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Panasonic and Quantel showcase new HD solutions at IBC

Canon shows three DIGISUPER HD lenses

By Kevin Hilton

The underlying trend in modern broadcasting is the ever-increasing influence of IT on the way television is produced and distributed. That was seen clearly around this year's IBC in just about every area of technology, particularly in post-production with digital intermediate workflows.

Acquisition has also begun to change due to IT through the use of solid state and disc media for cameras. Panasonic has been at the forefront of this with its range of P2 solid state cameras and although the manufacturer was again not an official exhibitor at the show it made some significant introductions during invitation-only viewings away from the main exhibition.

Panasonic's aim is to remove all moving parts from the production chain, beginning with the camera and going through to the non-linear editing systems. The big launch for the company was the next generation of its solid state technology, P2 HD. The company showed the AG-HPX500, an entry-level professional camcorder, the AG-HPX2100, a P2 version of the HDX900, and the higher-end AG-HPX3000, which operates in native 1080. These new cameras work on H.264 codecs and have two modes; one runs at 50Mb/s, comparable to DVCPro quality, the other at 100Mb/s, giving HD D5 performance.

AG-HPX500

While Thomson hedged its bets by offering both disc and solid state for the Infinity range, which received a stronger showing at this year's exhibition than since its introduction, Sony chose disc only for its tapeless XDCAM cameras. But the manufacturer made a concession to the potential of solid state during IBC 2007 by launching XDCAM EX, a solid state compact camcorder. The recording medium for the PMW-EX1 is a new flash memory card, the SxS PRO, which has an 800Mbps data transfer speed and can record up to 100 minutes of HD material at 35Mbps or 140 minutes at 25Mbps onto two 16-GB SxS memory cards.

There is an old photographers' cliche that any camera is only as good as the lump of glass on the front of it. The trend in lenses has for some time been toward HD, and Canon launched three new optics, two for long-focus work in HD and one for HD studio operation. The DIGISUPER 100AF and DIGISUPER 86AF have been designed with sports broadcasting in mind, as they are able to cope with fast action at a distance.

DIGISUPER 86AF

They also offer technology that allows the camera operator to select different modes for focusing: Part Time, running on auto-focus for as long as the control button is pressed; Full Time, giving continuous focus on selected moving objects, or for shooting using full-servo robotic operation; and Off, which gives unassisted focus.

DIGISUPER 27

The technology has also been applied to a HD studio lens, the DIGISUPER 27, an improved version of the XJ27x6.5B, now with a zoom ratio of 27x, giving a focal length of 180mm. Another feature is resistance to ghosting. And with the growing demand for remote control of HD OB cameras Canon introduced a remote pan and tilt camera, the BU-40H, which is designed for concerts, sporting events, news and reality TV.

In post-production, DI continued its onward march and Quantel gave the Genetic Engineering networking system a European launch but a trend to watch is for stereoscopic 3D. A number of developers showed systems for this, but Quantel gave it particular prominence, showing a range of Stereo 3D tools, which will be available as options on all new Pablo 4K, iQ4 and Max 4K systems.

Current systems will be able to upgrade to Stereoscopic 3D, which includes pre-visualisation, editing, VFX, colour correction, production of trailers and mastering. Quantel's Stereoscopic 3D for Pablo iQ and Max is able to play-out and process two simultaneous streams of HD or 2K in sync, without the need for rendering.