast, flexible interface offers broadcaster professionals the perfect editing companion for Panasonic's new camcorder."

With the AG-HVX200, HD and SD video is recorded on the P2 card as IT-friendly MXF files that can be downloaded to a nonlinear editing system or server, or edited virtually instantly from the P2 card by connecting an IEEE 1394 or USB2.0 interface. P2 cards mount like a regular hard drive from a NLE system's point of view, which eliminates the time-taking task of digitizing footage. This speeds up workflow and ensures a smooth, fast acquisition-through-editing system that integrates the benefits of IT throughout the production and newsgathering process. For newsgathering, the AG-HVX200's pictures are enhanced with its built-in news gamma curve that assists the ENG photographer by suppressing over-saturation in highlight areas during sudden contrast changes. With its pre-record function, the AG-HVX200 starts recording from the moment it's switched on, so users can feel confident that they won't miss an important shot. With easy selection of SD or HD recording, news organizations that commit to the AG-HVX200 today are assured a future-proof migration to HD news on their own timetable.