– Panasonic announced a new professional HD camcorder today with the release of the AG-HPX370. The camcorder represents a minor upgrade over its predecessor, the AG-HPX300, with the biggest improvement involving updates to the 3MOS imaging system. The AG-HPX370 will be available later this month with a suggested retail price of $11,700. The camcorder will also be on display next week at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas.
The AG-HPX370 has the same size imagers as its predecessor (three 1/3-inch CMOS sensors), but Panasonic improved things with its newly developed U.L.T. imagers. According to Panasonic, these improved sensors should produce less noise and better sensitivity due to improved processing and newly developed photodiodes. Essentially, Panasonic claims the imagers on the new camcorder should work more efficiently and better than on previous models.
Other features on the AG-HPX370 are mostly unchanged from what was offered on the AG-HPX300 (with its firmware upgrade installed). The camcorder still uses AVC-Intra compression as well as supporting DVCPRO HD and a number of standard definition recording options. The camcorder includes a variety of frame rate settings—1080/60i, 1080/30p, 1080/24p, 50i, 25pN, and variable frame rates in 720p mode. The AVC-Intra codec continues to offer 10-bit, 4:2:2 sampling—an advantage that Panasonic believes it holds over other professional camcorders that record using MPEG-2 compression.
One other new feature on the AG-HPX370 is a minor setting called "one-clip recording." This feature allows you to group video clips as one complete clip (with clip markers shown), rather than simply splitting up every clip automatically. The camcorder records to regular P2 cards (it has two card slots) and comes with a 17x Fujinon lens. As with the AG-HPX300 before it, the AG-HPX370 has an interchangeable lens system that includes the option of using a 1/3-inch or 2/3-inch lens adapter.
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