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NY1
NEWS DEBUTS DVCPRO P2 ON WORLD STAGE AT REPUBLICAN NATIONAL
CONVENTION
* Videojournalists Find Newfound Efficiencies, Creative
Options With Panasonic Media-Less Format *
New York, NY (September 9, 2004) — From
the opening gavel to the balloon-drop finale, NY1 News,
Times Warner's 24-hour, all-news cable station in New
York City, was there last week to document the biggest
show in town with its DVCPRO P2 solid-state memory recording
system. The Republican National Convention, a four-day
quadrennial event at Madison Square Garden, represented
the station's much-anticipated debut of its new DVCPRO
P2 media-less acquisition system from Panasonic Broadcast.
NY1 also used the P2 system for the convention coverage
of its 24 hour Spanish news channel, NY1 Noticias.
 Earlier
this year, NY1 made a substantial purchase (valued at
$1.2 million) of DVCPRO P2 equipment to convert its news
operations to tapeless acquisition in the station's progression
to an all-tapeless, multi-channel 24-hour news facility.
The station has taken delivery of 22 AJ-SPX800 camcorders,
eight AJ-SPD850 studio decks, nine AJ-PCD10 drives as
well as a complement of P2 cards and related accessories.
NY1, the first purchaser of the DVCPRO format in 1996,
was among the first stations to commit to the DVCPRO P2
tapeless system. "P2 passed its first test with flying
colors," said Steve Paulus, Senior Vice President/General
Manager, NY1 News. "We were consistently impressed with
how versatile the gear is, and kept on finding more features
that made us very happy with our decision. Our staff is
adapting to the equipment quickly, citing its ease-of-use
and flexibility. Our videojournalists are able to mark
clips and do a rough edit as they shoot, a tremendous
benefit when you're dealing with the late-breaking stories
typical of such a major event as the RNC. P2 delivered
a very impressive performance, and we think it's a great
product."
Joe Truncale, NY1 Director of Operations & Engineering,
explained that the station used six DVCRO P2 cameras for
the convention. Two operated in studio configurations
in NY1's skybox, and a third, likewise configured for
studio use, was used by Time Warner affiliates in an adjacent
skybox location (and also did occasional duty as a POV
camera). The remaining P2 cameras were used by videojournalists
on the floor of the convention. An AJ-PCD10 drive was
used to ingest material into a Pinnacle Liquid NLE system
on-site. Two AJ-SPD850 studio decks were on hand, one
used to feed material back to the station's main server,
the second deployed as a viewing station.
 Truncale
said, "The shooters loved the cameras. As one-person crews,
they liked being able to see their stand-ups on the built-in,
high-resolution color LCD display. And the ability to
move the files around and feed clips in a specific order
was terrific."
He continued, "The workflow worked out even better than
we'd anticipated. We were able to ingest MFX files at
2X real-time into the Pinnacle NLE, edit locally, and
feed back the stories to the station as complete packages.
Depending on the timing with our two reporters, one cameraperson
might be ingesting material onto the Liquid hard drive
while the second fed back material to the station. So
the ability to prioritize all those thumbnails and ID
what we wanted to feed was very beneficial."
NY1 had seven fiber optic connections from the Garden
back to the station's main facility at 75 Ninth Ave.
"All the P2 equipment performed very successfully over
the course of four high-pressure days, with the constant
imperative of moving material back to the station quickly
and getting it on air," Truncale added. "Everything reinforced
our decision to invest in the P2 format."
The executive added that he anticipated that DVCPRO P2
will be fully integrated into NY1's station operations-and
functioning as its primary ENG tool-by mid-October.
 Panasonic's
DVCPRO P2 series products are fully compatible with DVCPRO,
the industry's standard for digital newsgathering, and
provide a seamless migration path to DVCPRO HD. DVCPRO
P2 offers nonlinear acquisition and instant access to
material, high-speed file transfer, laptop field editing
without requirement for proxy videos, and compatibility
with off-the-shelf data storage drives for low-cost archiving,
while eliminating traditional digitizing and ingesting
operations. The DVCPRO P2 system eliminates transports
and mechanisms, resulting in a significant maintenance
cost-savings because of the absence of any moving parts
that can break down or wear out from repetitive use. Moreover,
DVCPRO P2 products are resistant to environmental extremes
including shock, vibration, cold, dust, moisture and humidity.
For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/p2.
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