PARTNERSHIP, INVESTMENT AND LONG TERM COMMITMENT ARE MAJOR THEMES AT IBC
A major theme of Panasonic on the stand and in speeches by senior management at IBC; was partnership, major investment and long terms commitment to the broadcast industry. At the Olympic Games in Athens, Panasonic had celebrated 20 years of partnership with the Olympic movement. This message of long term commitment and support was highlighted at IBC.
At IBC, Panasonic emphasised the continued evolution of the DV/DVCPRO family, both from SD to HD and from tape-based production to tapeless IT-based acquisition and production with the arrival of P2.

“We are wanting to say clearly to the broadcast and production sectors” says Robert Pascher, Marketing Manager, Panasonic Broadcast Europe, “that Panasonic will help you with the major technological changes that are facing the industry and the increasingly competitive market conditions. Since 1996, Panasonic has been developing the DV/DVCPRO stable of products from SD to HD. Providing the industry and customers with a clear migration path to higher production standards. That is continuing with the introduction of HD equipment.”

“But the DV/DVCPRO/DVCPRO50/DVCPROHD migration path is even more widespread,” he said. “With P2, we are also providing a migration path into tapeless acquisition and IT networked production. As with DV/DVCPRO tape-based solutions, this includes both SD and in the future HD solutions.”

Panasonic commitment’s to the sector goes further, he added. “In SD and in HD production, both tape-based and tapeless, a major focus for Panasonic is reducing the cost of production. At IBC you are seeing this clearly with important products right across the range setting new lower price performance benchmarks.”

At IBC, Joachim Reinhart, President and Chief Operating Officer of Matsushita Europe highlighted the major investment by Panasonic in key infrastructure and technology for the whole digital video marketplace.

“Over the next two years,” he said, “we aim to invest 1.01 billion Euros in the construction of a new semiconductor production facility at our Uozu plant in Japan. This will be the largest single investment Matsushita has made in its 86-year history.”

“LSIs are the core technologies of a digital world. Market demand is growing rapidly. Plasma and LCD displays, DVD recorders, Blu-ray and DigiCams are just a few examples of the large number of LSI-based products. Matsushita is one of the first companies to enter this future segment early, and on a massive scale. Our current system LSI products already put us in an outstanding position.”

“We are also investing over 700 million Euros in a plasma display plant in Japan. This plant will be capable of producing 250,000 units per month. When it comes on stream in 2005, Panasonic will have a global capability of 4.5 million units per year, the world’s largest manufacturing capability in PDPs. LCDs and PDPs are essential for the growth of HD services globally.”

“These major investments in Matsushita’s infrastructure and manufacturing and development capability underpin our core technology and investment in SD, DVD, digital TV.”

Tadao Shimozuru, MEI AVC Director, highlighted the key themes when he said at the IBC press conference, “We are providing our customers with a clear migration path to HD combined with long term commitment and support.”