All of Raycom Media, Inc. will begin the conversion of their newsgathering operations to the DVCPRO P2 series solid-state memory format.
Raycom owns and operates 37 television stations including 2 ABC, 7 CBS, 9 FOX, 13 NBC, 5 UPN, and 1 WB. Raycom stations cover over 10% of U.S. television households with operations in 20 states.
To start the roll-out to non-tape based acquisition, two Raycom stations will be equipped with DVCPRO P2 products immediately—WXIX (the Fox affiliate in Cincinnati, OH) and WTVR (the CBS affiliate in Richmond-Petersburg, VA). At nearly every station, the adoption of DVCPRO P2 represents an upgrade from Panasonic’s 25Mbps DVCPRO format equipment. WXIX-TV and WTVR-TV are purchasing an aggregate of 17 AJ-SPX800 P2 cameras, 17 AJ-PCS060 P2 store drives and four AG-HVX200 DVCPRO HD P2 hand-held camcorders.
“We feel that this initial investment in Panasonic’s P2 technology will keep our news operations competitive and provide a file-based video platform for extending our reach into other digital media technologies going forward. We really look forward to our continuing productive partnership with Panasonic,” said Paul McTear, Raycom Media’s CEO.
Raycom’s Vice-President of Technology, Dave Folsom said, “As longtime technology partners with Panasonic—and one of the original adopters of the DVCPRO format—we are convinced that the P2 solid-state memory format with its potent suite of benefits will improve our efficiency and speed in newsgathering; will eliminate moving parts in equipment, thereby drastically reducing maintenance expenses; and will reduce our overall media costs. What’s more, DVCPRO P2 is entirely backwards compatible with our vast DVCPRO25 archives.”
