Panasonic has announced a free firmware upgrade for its popular AJ-PX270 P2 HD handheld that incorporates a new codec (AVC-Intra Class200), full HD streaming and automatic contents transfer, and new recording formats, all enhancing production and remote newsgathering.
   

These upgrades are available for downloading effective today at the Panasonic service support website,http://eww.pass.panasonic.co.jp/proav/support/content/download/EN/ep2main/soft/upgpx270_e.htm.

The addition of the high-quality AVC-Intra Class200 codec (10bit, 4:2:2, bitrate approx 200Mbps)  enables visually lossless recording at twice the bit rate of AVC-Intra Class100, delivering studio master quality for recording network-level programming and archiving. AVC-Intra Class200 is ideal for field capture of content for film-outs; the higher quality greatly enhances color correction processes, as well as green screen and compositing applications. With the additional AVC-Intra Class200 recording, the PX270 delivers the highest quality recording available in a handheld professional camcorder.

Network functionality is also bolstered with newly-added streaming facilitating full HD output (wired, wireless*, 4G/LTE network**) during recording.***  The implication for news gathering is that a breaking news event can be streamed to a broadcast station while acquisition is in progress in the field.

In addition, Panasonic has added the “Rec during Uploading” function to the PX270 to allow automatic transfer of recorded contents to an FTP server, which means that recording is possible even while video content are being uploaded.  The firmware also supports a new P2 Remote Operation Panel (ROP) application, which enables wieless control of PX270 camera settings (picture quality, zoom, focus and rec/stop operation, for example) using an iPad. The P2 ROP App will be available free of charge at the Apple App Store.

The firmware upgrade supplements the PX270’s already extensive recording formats with the addition of 1080/30p, 25p, 24p and native 1080 24PsF HD-SDI output, expanding production uses such as external recording and monitoring, as well as 720/30p, 25p, 24p, improving web production efficiencies. The upgrade also activates proxy editing on a web browser.