December 2, 2020
7 min read
Panasonic has recently started shipping two new 4K cameras for studios: the AK-UC3300 Studio Camera and the AK-HC3900GJ.
We sat down with Sr. Product Manager, Live Production Systems Michael Bergeron for his perspective on these exciting new studio cameras. Bergeron also discusses the history of Panasonic studio cameras, the current state of 4K broadcast, and how important the rental and staging industry has become to 4K.
Q: Can you give me a short history of Panasonic studio cameras?
MICHAEL BERGERON: Panasonic built the studio cameras for one of the first HD studio camera trucks. We were really the first 720p studio camera when a lot of other vendors were focused on 1080. Also, we never made a triax studio camera. Even with SD cameras, we were doing fiber. I think that kept us from being mainstream in the U.S. market because it took the market a long time to really move to fiber. Once you got to 1080p and 4K, the venues and broadcasters finally bit the bullet and put in fiber.
That was when our studio camera business started taking off. We were in several TV stations and a lot of house of worship facilities and the 3800 really took off and that is really when we started to have, what I would call a real business. When we introduced the HC5000 and the UC3000, we got into college sports with a pretty big footprint in the ACC and some other Division 1 college sports. With the launch of the UC4000, we got into the rental and staging business and we kind of became a major player. For the dry hire rental and staging companies, the UC4000 has become one of the default cameras out there.
Q: What is the current climate of 4K broadcast?
BERGERON: I think there's a lot of broadcasters that are starting to prepare for 4K, and there's a smaller group that is actually working in 4K. There are so many different ways that a broadcast feed can get delivered, and there's several instances where it becomes an advantage for some broadcasters — particularly sports — to have to have 4K.
A good example is the Boston Red Sox because they can resell that to markets that have 4K because they've got a fan base throughout the country. There are other groups that have made a business case to be able to offer 4K as a differentiator. The other thing are the folks who are running a venue and will build their infrastructure in 4K because they can also use the 4K for their internal show or for their scoreboard shows. So there's other value to having 4K.
That’s all pre-COVID, though. Now, the priorities for venues have changed somewhat. There’s also talk about ATSC 3.0 and these other ways of delivering 4K. There’s some interest in future proofing for 4K, but because of the bandwidth requirement, sometimes it's very expensive on the infrastructure side. The main thing is that the growth isn't in broadcast but more in venue and creating content for other screens. The fact that everybody's putting these giant LED walls everywhere, has created a huge demand for 4K.
Q: Which camera does the UC3300 replace or is it an upgrade from?
BERGERON: In some ways it’s an upgrade from the UC3000. One of the biggest differences between the 3000 and the 4000 is that the 4000 has superior imaging — so sensitivity, color, noise level, are all better, which is why the 4000 will go toe-to-toe with any camera in the market.
What the UC3300 does is bring the 4000 image into a camera that's meant to replace the 3000. Now that the difference between the 3000 and the 4000, just used to be the difference in imagery, and also the fact that the 4000 could do high speed in HD. But what the 3300 does have is the 4000 imaging, and it's got the CCU from the 4000 — the UCU600. What it doesn't have is the dual filter wheel and it doesn't work with the buildup. So what people found with the 4000 was, everybody liked the image of the 4000, everybody wanted to shoot with that image. But if you were just an indoor studio or small studio, you weren't going to use that build up unit, you don't need the color correction filter and that stuff has a manufacturing cost. So it's almost like the 3300 is kind of a down-featured 4000.
Q: Is the UC3300 4K camera capable of working in SMPTE 2110?
BERGERON: Yes, it uses the same CCU as the 4000 and there's a 2110 board available for that CCU.
Q: What is flash band compensation? Is it a proprietary technology?
BERGERON: It’s one of the ways that we've mitigated any issues that might arise from rolling shutter. Most cameras now are rolling shutter. Back with CCD technology, there were a lot of global shutter cameras. When everybody went to CMOS imagers, it went entirely to rolling shutter although there are some exceptions. One issue you get with a rolling shutter is the flash band, when you have a flash and it causes a band, and flash band takes care of that.
Q: The UC3300 can be operated from the AK-HRP1015GJ ROP. What are the main differences between the HRP1015 and the HRP1000?
BERGERON: The 1015 is the successor to the 1005 – the HRP-AK1005. The difference between the 1015 and the 1000 is that it’s a narrower controller. It’s a 1/5 rack size instead of a one quarter rack size. So if you're building a fly pack, with the 1015, you can put five controls across instead of just four. Because it’s smaller, it has less buttons, so there's some things that it takes more steps to do because of the reduction of the buttons.
If you've got 10 cameras, that's a whole other half a rack. Suppose you're in a truck, that's one less space for somebody to stand. But another thing from an interface with the 1015 is more similar to a Grass Valley controller, where the 1000 is more similar to a Sony. So an operator who's used to Grass Valley might actually have an easier time transitioning to a 1015 than a 1000.
Q: Switching gears, tell us a little about the HC3900.
BERGERON: The 3900 is the successor to the 3800. The 3800 is a really good entry level system camera and had just about the right feature set and the and the price point for small broadcasters and house of worship and is a successful camera but it was 1080i and 720p only, it didn't support 1080p.
With the 3900, we needed a similar camera that supported 1080p because that has become a requirement. People also would like there to be an upgrade path to 4K. We’re at the point now for our manufacturing costs, we can build the 3900 and use a 4K imager, rather than HD imager because of LSSIEL and the large imager.
Since we've done that, we're leaving the 3900 with a 4K upgrade path that will be real 4K. There are systems out there that have a 4K output, but it's just scaled up. Whereas this the 4K upgrade really makes it a 4K camera because it's starting with a 4K imager.
Q: How does one go about getting the upgrade?
BERGERON: There is a board that you would install in the CCU which is the HCU250, and then a firmware load in the camera and the CCU – that's about it. The availability of that upgrade is about a year out but that's what it is. So you would install a board into the CCU and then you would flash the firmware on the camera and the CCU.
Q: Can you talk about the CCU (AK-HCU250) and ROP (AK-HRP250) that are being released concurrently with the HC3900?
BERGERON: As a successor to the 3800, the HCU250 is the successor to the HCU200. It has two big differences. The first one I discussed and that it's you can upgrade it to 4K and its 60p. But the second thing is it has a trunk line, which the 3800 never had as a trunk option. A trunk means you can send a video from the camera to the CCU. So if you have another camera that's near the camera, there's an input on the camera head that will send the signal back to the CCU. So if you want to put another camera or a PTZ camera near an installed 3900, you could utilize that trunk line.
Q: Do both the UC3300 and the HC3900 with the 4K upgrade use LSSIEL technology? What sort of an effect has LSSIEL had on the studio camera business?
BERGERON: From an operator perspective there’s really no effect. It’s not going to change the way you have to use the camera. What it changes is we're able to make a 4K camera that's got sensitivity and dynamic range that's not too different from an HD camera. I mean, that when you use the same technology, with an HD camera and a 4K camera, you're going to get like two stops less sensitivity, you're going to get less dynamic range in the 4K camera, because it's just a tradeoff. You know, a two thirds chip is a two thirds chip, it's only getting so much light.
With LSSIEL, we're able to just use a large imager and it allows us to get 4K to better dynamic range and noise level. But from HD, it just means that we have the ability to use a 4K imager to produce HD. Normally you'd be nuts to do that, because you're getting all that loss of sensitivity and dynamic range for a marginal gain but if you've got the sensitivity and dynamic range using a 4K imager. It’s not going to increase your resolution, it's going to increase your sharpness, because it's over-sampled.
You also have the ability to use a digital two times extender, and still get and still get a full HD picture out of it. If I'm shooting with the 3900 and I use a digital two times extender, I'm still getting an HD picture. Even if I'm not using 4K, I'm still gaining something from having that 4K imager.
In Conclusion: Two Powerful New 4K Cameras For Studio Needs
Customers can expect top performance from Panasonic's new studio cameras. The AK-UC3300 is a studio camera system that is designed for professional broadcast use. It contains a 11-megapixel sensor and is ideal for high-resolution 4K video shooting. The UC3300 has a 2x HD high-speed video shooting function that provides excellent operability when shooting fast-paced sports/live event action. Combined with the AK-UCU600PJ / UCU600EJ / UCU600PSJ / UCU600ESJ Camera Control Units (CCU), 12G-SDI output, TICO*1 over SDI output and SMPTE ST2110*2 output can be supported. A system that supports various next-generation production environments can be created.
The AK-HC3900 HD Studio Camera includes a large 4K-CMOS sensor, and is a cost-effective solution. By combining the AK-HCU250 Camera Control Units (CCU) and the AK-HRP250GJ Remote Operation Panel (ROP), it is possible to construct a long-distance optical fiber transmission studio camera system at a low cost.
