PRESS RELEASE April 18, 2004

New Hardware and Software Solution Dramatically Lowers the Costs of HD Production

With Panasonic’s new, compact AJ-HD1200A DVCPRO HD VTR, 24fps or 60fps progressive scan material shot by Panasonic’s AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema camera or 1080i studio / sports truck footage recorded by DVCPRO HD VTRs can be transferred via the VTR’s IEEE 1394 interface directly into Final Cut Pro HD without generation loss. Once transferred, the material is instantly available for real-time editing operations. All footage maintains its camera-original quality, because the IEEE 1394 FireWire interface transfers the native DV-HD high definition files, as originally recorded on tape in the VTR or Varicam, directly to the Power Mac G4 or Power Mac G5 host computer's internal hard drive. Final Cut Pro HD users can also automatically extract 3:2 pulldown from any 24fps HD VariCam footage, saving an additional 60 percent in disk storage space, thus providing a highly-streamlined 24fps native HD ingest and editing process. At that point, users can edit camera-original quality HD content on their desktop, utilizing a Final Cut Pro-equipped Power Mac G5; or if field operations are required, a Final Cut Pro-enabled PowerBook G4 – all without purchasing any proprietary hardware.