Panasonic has announced a ship date for its new AG-HMC150 professional handheld AVCCAM camcorder. Based on the design and advanced functionality of the DVX100, this new camcorder will offer both 1080 and 720 HD recording with solid-state SD memory card recording. With a range of professional features, impressive picture quality and a sleek, compact design, the new AVCCAM handheld will be available in October.
The HMC150 represents the next generation in affordable HD video production tools. The new handheld provides the flexibility of high-quality 1080/720 AVCHD recording at bit rates up to 24Mb/s and a simple, solid-state SD memory card workflow. AVCHD, the industry’s new MPEG-4/AVC compression format, provides a near doubling of bandwidth efficiency with improved video performance over the older MPEG-2 compression used in HDV formats. As a result, AVCHD recordings made by Panasonic AVCCAM camcorders are crisp and clear, even during fast motion, reducing image degradation or dropouts associated with HDV and other tape- or disc-based systems.
The HMC150 features 1/3in 16:9 progressive 3-CCD imagers that improve signal-to-noise ratio and deliver excellent low-light performance. It is equipped with a 13X Leica Dicomar zoom lens system that offers an extra-wide 28mm angle setting. For stable, precise shooting in any situation, the AVCCAM camcorder features a cam-driven manual zoom ring, auto or manual operation of focus and iris, and optical image stabilization. The HMC150 offers a host of selectable gamma tools including cine-like gamma to produce warm film-like images as well as helpful shooting functions such as a waveform monitor and a vectorscope display, focus assist and Dynamic Range Stretch.
The HMC150 records in a range of HD formats including 1080/24p, 1080/30p, 1080/60i, 720/24p, 720/30p and 720/60p. The handheld records HD in four modes — the highest-quality PH mode (average 21Mb/s/max 24Mb/s), HA mode (17Mb/s), HG mode (13Mb/s) and HE mode (6Mb/s). It captures full horizontal-resolution 1920 x 1080 images at its PH, HA and HG recording modes. The camera can also be set to capture 1280 x 720 images in its PH mode. The recorded AVCHD files can also maintain metadata for individually recorded clips.
For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.