P2 and the networks
 

What news networks -cable or broadcast - use P2 as their main acquisition format? I tried a search, but didn't get anything.

BBC use it in the UK as does SKY and the old cop show I did The Bill for ITV is now shot on P2.

AVC Intra 100 is the chosen codec for BBC and EBU 1920x1080i production at 50i or 25np.

I heard a rumour that the HPX-300/301 was designed for NBC and ABC in the USA.

I have an HPX-301 and it is a good system for shooting as the AVC intra 100 422 codec is superb and very robust once it goes thru post prod and is compressed for TX or DVD.

Barry Green can give you the complete list but a HUGE portion of what you see on television all over the world is produced with P2, I just don't recall all of the particulars.

Dan

In the USA, NBC and Fox are all P2 at all their owned and operated stations, and that includes their subsidiary networks (like Fox News, Fox Business, Telemundo, etc). According to Panasonic's list of stations, in America, approximately 75% of the TV stations that have converted to tapeless, have gone with P2. In Europe it's about 85%. In Asia, it's 95%.

Here In Australia our national Broadcaster ABC-TV is on P2 for most of news etc, they love the format I believe, but i've also heard that card prices and weight of the cams compared to the Lighter Sony's is also noted.
All other networks use Sony I believe. Cheap XDCam disc's may have "turned them"?.

cheers
Tom K

Much of the recent Beijing Olympics was produced in P2.

Noah

A good friend of mine was one of the tech co-ords and he said a lot of it was 1/3" chip cameras too.

Well it really depends on which country's coverage you're talking about. All of the BOB official pool footage- which is a *lot* of the actual events was shot using P2 (as well as some DVCPROHD tape) in 1080i/50. You can read about that here:

Panasonic's DVCPRO P2 HD Series Adopted for Beijing 2008 - Panasonic Australia

Noah

In Beijing from what I understand, all BOB produced that's not live OB where P2 originated footage. On top of that comes what all the networks choose to do them selves, NBC did Xdcam422 from what I've read on the web. Here in Norway the Norwegian brodcasting corp.(NRK) still uses a lot of Xdcam SD and Sony Z1(dvcam) as it's still SD broadcast up here in the cold north....

I suspect P2 will grow even more from the price drop on P2 cards. P2 equipment are very versatile on top of it all, you could do a very video look with the HPX3000 or a more smooth "filmish" feeling for scenic shoots in productions as the Olympics are, and have a Hpx171 on hand as a b-roll camera...using the same media.

I also have a feeling that a lot of networks use Xdcam because they lack a complete filebased workflow with proper backup and archiving, Xdcam is tape mentality, and can be used as filebased format or in an SDI workflow.

I think you may be referring to some tests that I linked to a while ago - http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/general-h...dec-tests.html .

The EBU (and presumably the BBC) don't have any "chosen codec", but rather state that four codecs it tested "have shown quasitransparent quality up to at least 4 to 5 multi-generations,.........", and recommends them unreservedly for future general HD acquisition. The codecs are DNxHD, JPEG2000, XDCAM-HD422, and, indeed, AVC-Intra 100.

That's not to say it's an exclusive list - other codecs such as HDCAM SR are even better, and even more acceptable for such as high end drama, where a lot of grading and/or FX may be needed. Equally, codecs such as used by the EX cameras may be considered OK for occasions when a small camera is justified. They are also not saying that such as HDCAM or DVCProHD cannot be used if you've already got the gear - just trying to give guidelines on what manufacturers and customers should aspire to.

As far as ABC Australia goes, it's worth noting that they bought P2 SD 2/3" cameras, and the rumours were that they got a very good price for them, as the HD versions were just round the corner. And for standard definition, remember an 8GB card gives the same run time as would need a 32GB card for HD, which affects the economics quite a lot.