Last year Sony stole the show at NAB with the unveiling of its 24p high-definition HDW-F900 camcorder. The HDCAM’s 24 frames per second capture rate and 180-degree shuttering, similar to those of a motion picture camera, finally made digital imaging an attractive alternative to TV producers who had been doling out major dollars for film stock and processing. Sony immediately recorded 100 sales.

Shortly thereafter on the Canadian production scene, Alliance Atlantis/ Tribune Entertainment adopted 24p for the series Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict, with Salter Street Films doing likewise for LEXX. Meanwhile, up on the silver screen, 24p, although more conducive to film transfer than previous video formats, has yet to replace the traditional chemical medium. Rumors suggest that George Lucas, who gave Sony a big boost by announcing he was shooting Star Wars: Episode 2 entirely on its HDCAMs, has now found the need to incorporate some good old-fashioned 35mm as well.

But if HD has not yet set the world on fire, it is here to stay. And if those in the production community are still demanding HD gear enhancements before they really embrace the format, it’s Panasonic’s turn to try to give them what they want.

And one of the things they want – even those who have already shot 24p – is off-speed capability. Rob Sim, president and cofounder of Sim Video Productions, the camcorder supplier for Earth: Final Conflict, told Playback, ‘I know on EFC any high speed they’re shooting is still on 35mm.’

Panasonic’s new HDCAM, to debut at NAB, is the AJ-HDC24A, and although the name takes advantage of the current ’24’ cache, ‘what it really allows you to do is have a multiframe format camera,’ says Terry Horbatiuk, Panasonic senior manager, systems engineering.

Horbatiuk says the camera has an onboard 720p/60 videotape deck.

‘When we’re running 12 frames per second, we’re actually multiplying that by five and putting it into the 60 frames,’ he explains. ‘If we have 30 frames, we’ll have two sets of 30. If we have 24, we’ll do a 3:2 pull-down. The net effect is that if you have a 720p/60 monitor, you can see this, edit it and [add digital video effects]. Overall it’s a friendly format that allows you to stay in progressive and have multiple frame rates.’

The HDCAM’s range of frame rates is 12-60, and Panasonic’s main area of concern is that when the acquired images go from tape into the nonlinear environment, there must be nonlinear engines capable of utilizing the various rates.

‘We’re being very careful about the frame rates we offer with the camera,’ Horbatiuk says. ‘Right now we’re asking the community, ‘Okay, what’s good for you?”

Another feature of the AJ-HDC24A that brings HD cinema closer to 16mm/35mm is its capacity to interweave those various rates.

‘We’ve got a tool here that emulates a film camera very well,’ says Horbatiuk. ‘It also allows you to work in a format that is automatically transferable to any of the devices that will operate with progressive, so you don’t have to go to segmented interlace. It’s very simple.’

(The interlace HD format is based on interframe motion, which requires two fields to make a frame: odd lines, 1-3-5-7-etc., appear followed by even ones, 2-4-6-8-etc. The progressive system sets up line 1, followed by 2-3-4-5-etc., a procedure closer to computer light scanning than traditional TV light scanning.)

Traditionalists in the film versus video debate argue that film will never be unseated because of its high-contrast ratio and the particular way light can be manipulated in the photochemical medium. But Horbatiuk believes a major component of that line of thinking is the fact most camcorders do not offer multiframe capability.

‘[With the AJ-HDC24A] we can shoot without any light if we’re shooting at 12 frames per second,’ he points out. ‘In terms of capturing very high-speed action, you’ll see that NASA uses a 720p/60 camera to capture the ‘rocket’s red glare,’ because they want to see every little event.’

It’s one thing to offer the multiple frame rates, but what about the image quality?

‘When you’re shooting slow motion of a high-speed effect, like at 720p/60, when a horse is going full gallop there’s none of this [motion artifact],’ Horbatiuk explains. ‘It’s clean and very much emulates film. And we have eight channels of audio because we tend to be in the 5.1 mindset.’

Panasonic believes this type of functionality can carry over well into dramatic as well as documentary storytelling.

‘In the movies, we [increase the frame rate] to create slow motion, stop action, and a whole bunch of other things without blur,’ Horbatiuk says. ‘Whereas if we want to shoot something moody and softly lit, we want to slow the frame rate down.’

Horbatiuk suggests the importance of ’24 frames’ in HD has been overplayed.

‘We’ve had the conversation over and over again about 24p to the point where you would think that’s the only way to do anything,’ he says. ‘The truth is that’s the frame rate people that migrate from film to videotape want because they get around 3.2 pulldown. It’s good for transfer houses and post-production, but it doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on the rest of the production community. They want variability.’

Panasonic says dozens of producers, primarily in docs, have already said they would shoot their projects with the AJ-HDC24A. No names have been mentioned, but this might be part of the company’s NAB announcements. *

-www.panasonic.ca