Panasonic Aiming At Alternate HD Formats

While the majority of the television networks are supporting 1080I as the high-definition format of choice, Panasonic is aiming at marketing a line of professional 480p products in the burgeoning electronic cinematography category. A 480p line technology (basically todayís NTSC resolution, without distracting scan lines - the native format of DVD-Video) is attractive when delivered as widescreen progressive scan imagery. While some networks see its merits, the format has garnered some negative comments by industry types who say it is not enough of a steppe in resolution. Still, Panasonic fully intends to make and support gear for the proposed 480p and 720p niche formats. The Fox Network is the most significant player to express support for 480p with the recognition that it is fairly easy to upgrade the technology from current 480p resolutions to 720p. And ABC has supported 720p since the inception of high-definition. This, by the way, is the direction that DVD is headed, and in the near future it is expected that new DVD-Video players will support the high-definition 720p format. As experienced professionals know, the visual superiority of progressively scanned images over interlaced is mainly the result of a lack of interline flicker and temporal artifacts. Then too, the increasing support for progressive scan formats is due to the recognition that progressive formats compress more efficiently and offer more flexibility.Along with the 480p and 720p formats 1080p at 24 frames per second (fps) is increasingly garnering support as a master format for post production. This progressive format, unlike its interlaced version, could become a contender for a worldwide standard. With film continuing as the worldwide image format standard, posting in the single 1080p proposed format eliminates the 3:2 pulldown necessary to synch filmís 24 inches per second (ips) with NTSC standard 30fps video. The other cost effective benefit is that all current and proposed HD versions can be created from 1080p at 24fps, including 30fps version of 480p, 720p and 1080i. Once again, Panasonic is first to offer a mastering VTR capable of interlace and progressive recording with this range of frame rates. Panasonic HD VTRs are extensively employed by HBO to support the March launch (March 6) of HBOís 24-hour-a-day HDTV service.In telecine film-to-video transfer mastering, a higher resolution than even high-definition is increasingly being employed to derive all current video formats. This is due to the need to cut costs in the telecine bay resulting from a proliferation of video formats, as well as from computer-driven applications such as DVD, disc-based games and the Internet. It is prohibitively costly and time-consuming to put the same film negative back on the telecine and re-transfer for each use. With super high-definition telecines, the master transfer ends up as a computer data file format This process saves the film from repeated passes, and thus, preserves the filmís pristine condition as a master backup. As computer data, progressively scanned frame processing yields simultaneous output of HD and SD video signals, and enables pan-and-scan, trimming, rotation, and anamorphic conversation.