PANASONIC ANNOUNCES MAY DELIVERIES FOR REVOLUTIONARY DVCPRO P2 SERIES PRODUCTS
* P2 Purchases Made by Major U.S. Broadcasters *
* P2 Product Roadmap Includes Mini-Camcorder and HD P2 *
LAS VEGAS, NV (April 18, 2004) – After showcasing its breakthrough DVCPRO P2 solid-state memory products at NAB 2004, Panasonic will begin deliveries, with the AJ-SPX800 2/3” camcorder and AJ-PCD10 card drive arriving in May, followed by the AJ-SPD850 studio recorder in June.
At NAB, Panasonic announced the successful sales launch of DVCPRO P2 with purchases by major U.S. broadcasters, including Media General Inc., NY1 News, Sinclair Broadcast Group, Scripps Howard Broadcasting, and Liberty Corp.
NAB also marked the introduction of P2-compatible products and systems by industry-leading companies in the Panasonic P2 Alliance, including Avid, Dayang, Pinnacle Systems, Quantel and Thomson/Grass Valley. Demonstrated throughout the Panasonic booth and in the exhibits of the various companies, it is clear that customers will be able to choose from an array of P2-compatible products.
In addition, Panasonic said that plans for DVCPRO P2 will follow the historical pattern of the DVCPRO/50/HD tape-based format. Users can expect a broader range of P2 products, including a palm-style mini-camcorder in 2005, and DVCPRO HD P2 products in 2006. In addition to DVCPRO based P2 products, Panasonic will also offer an MPEG-based HD P2 palm-style mini-camcorder for the professional markets.
“Panasonic has successfully launched a new era in broadcasting here at NAB,the IT-based Electronic Newsgathering or ING era,” said John Baisley, President, Panasonic Broadcast. “We are delighted with the phenomenal response by U.S. broadcasters. By finally connecting ENG acquisition with the IT world, Panasonic can offer broadcasters substantial workflow improvements, overall operating efficiencies and significant savings in ownership costs.”
DVCPRO P2 makes nonlinear news acquisition, instant access and NLE field editing a reality and allows network and local news operations to exploit the astonishing advances in IT technology, including laptop computers, digital microwave as well as access to wireless and broadband networks.
DVCPRO P2 brings critical improvements in durability, speed, stability and accessibility to newsgathering, including:
Compatibility – DVCPRO P2 is fully compatible with DVCPRO, the industry’s standard for digital newsgathering, and with high-performance DVCPRO50 standard definition 4:2:2 recording, as well as providing a seamless migration path to DVCPRO HD. Panasonic’s strategy of a seamlessly connected family of products and formats – 25Mbps DVCPRO, 50Mbps DVCPRO50 and 100Mbps DVCPRO HD -- is well accepted in the television industry.
Significant Workflow Improvements -- The new ING workflow includes high-speed file transfer, laptop field editing without requiring proxy videos, and compatibility with off-the-shelf data storage drives for archiving, while eliminating traditional digitizing and ingesting operations. DVCPRO P2 is a media-less system in which a television station’s budget for consumable media can be virtually eliminated. The station need not purchase consumable recording media except for archiving applications.
Low Maintenance – The elimination of transports or mechanisms results in significant maintenance cost savings because of the absence of any moving parts that can breakdown or wear out from repetitive use.
Environmental Stability—DVCPRO P2 is practically impervious to shock and vibration and offers outstanding resistance to environmental extremes including cold, dust, moisture and humidity.

Benefits of the World’s Leading, Compact, High-Capacity Storage
The SD Memory card is the world’s leading standard for compact, portable, high-capacity storage. In engineering the P2 series, Panasonic took full advantage of SD Memory card’s substantial storage capacity and high transfer rate. The P2 card (Professional Plug-in card) incorporates four SD Memory cards. P2 cards can be re-used almost indefinitely, since a card can be re-written a minimum of 100,000 times without performance degradation and its reliable connector will last for a minimum of 30,000 insertion and removal cycles. A 4GB P2 card* records 16 minutes of DVCPRO or 8 minutes of DVCPRO50 (video, audio and metadata).
An intrinsic advantage of the P2 card is instant connection with the IT universe. For example, when inserted into the PC card slot of a laptop computer, the P2 card can instantly be recognized as a mounted virtual disk drive. This permits instant editing since there is no longer any need to digitize media prior to editing and the P2 card interface is fast enough to support complex editing.
Panasonic currently offers the AJ-P2C004S 4GB and AJ-P2C002S 2GB capacity P2 cards; 8GB, 16GB and 32GB capacities will be available as the core SD Memory card size increases.

Global P2 Support Network in Place for Rapid Response
Although Panasonic expects its P2 products to be very low maintenance, it understands, through its long history of servicing broadcasters, that world-class support is essential. The company has established a global P2 support network that includes 54 service locations in 34 countries; 30 of these locations are capable of providing both NTSC and PAL support. In 2005, the company will have 94 service locations in 55 countries to service and support P2 products. Panasonic expects a typical repair to be completed within a 48-hour period, not including transportation time.
With IT technology at P2’s core, IT will also play a key role in P2 support. Customers will be able to take advantage of an optional program that allows them to upgrade their P2 products via an SD Memory card. Software will be downloadable from Panasonic’s support web site onto a SD Memory card, and by inserting the SD Memory card into their machine, updating is done by a simple menu operation.
In addition, Panasonic will offer web site-based e-learning courses to aid broadcasters in their transition to IT-based newsgathering.

About Panasonic Broadcast
Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast, professional video and presentation products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a unit company of Matsushita Electric Corporation of America, the principal North America subsidiary of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (NYSE: MC), one of the world's leading producers of electronic and electric products for consumer, business and industrial use. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, access the company’s web site at www.panasonic.com/broadcast.

* P2 card capacity shown above reflects capacity of unformatted card. Useable capacity will be less.