New P2 AVC Intra Camcorder, AVCCAM Models, Join NAB Line-up

If size matters, Panasonic has 3D shooters covered with the AG-3DP1, a shoulder-mounted big brother to the existing AG-3DA1 all-in-one stereo 3D camcorder. Panasonic Solutions Company VP of Business Development Bob Harris debuted the new camera at Panasonic's NAB press conference held earlier today at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas.
The new camera has 1/3-inch imagers and records to 1080/24p using the AVC Intra codec with 10-bit color depth. It comes with matched 17x zoom lenses, HDMI and dual HD-SDI outputs, two XLR audio inputs, variable frame rate recording, Genlock and timecode. An optional studio camera kit will be available to adapt the camera to an in-studio 3D shooting environment.

If price is an important criterion, well, wait and see. The 3DP1 is slated to ship this fall at an unspecified price point.

The other major camera announcement Panasonic made today is the new AG-HPX250, which Harris billed as “the first P2 handheld camcorder with the mastering-quality AVC Intra codec.” The HPX250 has 2.2 megapixel 3MOS imagers that capture a native 1920×1080 image. It records to 100 Mbps AVC Intra or DVCPRO HD and sports a 21x zoom lens that sits at 28mm on the wide side.

The HPX250 is scheduled to ship this fall and sell for “less than $6500.”

Also new is a three-slot P2 drive with a USB 3.0 interface that revs up the offloading of 100 Mbps footage to more than 15x real time. It’s expected this summer for $2255.

Joe Facchini, VP of Sales and Product Management, announced two new camcorders in the AVCCAM product line: the AG-AC160 and the AG-AC130. Both of them have 1/3-inch 2.2 megapixel 2MOS imagers capturing native 1920×1080, and both of them sport 21x HD zoom lenses. The AC160, Facchini said, is distinguished by linear PCM audio recording, HD SDI out, and switchability between 60 and 50 Hz. A new “PM” recording mode will encode 720p footage at less than 10 Mbps. It won’t look especially pretty, but Panasonic expects it to be used for sports training and web video applications. Both cameras are slated to ship this fall, with the AC160 fetching less than $5500 and the AC130 going for under $4000.

On the subject of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami aftermath, Executive VP of Media and Production Services John Baisley reported that Panasonic’s factories in the area were “relatively unscathed,” though the company expects some product availability issues in the short term. The availability of P2 and tape media would be unaffected, Baisley said.

And, looking to the future, Panasonic gave up some more info on its “AVC Ultra” recording format. It’s a new H.264 implementation designed for high-end production and post-production work, recording up to 4K images in 4:4:4 quality. It’s also said to support “visually lossless” renditions of 720p, 1080i, and 1080p/24 and /60. Panasonic mentioned a data rate of 440 Mbps – a little more than half of the data rate of Sony HDCAM SR tape recording 4:4:4 at 60p – which gives an idea of the kind of quality (and storage/bandwidth demands) Panasonic is talking about for its next generation of file-based workflow. More on that is promised at next year’s NAB.

Updated 4/13/11: At 440 Mbps, AVC Ultra is meant to encode visually lossless 1080p/60 video, not 4K. It’s a theoretical point, anyway — while many characteristics of AVC Ultra have been finalized, many more (such as the different data rates that will be implemented) are up in the air. No cameras or recording devices are currently using the format, although Quantel announced on Monday that it supports AVC Ultra on its broadcast servers.