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MillimeterNAB Show 2009 Through My Ears, Eyes, and Sore Feet, Part 1
May 11, 2009 12:00 PM, By Jan Ozer
Panasonic AG-HMC40
Cameras
Not much to offer here, since it wasn’t a prime year for camera announcements, and I arrived after the main flurry of camera related press events. I did meet with Panasonic, and saw its new AG-HMC40, a compact AVCHD recorder that should ship in August 2009 for less than $3,000 street. You can read more about that camcorder here, including the 10.6-megapixel still images the camcorder can capture.
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The camera I really want to play with, though, is the AG-HPX300 ($10,700), which shipped in March and debuts two technologies to watch for in future Panasonic camcorders. The first is the 1/3in. CMOS imagers that capture frames at full resolution. I loved the AG-HPX170, but the camera’s CCDs captured at 960x540 and then scaled to full-res HD using pixel shifting. As a result, the image was never as crisp as those captured by the Canon XH A1, which captures at full 1920x1080 res.
Second is the AVC-Intra technology, which I’ve never tested before, but should produce better quality than the DV-like compression technology used in DVCPRO HD—though at 100Mbps, it’s close to 5X the data rate of AVCHD. As a consequence, you need P2 technology, which is prohibitively pricey for many producers though Maxell’s entry into the P2 market has to be a positive thing there. Still, AVC-Intra should be the absolute highest-quality digital format that I’ve ever tested, which definitely makes the HPX300 worth a look.
You can see some video of the new camcorder here and read Barry Braverman’s review here.
I didn’t meet with JVC, but its GY-HM700U and GY-HM100U camcorders and especially the new 4K concept camera and monitor look exciting. You can watch a FreshDV video of these devices here. I didn’t meet with Sony, but you can read about the company's announcements here. I actually had a meeting scheduled with Canon, but the rep at the booth said there was nothing new in the company's camcorder line, so they sent me on my way.
That’s it for now; check back in a couple of weeks for the exciting news from the codec and enterprise encoding market.
Continue the discussion on “Crosstalk” the Millimeter Forum.