Panasonic is sending seven complete IT-based TV production kits around Europe to demonstrate the workflow benefits of solid-state acquisition and file-based production to broadcasters, dealers, rental companies, freelances and independent producers, writes David Fox.
The TVbyIT tour takes place until March, then the kits will be completely renewed and another tour will start again in May, when it will have more of an emphasis on workflow according to Panasonic Broadcast’s head of UK marketing, Marc Irwin. The kits are being sent to multiple countries, so the unit currently touring the UK will be shipped to Turkey in mid February.
Irwin believes that the best way to show what IT can do for TV is to give people hands-on experience, and taking the tour to broadcasters and studios makes it a lot easier for people to visit. “We’ve been getting quite a lot of the ‘Wow’ factor. ‘Oh really, I didn’t think it was so easy’, because we can show the workflow and how easily it transfers from P2 card to NLE,” he says.
So far, 78% of European broadcasters who have IT infrastructure have P2, he claimed. BSkyB, for example, has 28 HPX 2100 camcorders.
The star of the tour, according to visitors, is the HPX 3000 camcorder, which uses the new H.264-based AVC-Intra format, offering full 1920 x 1080 D5 4:2:2 quality at 100Mbps, or DVCPRO HD 4:2:0 quality at half its previous rate – 50Mbps – and costs about _36,000. The HPX 2100 can also be upgraded to AVC-Intra with an inexpensive plug-in board.
