KGTV-DT, the ABC affiliate in San Diego, has purchased 16 AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 camcorders from Panasonic for its news production.
The purchase, which also includes five AJ-PCD20 five-slot P2 drives, is part of the station's conversion to one-person news crews. Each KGTV reporter is equipped with an HVX200, three 8GB P2 cards and an Apple MacBook Pro laptop.
Captured DVCPRO HD footage is transferred into Final Cut Pro for editing, converted into a QuickTime movie file and then sent to the station's Grass Valley NewsEdit workstations. The reporter writes the script, picks sound bites and does all the editing in Final Cut Pro on a laptop in the field. The script is then sent to the newsroom's Avid iNEWS system. Only the completed news story is sent to the NewsEdit system.
Panasonic's HVX200 records in both the 1080i and 720p HD formats at 100Mb/s. The DVCPRO HD format offers intraframe compression and 4:2:2 color sampling. The camera records video on a P2 card as MXF files in 1080/60i, 30p and 24p; in 720/60p, 30p and 24p; in 50Mb/s DVCPRO50 and in 25Mb/s DVCPRO or DV.
The HVX200 can capture fast or slow action in 720p at various frame rates. The shooting frame rate in 720p native mode can be set for any of 11 steps between 12fps and 60fps including 24fps and 30fps.
For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/HVX200/.
