The Briefing Room

SECAUCUS, NJ (December 4, 2008) – This season, the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals have upgraded video acquisition for its coaching staff by assigning the critical task to four Panasonic P2 HD solid-state camcorders. Game-day video for analysis and league exchange is shot with two AJ-HPX2000 2/3” 3-CCD P2 HD shoulder-mount camcorders, and the team’s weekly practices are shot with two AG-HPX170 1/3” 3-CCD P2 HD handheld camcorders.

“Our expectations for the P2 cameras, wholly realized, is that they would improve image quality and make our workflow much more efficient,” said Bengals’ video director Travis Brammer. “Moreover, the NFL isn’t far from standardizing on HD for all video exchange, and once that happens we’ll be ready with these camcorders.”

Currently, the NFL stipulates that teams exchange video shot only in 480i/60i, so the Bengals are acquiring in DVCPRO.

During Wednesday through Friday in-season practices at the Bengals’ Paul Brown Stadium, the video production team typically shoots with the two HPX170s, with videographers Ricky Palmer and Richard Jones positioned on hydraulic lifts shooting wide-angle side line and end zone footage. Occasionally, a third camera (an HPX2000) is also used at practices; in these instances, the HPX2000 is substituted for an HPX170 on one of the lifts, and an HPX170 is used handheld on the field.

All the cameras are equipped with 16GB P2 cards. Standard operating procedure is to rotate cards halfway through practice, which gives the producers a jumpstart on editing. (The Bengals organization is standardized on DVSport GameDay, a football-specific digital video editing and data analysis software package.) Brammer purchased two AJ-PCD20 P2 five-slot drives for high-speed ingest into team desktop computers.

“P2 eliminates the need for any intermediate deck and the time required for content ingest,” Brammer said. “The format allows direct edits, with no need for digitizing before editing. By the time we wrap up a practice, coaches can be viewing footage already edited according to their respective specialties.”

Brammer and his colleague Kent Stearman shoot Bengals’ home and away games with the HPX2000s. The two standard angles are a high 50-yard-line shot taken from the top of the stadium, and an end-zone shot taken from a box.

“The P2 cameras have been a major advantage on the road,” Brammer noted. “While we’re shooting, we can shot mark the video and roughly organize it into offensive, defensive and specialty plays. We’re typically editing the game on laptops during our bus ride to the airport, and the coaches are watching the video on the plane ride home.”

The Bengals’ coaching staff numbers 18, but Brammer said more than 30 additional clients (scouts, players, management) view practice and game-day video. P2’s fast, file-based workflow has streamlined and expedited the process of sending game videos, on hard drives, to the Bengals’ next three opponents as well as to the NFL Dub Center in New Jersey, where the videos are made available to the entire league.

The team’s HPX2000s are equipped with Fujinon XA17×7.6 HD lenses, and Fujinon pistol-grip remote controls.

“The HPX2000s have responded beautifully to discrepancies in stadium lighting, and deliver a very true-to-life look,” Brammer said. “We encountered a lot of shadows and contrasting lights at the Dallas and Houston away games, and the cameras produced very good images.”

“All the cameras have performed very well in cold weather,” he added.

“We are entirely enthusiastic about the performance of the P2 HD cameras,” Brammer said. “They’ve hit a sweet spot for us, addressing our management’s interest in pending HD production while at the same time adding a tremendous amount of immediate value for our coaches and production staff.”

For more information about the Cincinnati Bengals, visit www.bengals.com.

About the AJ-HPX2000

The AJ-HPX2000 P2 HD shoulder-mount camcorder integrates native HD progressive 2/3″ 3-CCD performance with the ultra-high reliability and speed of P2 solid-state recording. As one of the most flexible, full production-quality cameras available, the AJ-HPX2000 records pristine high-quality images in over 30 HD and SD formats ranging from 1080p, 1080i, 720p to 480p, 480i and 576i. With the new AVC-Intra codec option board (AJ-YBX200G), the AJ-HPX2000 can deliver 10-bit, 4:2:2 master-quality video for outstanding video production and news acquisition. The AJ-HPX2000 holds up to five P2 cards offering users extended recording time. With five 32GB P2 cards, professionals can record over six and one-half hours in AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD at 720p 24 native, or close to three hours in other AVC-Intra 100 or DVCPRO HD formats.

About the AG-HPX170

The AG-HPX170 is an ultra-mobile P2 HD handheld camcorder featuring full, 4:2:2 independent frame production quality HD and solid-state recording. Based on the AG-HVX200 series, the lighter HPX170 is fully solid state (no DV mechanism), and comes with a host of enhancements including a new 1/3″ progressive 3-CCD imager system, wider Leica Dicomar 13X lens, an HD-SDI interface, metadata input and management, and a 5-year limited warranty. The HPX170 has two P2 card slots and records in 20 HD and SD formats - from 1080i, 1080p, 720p to 480i.

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 company of Panasonic Corporation of North

America. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation (NYSE Symbol: PC) 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.

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EDITORIAL CONTACTS:

Stacy Moore or Pat Lamb

(201) 392-4458 (518) 692-8150

moorest@us.panasonic.com patalamb@aol.com