Panasonic Launches 1080p Pro Camcorder
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The new Panasonic HD shoulder-mount camcorder is designed to provide a common production broadcast platform in HDD5 quality and is the first to achieve native full HD in 4:2:2, 10 bit without pre-filtering, the company says.

Conforming to EBU requirements, the new AJ-HPX3000G offers industry-standard DVCPRO50/HD content compatibility for high-end television, film, and commercial productions. A first in a shoulder-mounted camcorder, says Panasonic.

The inclusion of AVC-I (H.264 compliant), according to Panasonic, gives this camcorder a significantly better compression scheme than the older-generation MPEG-2 and offers DVCPRO HD quality at half the bandwidth, creating substantial savings in both storage and distribution, not to mention increasing the capacity of P2 mobile storage devices.

The AJ-HPX3000G uses three newly developed high-density 2.2-million-pixel CCDs, 14-bit A/D conversion and 12-pole matrix colour correction. Its AVC-Intra recording capability is offered in two switchable modes, 100M mode for near D-5 HD quality, and 50M for situations where high bandwidth efficiency is also important. The camera is 50/60-Hz switchable for use around the world and offers superb 1080 recordings in DVCPRO HD in 30p, 60i, 50i, and at 24p (over 60i) and 25p (over 50i), as well as SD recording in DVCPRO50.

Equipped with five P2 card slots and a side-mounted, 3.5-inch colour LCD monitor, this P2 HD camcorder also features Chromatic Aberration Compensation (CAC) function designed to fix registration errors and minimise lateral chromatic aberration in lenses.

The AJ-HPX3000G comes standard with professional input/output options including industry-standard IT interfaces such as USB 2 host and device, IEEE 1394A and optional HD/SD-SDI. Features that add flexibility include genlock input for HD Tri-Level Sync or VBS input use, SMPTE timecode, two-wheel optical filters (ND and CC) and an optional HD/SD-SDI input for external line recording.

Filling out an online registration form gives owners a five-year limited warranty on the product.

RRP: $69,385

See: www.panasonic.com.au