ASIA-PACIFIC BROADCASTING

As the broadcast world makes its inexorable march towards a full end-to-end HD creation, production and distribution workflow models, Panasonic’s HD camcorder, DVCPROHD AJ-HDX900, has become part of the creation workflow that is making waves in India’s TV-production industry. Panasonic said the shoulder-held camera recorder is dominating India’s episode serials that are produced in HD. Recently, many prominent production houses and producers in the local industry have adopted this camcorder and DVCPROHD video-tape-recording format for their projects. Some of these users are Sphere Origins, Sagar Arts, Balaji Tele-films and Sri Siddivinayaka in Mumbai and Jishu Dasgupta, Blues and Tron Video in Kolkata.

More than 10 prime-time serials currently aired on various channels were shot using the AJ-HDX900. These include Meera, Jyoti, Basera, Bandini and Kitni Mohabbat Hai, telecast on NDTV Imagine; Shaurya & Suhani, tele-cast on Star Plus; and Khkhono Megh Khkhono Bristi, Nachbe Radha, Sholoana and Binni Daner Kaoi, telecast on regional channel ETV Bangla; and Char Diwas Sasu-chi, telecast on regional channel ETV Marathi.

The AJ-HDX900 is, in fact, a video-camera version of Panasonic’s VariCam camcorder that was developed for film production. The fine picture-tonal quality that it produces enhances the HD pictures that can also be down-converted to provide stunning SD pictures for transmission.

This means that producers using the AJ-HDX900 get better-quality down-converted SD content for immediate transmission and can also preserve the HD format for future use.
With three choices of new film-like gamma curve and a newly developed dynamic range stretching (DRS) function, the camcorder meets the requirement of all types of high-end production. In addition, the AJ-HDX900 is compatible with a newly developed remote control unit (RCU), for added operational and functional flexibility, and can also be used as a studio camera for multi-camera production.

Two Tamil movies currently in production, Thalai Keezh by Madha Creations and Kaunai by Ram Sai Ram films, are also being shot using the AJ-HDX900.

 

Another interesting feature of the camcorder is that it accepts ordinary DVCPRO tape and does not require a special HD tape, thereby cutting down on recurring expenditure.

The AJ-HDX900 is equipped with IEEE 1394 digi-tal output via FireWire which integrates nicely into a Web-streaming or hard-drive recording environment. The camcorder also comes with one-shot, interval recording and seven-second pre-recording functions.

This multi-format camcorder can record HD in 1080/50i, 720/50p, 1080/25p (over 50i) and 720/50p (over 50p) formats. It records full production-quality (4:2:2) video at 100Mbps by using DVCPRO HD compression codec on quarter-inch-width metal particle tape. The 14-bit A/D camera has 2/3-inch three progressive CCDs of one mega-pixel each which captures the picture in native progressive mode. With sensitivity of F10 at 2000Lx, the camera captures outstanding pictures in lighting as low as 0.032Lx.

Panasonic’s AJ-HD1400 compact recorder unit is a perfect complement to the AJ-HDX900. Combined, Panasonic is offering its customers an affordable, versatile and high-quality HD production system at almost the same cost as an SD production system.

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