Recent Press Releases

Panasonic is proud to announce that Tinopolis, the expanding Llanelli based independent television Production Company has moved into HD with the purchase of Panasonic DVCPRO HD equipment.

Tinopolis has ordered DVCPRO H.D cameras, recorders and other equipment worth over £300,000. The HD equipment will be used on “Wedi 7” the Welsh Language soap programme both from the company’s Llanelli base and Tinopolis’ North Wales studio in Caernarfon. Production will digitise material straight into a central storage system which will improve work-flow in its busy production centre.

Ian Lowe, General Manager of Panasonic Broadcast said of the purchase: “Consisting of five AJ-HDX400 Camcorders and AJ-HD1200 VTRs, this substantial order will be seen throughout the production community as an affirmation of the improved workflows and cost effectiveness of this combination and we will be supporting Tinopolis in its move into HD. Editing native100 Mbps DVCPRO HD via the HD1200 VTR through Firewire into Final Cut Pro is currently one of the most cost effective production workflows in the industry. This cost model is helping programme makers to make HD programs for Digi Beta budgets, a real break through in HD.

Commenting on the move to HD, Tinopolis Executive Chairman, Ron Jones, said: “Tinopolis was one of the first companies to go fully digital over seven years ago and we are proud to be pioneering the move to high definition”. Our commitment is to continually increase the quality of our programmes. DVCPRO HD will ensure our daily programming, drama and documentary production is ahead of the game in delivering that quality.”

Angharad Mair, presenter and editor of Wedi 7 commented:
“The beauty of DVCPRO HD technology is that it streamlines the production process, making us more responsive as well as giving us a great leap forward in terms of quality. We are very excited about the opportunities HD gives us.”

The industry has been awash with speculation of the best way to achieve HD production for many years now and Panasonic feel they now have an elegant, cost effective and reliable solution producers can depend upon without pushing up production costs and limiting creativity because of new technology. Suitable for a wide range of programme applications from sport to drama this combination of equipment confirms Panasonic’s ability to cover production in the 1080 High Definition market.

The AJ-HDX400E is an outstanding product, aimed at replacing the standard definition camcorders at an affordable price level giving you HD at SD prices. The 400 offers 1080 shooting in either progressive or interlaced modes at 1080/25p or 1080/50i. Featuring 12 Bit signal processing with high sensitivity of F10 at 2000 lux this camcorder delivers outstanding pictures in all conditions.

The AJ-HD1200 multi-format digital VTR has the ability to edit and master in both 1080 formats available, down convert to DVCPRO and DVCPRO 50 and allows connection to HD NLE Edit Systems via HDSDI and IEEE1394 making low cost HD edit solutions achievable.