Press Release: HMC150, "the new DVX"

[Barry_Green]

news












FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PANASONIC ANNOUNCES ADVANCED PROFESSIONAL AVCHD

AG-HMC150 HANDHELD HD CAMCORDER

SECAUCUS, NJ (February 13, 2008) – Panasonic announces a new addition to its growing professional AVCHD product line that capitalizes on the phenomenal success of its popular DV-based AG-DVX100. The new, affordable AG-HMC150 handheldis scheduled for shipment later this year.

The HMC150 is designed to provide enhanced HD production capabilities for video enthusiasts who desire professional features, extended recording capability and the fast, simple and highly reliable workflow offered by tapeless, solid-state recording. The HMC150 features three native 16:9 progressive 1/3” CCD imagers with an optical image stabilization (O.I.S.) function to ensure stable shooting and a 28mm Leica Dicomar wide-angle zoom lens (35MM equivalent). The HMC150 handheld offers 1080i and 720p recording at 13Mbps, comparable to current HDV compression formats with bit rates of 25Mbps. In addition, an enhanced mode with a higher bit rate is planned to be incorporated into the HMC150 for higher-level use. It supports a full range of HD formats including 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/30p, 1080/25p, 1080/24p native; 720/60p, 720/50p, 720/30p, 720/25p, 720/24p native; and it is 50Hz/59.94Hz switchable.

The advanced handheld utilizes the second-generation long GOP HD standard called AVCHD. Based on MPEG-4 AVC/H.264high profile encoding, AVCHD provides a near doubling of bandwidth efficiency and considerably improved video performance over the older MPEG-2 compression used in HDV formats. Announced by Panasonic and Sony, this industry standard format is now supported by over 30 companies and implemented in numerous camcorders, NLE systems and consumer HD playback devices.

The HMC150 offers professional HD performance with the simplicity of a digital still camera. Since the solid-state handheld records onto SD and SDHC memory cards, professionals can benefit from the reliability and random access of tapeless recording and capitalize on the cost advantages, widespread availability, and growing capacity of standard SD consumer cards. Using the newly announced 32GB SDHC memory card and the camcorder’s 6Mbps recording mode, users can acquire up to 12 hours of HD videoand audio on a single SD card.

Additional features of the HMC150 include professional XLR audio input connections and a wide range of data and signal interfaces including HDMI out, USB2.0, component out (D terminal), composite out and RCA audio out jacks, a 3.5-inch LCD monitor to display thumbnail images for quick viewing and playback, and a Time Code/User Bits menu. The camera also has remote jacks for focus iris and start/stop functions, a pre-record feature that allows the camera to capture footage occurring immediately before real-time recording begins, and a time/date stamp menu option for documentation purposes.

Panasonic’s AVCHD camera line brings the benefits of solid-state recording to budget-conscious professionals. Like digital still photography, recording onto SD/SDHC card offers a fast and simple IT-compatible workflow with ultra-reliable performance and resistance to shock, vibration and extreme temperatures and weather. SD and SDHC memory cards are inexpensive and widely available and can be reused repeatedly. Since AVCHD records video as digital data files, content can be transferred and stored on affordable, high-capacity hard disk drives (HDD) and optical storage media and transferred to future storage media as technology advances.

The HMC150 will be available this fall at a price to be announced.

About Panasonic Broadcast

Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast and professional video products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a unit company of Panasonic Corporation of North America. The company is the North American headquarters of Matsushi*a Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE: MC) of Japan, and the hub of its U.S. marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, access the company’s web site at www.panasonic.com/broadcast.

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EDITORIAL CONTACTS:

Stacy Moore or Pat Lamb
(201) 392-4458 (518) 692-8150
moorest@panasonic.com patalamb@aol.com

[Jared Meyer]

Holy smokes.....just saw all these press releases. It's like Christmas!! I've got some reading to do.

Thanks for posting these Barry!!

[jedbarish]

How do we compare the AVC-HD HMC150 to DVCPRO HD on HVX 200? It would be easier to have SDHC instead P2 Cards to carry around but I wanted to know about the quality in dvcpro hd and avc-hd for indie movie production. Is it good for news instead film production?

[Barry_Green]

AVC-HD is the new format designed to replace HDV. It offers much longer recording times in smaller bandwidth than DVCPRO-HD. DVCPRO-HD is probably still the more professional codec, being intraframe and 4:2:2.

But people have done surprisingly good work with HDV already, and AVC-HD is better in every way than HDV ever was. This sounds like it's the camera I've been waiting for for a couple of years, for people who cut their teeth on the DVX. Now we just have to find out the price...

[PerroneFord]

Originally Posted by Barry_Green

This sounds like it's the camera I've been waiting for for a couple of years, for people who cut their teeth on the DVX. Now we just have to find out the price...

You said it brother. It may also be the magic bullet for those who wish to shoot underwater. The primary factors there being changing tapes in a wet environment, 1hr recording times, and HDD failure. The ability to change out the recording medium easily, is going to be a boon. It's also quiet since it's solid state, so no Firestore noise.

But why no 1080/60p? Is it REALLY that hard to do?

About the only thing I really would have liked to see is an LCD on top like Some of the Sony models. That is just SO much better for underwater work.

[Barry_Green]

Originally Posted by PerroneFord

But why no 1080/60p? Is it REALLY that hard to do?

Because it doesn't exist as a video standard. No video camera has 1080/60p, you can't record it or broadcast it in any standard codec or transmission standard.

[vocare]

Originally Posted by Barry_Green

Because it doesn't exist as a video standard. No video camera has 1080/60p, you can't record it or broadcast it in any standard codec or transmission standard.

cool...will this be the answer to sony camera...

[Barry_Green]

Will the HMC150 be the answer to the Sony EX1? Probably not, because I expect the HMC150 to be about half the price of the EX1. Of course, we don't know pricing yet, but if it's the replacement to the DVX then I expect it'll come in under $4,000, hopefully around $3500.

[Ian Slessor]

I've been hoping Panny (or someone else) would put out a tapeless HD cam and soon.

It would appear Panny has my money. The bastards.

Of course I want to see how it shakes out once we get more details but it would be veeery nice if we had, say, 14x zoom (too much to ask for?), 20+ Mbps available, and all the features we love about the DVX/HVX.

Oh, and around $3500 CDN would hit my sweet spot.

Maybe downloadable upgrades for intraframe AVCHD down the road? Like my PS3 upgrading to 2.0 for full-featured Blu-ray movies. Just sayin'.

Colour me excited.

sincerely,


ian

[Zander]

Looking forward to trying it.