Following a trend started by Grass Valley and its Infinity digital media camcorder, Panasonic will deliver a new tapeless, solid-state camcorder with switchable compression codecs and support for both multiple HD and SD format image capture – although at $27,000, it’s slightly more expensive.
The new AJ-HPX2000 P2 HD camcorder, shown in New York last week (and to West Coast professionals last month), can be switched between HD acquisition at 100 Mbps using an optional AVC-Intra codec or standard DVCPRO 50/25 SD compression. The AVC-I codec allows users to get twice as much capacity from existing P2 solid-state memory cards.

That’s because AVC-I (the professional version of the consumer-grade AVC-HD format supported by Sony and Panasonic, among others) provides intra-frame 10-bit encoding, resulting in DVCPRO HD quality at half the bit rate. The AVC-I codec offers two modes: 100 Mbps, (comparable to D-5 HD video quality) and AVC-Intra 50 Mbps.

It’s the first shoulder-mount camcorder in Panasonic’s P2 HD series, with three native HD progressive 2/3-inch CCDs that support 17 high definition and standard definition formats, including 1080i, 720p, 480i, and 576i.

The AJ-HPX2000 also offers 24p capability, holds up to five P2 cards and provides instant access to video content from all cards simultaneously. The camera provides continuous recording, allowing users to hot-swap and replace P2 cards as well as loop record without interrupting recording.
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Captured video can be accessed in thumbnail clips on the camera’s 3.5-inch color LCD monitor for playback, in-camera editing, and shot marking in the field. The camcorder features a 15-second pre-record function that captures action before real-time recording begins.

Additional key features include IT interfaces such as IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0, as well as HD/SD-SDI, genlock, SMPTE time code and composite video interfaces. There’s also 48-kHz/16-bit 4-channel digital audio on board and a 4X digital zoom.

The AJ-HPX2000 P2 HD camcorder will ship in January.