| MATSUSHITA PREPARES TO SHIP HUNDREDS OF CAMCORDERS AND VTRS FOR ATHENS OLYMPICS |
| Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Osaka, Japan announced at IBC that it is in the middle of discussions with the Athens Olympic Broadcasting S.A.(AOB), the game's host broadcaster on the mix of equipment for the Games. Matsushita is expecting to ship substantial Panasonic DVCPRO50 VTRs and camcorders for the Games. The final equipment order follows AOB's decision to select Panasonic's DVCPRO50 4:2:2 component digital format as the Official Video Recording Format for the ATHENS 2004 Olympic Games. The principal equipment to be supplied to the AOB will include the DVCPRO50 AJ-SD955A studio recorder, the AJ-D95DC compact recorder, the AJ-LT95 Laptop Editor and Panasonic's recently introduced AJ-SDX900 camcorder. Panasonic's DVCPRO50 equipment will cover over 3,200 hours of live Olympic Games' sporting competition. The Games run for 17 days from August 13th to August 29th 2004. Footage recorded at the Games on DVCPRO50 will be housed at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Panasonic has recently installed an online archive system making key footage on past Games available to Museum visitors. Panasonic supplied broadcast video equipment and maintenance support to the host broadcaster during the Barcelona '92, Atlanta '96, Nagano '98, Sydney 2000 and Salt Lake City games in 2002, and will provide a similar service for the forthcoming ATHENS 2004 Summer Olympic Games. Panasonic's DVCPRO and DVCPRO50 digital VTRs and camcorders have gained widespread acceptance as a broadcast "industry" standard with more than 200,000 units in use. ends |