According to an article posted by TVNEWSDAY, this year’s NAB Show will showcase a variety of cost-effective cameras that feature IT efficiency and fit downsized budgets.
In something that has been historically uncharacteristic JVC, Panasonic and SONY have released a lot of information about their product offerings long in advance of NAB.

GY-HM100 hand-held 3-CCD camcorder
In January, JVC introduced new Final-Cut-Pro 6™-ready solid state camcorders that feature their ProHD camcorders that can natively record Quicktime for Apple’s Final Cut Pro directly onto SDHC memory cards.
The GY-HM100 hand-held 3-CCD camcorder was introduced in January and on February 10, JVC introduced the GY-HM700 shoulder camera. Both camcorders record 35Mbps high definition video and uncompressed audio directly to SDHC media cards in the Quicktime format used by Apple Final Cut Pro™. The camera’s also inroduced solid state recording into JVC’s professsional line.

HPX-300 - World’s first affordable 10-bit, 4:2:2 camera
One day later on February 11, Panasonic announced a huge slate of products including the AG-HPX300 which is a shoulder mount P2 HD camcorder. Panasonic is billing it as the “world’s first affordable 10-bit, 4:2:2 camera”. According to the TVNEWSDAY article the HPX-300 will cost $10,700 U.S. and comes with a 17x Fujinon lens. The camera employs one-third-inch CMOS native HD imagers and according to Panasonic the imagers overcome the physics of small chips and deliver low light sensitivity.

AJ-HRW10 Rapid Writer
Just in case your interested in Panasonic’s other announcemnts you can find them here. In a nutshell they’ve announced a new 17” BT-LH1710 HD LCD Production Monitor, an AJ-CVF100G color viewfinder for higher end P2 HD and DVCPRO HD camcorders, an AJ-PCD35 P2 memory drive with PCI Express interface for fast transfers,an AW-HE870 2/3-inch 3-CCD HD convertible camera, a free AVCHD-to-DV transcoder update, the AJ-HRW10 Rapid Writer P2 workflow tool, an AG-HPG20 P2 HD portable Recorder/Player that features AVC-Intra recording and an expansion to their professional AVCCAM product line with a compact HD Recorder and multi-purpose camera head.
SONY HVR-Z5U - compact point-of-view camcorder
According to Glen Dickson of Broadcasting & Cable, SONY surfaced last week. According to his post, Sony is saving most of its major product announcements for NAB 2009 but last week it previewed a handful of new products. They included an HDV-format high-definition camcorder, the HVR-Z5U, which is a compact point-of-view camcorder, the HXR-MC1; and two new LCD monitors, the BVM-170 and PVM-L2300.
According to Dickson’s post SONY also announced a new field recorder for the XDCAM HD optical-disc format, the PDW-HR1, which supports legacy formats including MPEG IMX, DVCAM and 4:2:0 HD 24P content.
Looking forward to NAB.
….brad….
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: camera, JVC, NAB2009, panasonic, SONY | 1 Comment »