New Recording Technology from Panasonic, Other Than the Just Unveiled AVCHD

The same day in which Sony and Panasonic announced that the companies have co-developed a new HD standard which will replace for the moment the already famous Blu-ray, the latter, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (known for its Panasonic brand), stated that it will also develop a similar technology which will be used to record HD (high-definition) content onto SD Memory Cards (solid-state memory).

It seems that Panasonic doesn't settle for less, as it intends do develop not only a similar technology to the one co-produced with Sony, but also a new program for editing and playing back images, both of which will be featured in future camcorders.

Because the production costs are lower than the Blu-ray technology implies, Sony and Panasonic, two of the main camcorders manufacturers, have developed AVCHD which uses the MPEG4 AVC/H.264 compression system to "decrease" data's capacity and then store it on a standard DVD disk.

"Believing that the SD Memory Card is the recording media best suited for video cameras, Panasonic has already released a professional-use HD video camera that uses SD Memory Card technology", said Mr. Akihiro Nakatani, Director of Video Camera Business Unit, Panasonic AVC Networks Company.

As a result, this new HD recording technology, especially created for SD Memory Cards, will have the same features as the AVCHD standard, a very capable encoding procedure which is able to record 1:1080i and 2:720p images in HD format on a 8 cm DVD disc. The combination of both standards enables the manufacturer to produce smaller and more compact camcorders with an increased image and sound high-quality.

More precisely, 1:1080i is an HD standard featuring 1080 scanning lines which are connected between each other, and 2:720p is also an HD standard, although this one is using not a connected scanning, but a progressive one, which features less scanning lines - only 720.

"Panasonic's efforts to develop the technology to record HD images onto SD Memory Cards and construct a new playback and editing environment, in addition to its establishing the AVCHD standard for 8-cm DVDs, will serve to further stimulate development of products that take advantage of the characteristics of both media," Nakatani added.