Built around the need for an affordable, yet fully featured shoulder mount 3MOS 1/3-inch camera recorder, Panasonic proudly introduces the AJ-PX380, the newest member of the AVC-Ultra P2 camcorder family. Designed for Modern News Production, Education, Industrial and House of Worship, the PX380 offers a hosts of production features, including powerful IT / wireless connectivity. The PX380 is ideal for those needing the ergonomics and reach of a shoulder mount camera, yet don’t have budget for the larger 2/3-inch native cameras and lenses.

The AJ-PX380 is smaller, lighter, uses less power than equivalent cameras and yet is feature rich and ready for any news or production environment of today. The camera’s record formats include SD and HD, up to and including 1080p 50 / 59.94. Choose from the impressive line-up of codecs to best suit your needs, DVCPRO through the renowned 4:2:2 10 bit sampled AVC-Intra, and the new superefficient AVC-LongG, specifically designed for news gathering and long-form production as in reality TV shows.

The camera’s IT workflow capability is impressive: the PX380 AVC-Ultra CODEC provides simultaneous dual recording, with choices of HD or SD proxies. New wireless workflow offerings include high quality SD or HD streaming, adaptive QoS streaming, or FTP, all via your choice of 4G/LTE, Wi-Fi or LAN connectivity. Use FTP to move original HD files losslessly, or to quickly feed proxies for fast review and edit. The camera also hosts an internal web server, which via a simple Wi-Fi connection to a PC, tablet or iPad, offers easy viewing of proxies, real-time streaming, metadata entry / manipulation and control over basic camera functions. Recording is to your choice of Standard P2 (1 slot), microP2 (2 slots), or even SDHC cards (1 slot) intended for lower bit rates applications of <50Mbs.

The AJ-PX380 is a powerful network connected remote workflow system; it was designed for easy integration into the new Panasonic P2Cast Cloud based News System. The AJ-PX380 combined with the P2Cast system permit a wide range of remote proxy-based workflow options. Remote preview, streaming, proxy review, simple editing / EDL creation, in-camera conform of selects, FTP of selects, often while the camera is recording new material. P2Cast is designed to optimize modern news field workflows by adding the flexibility of a file-based workflow and multiple user access via a private cloud.

The AJ-PX380’s abilities extend to other aspects of production, e.g., live studio, H.O.W., Enterprise, staging and rental… The AJ-PX380 was designed to directly integrate (via two simple HD-SDI cables) to the studio base station AG-BS-300. Add a simple EC-4 controller / RCP and it’s done! This systemized approach, native to the PX380, is much simpler than previous models and removes the need for any cameras head adaptors for studio connectivity. The result is a simpler, more cost-effective system. As can be seem in the diagram below, the AJ-PX380 connects directly to the AG-BS300 base station. Video, return video, intercom audio and control data is multiplexed onto the PX380 dual connections to and from the AG-BS300.