City of Bryan, TX Assigns Municipal Communications to Panasonic AG-HMC150 AVCCAM Camcorders

East Texas County Seat Produces Magazine, PSAs and More with Handheld AVCCAMs
SECAUCUS, NJ (May 28, 2009) – The city of Bryan, TX, the county seat of Brazos County in East Texas, has made Panasonic’s AG-HMC150 professional handheld AVCCAM camcorder the linchpin of its wide-ranging video production. Assignments for this city of 70,000 include production of a bi-weekly, 30-minute magazine-style show, Bryan Living and Learning, as well as public service announcements, local event and general news coverage, and all-purpose material created for television, the city’s web site (http://www.bryantx.gov) and You Tube.
Video Production Specialist Shawn Eyre has been shooting with HMC150s since last fall, when he purchased two of the camcorders from Industrial Audio Video (Houston, TX). The AVCCAMs are in constant demand, especially for the city’s marquee production, Bryan Living and Learning, which features news and information about the city and the Bryan Independent School District. The show airs weekly on KBTX-TV’s (Bryan/College Station) digital CW cable channel 8, several times a week on the city’s government access Channel 16, and can be viewed at http://www.bryanisd.org or http://www.bryantx.gov.
Eyre said he based his purchase decision on the reliability and stability of solid-state acquisition, the affordability of the camcorder and SD media, the HMC150’s long record times and its array of professional features.
“The HMC150 is simply an awesome camera,” Eyre said. “It delivers beautiful, saturated replication of colors, the dynamic range is superb, especially in low light, and I especially like the choice of three neutral density filters and three user sets.”
“The HMC150 incorporates a better compressor than my previous camera, with less artifacting and noise,” he added. “The camcorder gives me all the advanced features I need, like built-in XLR inputs. The expanded focus assists are very useful, and you can’t beat the commodity pricing of the SD cards.”
Eyre said 90% of his shoots are single-camera, which affords his department the ability to cover two events simultaneously. He shoots exclusively in the highest quality (up to 24 Mpbs) PH recording mode in the 1080/30p format. Eyre records on 16GB SDHC cards, with a 90-minute record capacity. Typical recent assignments have encompassed coverage of the city-sponsored Hershey’s Track and Field Games and a Public Works Appreciation Day.
Editing is done on Final Cut Studio 2 on an intranet network (three workstations) attached to a NAS Box storage device.
“The HMC150 is light, well-built and highly reliable,” Eyre said. “Solid-state is the way to go in Texas, where you’re constantly moving between air-conditioning and blasts of humidity, where you would be inviting head clogs on a tape-based machine. I consider this AVCCAM the latest in an impressive line of recording products from Panasonic.”
For more information about the city of Bryan and its video operations, visit http://www.bryantx.com.
About the AG-HMC150
Based on the proven design and advanced functionality of the highly popular DVX100, the HMC150 professional handheld AVCCAM camcorder provides professionals and enthusiasts alike the flexibility of high-quality 1080/720 AVCHD recording at bit rates up to 24Mbps and a simple, solid-state SD memory card workflow. AVCHD, the industry’s new MPEG-4 / AVC Hi Profile compression format, provides a near doubling of bandwidth efficiency with improved video performance over the older MPEG-2 compression used in HDV formats. The handheld incorporates three 1/3-inch progressive CCD imagers to produce stunning 1920 x 1080 resolution picture quality. It is equipped with a high-performance wide-angle Leica Dicomar™ 13x zoom lens and 24- and 30-frame progressive capture in a full range of HD formats, making it well suited for all types of projects. For more information on the HMC150, visit http://www.panasonic.com/broadcast.
About Panasonic Broadcast
Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast and professional video products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a Unit of Panasonic Corporation of North America. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) and the hub of Panasonic’s U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.