Sony is hosting "XDCAM Open House" seminars for broadcast and production professionals this summer. The 31-city "Redefining Your Workflow" tour was developed to teach users--in hands-on demos--the ins and outs of the XDCAM Professional Disc system, which includes tapeless camcorders and compatibility with non-linear editing programs.

"The XDCAM system can re-engineer and streamline a workflow in a way previously unimaginable," said Theresa Alesso, general manager of optical and network systems for Sony Electronics' Broadcast and Production Systems Division. "Much more than just a new recording format, this is a whole new way of working.

The XDCAM family of products includes the PDW-510 DVCAM and the PDW-530 MPEG IMX/DVCAM optical disc camcorders, the PDW-1500 optical disk compact deck and the PDW-V1 optical disc mobile deck. The system uses blue-laser based Professional Disc optical media. One disc can store 23.3 GB of content.

NBC News is using the system in a pilot test program for the network's coverage of the summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

More information about the Open House dates can be found online at http://www.sony.com/xdcam.