Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Thomson Grass Valley for Its Formidable Product Suite in the Digital Broadcast and Cinematography Cameras Market

Business Wire, March 3, 2008

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Based on its recent analysis of the global digital broadcast and cinematography cameras market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Thomson with the 2007 Global Product Line Leadership of the Year Award for its impressive product lineup targeting both the broadcast and cinematography cameras market.

"The worldwide move towards digital production technologies has led to an increasing demand from the broadcast and cinema industry for digital acquisition products," says Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Vidya S. Nath. "The transition in the broadcast sector from standard definition (SD) to high definition (HD) and, in cinematography from analog to digital is finding definite contours, but few vendors in the market provide optimum features and solutions in line with market expectations."

As the market moves towards a tapeless workflow, customers look for solutions that can replicate their experience with the analog camera versions even while adapting the changes in the technology. With a comprehensive suite of solutions, Thomson provides products and solutions for the entire production workflow that are compatible with each of its cameras.

"A high level of integration is necessary in the market and assures customers of tying all aspects of their production chain," notes Nath. "Thomson reinforces its attempts to provide a tapeless solution by offering its customers various options for digital recording with different storage solutions."

For electronic field production (EFP) and electronic news gathering (ENG), Thomson's Infinity[TM] Digital Media Camcorder (DMC) offers a unique digital storage solution. Users can choose from removable-storage disks, professional solid-state memory, or external hard drives. To enable hot-swappable media changes during recording as well as to extend recording time indefinitely, the Infinity makes use of an internal cache memory to store video, audio, and metadata inside the camera. This provides the time required to change media without the danger of missing key shots that may not be repeatable.

"The Infinity[TM] Digital Media Camcorder supports both HD and SD recording in multiple formats and also has the option of enhanced support for multiple compression schemes such as DV25, JPEG 2000, and MPEG-2," adds Nath. "Such versatility is vital in today's digital environment."

Thomson's robust lineup of HD production cameras includes the multi-format LDK 8000 series, which has three versions: Standard, WorldCam, and SportCam. The Standard version supports 1080i/720p HD formats in 50 and 59.94 Hz, and simultaneously provides high-quality SD output in either 50 or 59.94 Hz. The WorldCam version adds support for all recognized worldwide HD formats, including 24p for digital cinematography acquisition and 1080p50/60 output. The SportCam offers 2X Slo-mo capability.

Every camera in the LDK 8000 series is built around three 9.2-million pixel HD-DPM+[TM] 2/3-inch CCDs and can switch between multiple formats and frame rates. It supports both the 1080i and 720p formats. WorldCam also supports all 1080p formats. 1080p considered to be the highest resolution along with 1080i in HD, at 2.97 Gbps, is not supported by many camera products in the market.

SportCam is a two-piece dockable camera system, fully compatible with all current LDK HD sub-systems. What makes it unique is its ability to shoot at double speed - either 100 Hz or 119.88 Hz, depending on the HD format - and record to an external third-party disk recorder. It is the only slow motion camera available that can capture true progressive HD images natively, in multiple formats and frame rates. For those organizations that have decided on a single HD format, the Thomson LDK 4000 mk II single-format camera provides an affordable complement to the LDK 8000 multi-format camera with support for either 1080i or 720p production.

Thomson also provides a series of SD camera products that have seen an encouraging uptake in the market. Its top-of-the line LDK 400 supports 14-bit analog to digital conversion, the Thomson wireless triax camera system, and has remote controllable features.

Thomson's Viper FilmStream Camera[TM] has been used for several movie productions, including Collateral, Miami Vice and Zodiac, as well as various commercials. The company's HD cameras have been used at sporting events such as the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and the FIFA World Cup and are also widely used for news, sports, and entertainment productions of all types.

In short, Thomson's consistent pursuits to be ahead of the market trends and reach out to diverse customer needs have established it as a formidable vendor in the digital video market. Hence, Frost & Sullivan is proud to recognize Thomson with the 2007 Global Product Line Leadership of the Year Award, for its flexible and competitive suite of solutions for the professional digital broadcast and cinematography cameras market.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated the most insight into customer needs and product demands. The recipient company should have optimized its product line by leveraging products with the various price, performance, and feature points required by the market.