Panasonic adds two Spanish news networks to P2 roster

Panasonic has added two new additions to the ranks of national broadcasters in Spain that are standardizing on the tapeless P2HD platform as their acquisition format. Canal 4 News and CNN+, both part of the Sogecable group, are the newest customers on the Iberian Peninsula for P2HD camcorders and supporting hardware. Their recent orders bring to 15 the number of Spanish broadcasters that have adopted P2, further demonstrating market acceptance for P2 as by far the most dominant IT acquisition format throughout Europe.

“Sogecable has been a supporter of P2 since early 2004, and gradually all the companies within the group have been changing their workflows over to full IT,” said Toni Feliu, who heads up Panasonic broadcast sales in Spain. “The Panasonic P2 format fits perfectly within their organisation, and its ability to switch between SD and HD prepares them perfectly for production well into the future.”

Throughout Europe, fully 80 percent of the broadcasters that have made the switch to tapeless production methods have chosen P2 and P2HD as their acquisition format.

“Broadcasters find IT workflows simpler to use and much more cost effective, so the influence on other areas of production is proving to be hard to resist,” said Marc Irwin, European marketing manager for Panasonic. “Sports, reality shows, daytime, promos, and even drama are taking seriously the simplicity of the full IT production P2 offers, and they’re all discovering the benefits of metadata, faster transfer speeds, and simple editing in the field.”

With the release of the 16-GB P2 at NAB2007 and the imminent launch of new 32-GB P2 cards, now an even greater range of productions can take advantage of the flexibility that the tapeless P2 platform provides. With four 16-GB P2 cards in the AG-HPX500, users can now shoot in 100 Mbps HD for 64 minutes without needing to download.

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