Secaucus, NJ, October 29, 2003 —Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE and PCX symbol: MC), best known for its Panasonic brand products, today announced that it will work closely with Pinnacle Systems Inc. to offer interoperability between Panasonic’s revolutionary DVCPRO Professional Plug-in (hereafter referred to as “P2”) solid state memory-based professional products and Pinnacle’s IT-based networked media solutions for broadcast news, sports, editing and content delivery. This seamless interoperability will expand the opportunities for customers to benefit from the more efficient and less expensive workflow of tapeless acquisition and editing.Pinnacle Systems is a United States-based company that provides broadcasters and consumers with digital media creation, storage, and play-back solutions for use at home, at work and on the air. Pinnacle’s networked media products that will support Panasonic’s P2 technology include Vortex networked news systems, Liquid editing systems, Team Sports solutions, MediaStream servers and Palladium Store shared storage systems.
“Panasonic’s professional DVCPRO P2 products cover all aspects of a solid-state memory-based system, including P2 cam, P2 card, P2 deck and P2 drive,” said John Baisley, President, Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Company. The P2 card, used as the storage media in a P2 system, is comprised of Panasonic’s SD Memory cards and is compatible with the PCMCIA slots on personal computers. “Working with Pinnacle will allow users to edit directly from a P2 and to their computers—and do high-speed data transfer to networked servers. These capabilities will significantly improve the news workflow, realizing our new concept of ‘IT news gathering,’ or ‘ING.’ These DVCPRO P2 solutions are also ideal for the broader business areas related to broadcasting and production, as well.”The reduced operating cost of the DVCPRO P2 series provides compelling economic advantages. It eliminates maintenance because there are no mechanisms; no optical disc, no hard disk drive, no tape deck. P2 offers the toughness and reliability needed for news gathering in extreme conditions, such as intense cold, high humidity, rain, dust or snow, vibration or repetitive shock. The new P2 workflow brings greater productivity because content mounts immediately (like a removable hard drive would) on the news editing system. Because it is a solid-state memory, P2 allows literally tens of thousands of data rewrites with no degradation.
The P2 card is based on SD Memory Card technologies, the world standard removable flash media for consumer use. As the consumer market for such compact, portable and high-capacity storage grows, the P2 card will become much more affordable, making the P2 system an excellent cost performance solution for professional applications.
The high-speed data transfer feature of the P2 card makes high definition (HD) recording and playback possible. The P2 series can record and play DVCPRO, DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO HD. As higher-capacity SD Memory Cards become available, HD compatible DVCPRO P2 equipment will be developed.
Since its first introduction at NAB in April 2003, Panasonic’s revolutionary DVCPRO P2 technology has received strong endorsement from a wide variety of supporters—from TV stations and major broadcast groups to manufacturers of non-linear editing applications and video servers. Panasonic will further cultivate this support for DVCPRO P2 in order to make P2 the next generation de-facto standard.
For more information about Panasonic’s DVCPRO P2 series, visit www.panasonic.com