Something to look forward to at the next NAB: getting twice the value
out of your P2 cards. Snubbing MPEG-2 and its long-GOP encoding, the
company plans to support recording using the H.264-compliant AVC-Intra
codec, which cuts storage requirements in half compared to DVCPRO HD,
starting next April. That means that, for example, the new AJ-HPC2000
camera, slated to ship early next year, will be able to record 80
minutes to a magazine of five 8 GB P2 cards with the AVC-Intra option,
rather than just 40 with DVCPRO HD. The company didn’t make any
specific claims as to how AVC-Intra will perform compared to DVCPRO HD
– but given recent gains in compression technology, it should be a very
attractive option.