This season, the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals have upgraded video acquisition for its coaching staff by assigning the task to four Panasonic P2 HD solid-state camcorders.
Game-day video for analysis and league exchange is shot with two Panasonic AJ-HPX2000 2/3in three-CCD P2 HD shoulder-mount camcorders equipped with Fujinon XA17x7.6 HD lenses and Fujinon pistol-grip remote controls. The team’s weekly practices are shot with two Panasonic AG-HPX170 1/3in three-CCD P2 HD handheld camcorders.
Currently, the NFL stipulates that teams can exchange video shot only in 480i/60i, so the Bengals are acquiring in DVCPRO.
The team’s video production crew typically shoots in-season practices at Paul Brown Stadium Wednesday through Friday with the two HPX170s. Videographers are positioned on hydraulic lifts to shoot wide-angle sideline and end zone footage. Occasionally, an HPX2000 also is used at practices. In these instances, the HPX2000 is substituted for an HPX170 on one of the lifts, freeing the HPX170 to be used handheld on the field.
All cameras are equipped with 16GB P2 cards, which are rotated halfway through practice to give producers a jumpstart on editing. The Bengals organization has standardized on DVSport GameDay, a football-specific digital video editing and data analysis software package. Two AJ-PCD20 P2 five-slot drives are used for high-speed ingest into team desktop computers.
Bengals’ home and away games are shot with the HPX2000s. The two standard angles are a high 50-yard line shot taken from the top of the stadium and an end-zone shot taken from a box.
An added benefit of using the solid-state P2 format is the expedited file-based workflow that streamlines the process of sending game videos to the Bengals’ next three opponents and the NFL Dub Center in New Jersey, where the videos are made available to the entire league.
For more information, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.
