Thomson Unveils New Grass Valley HD LDK 8000 SportCam at IBC 2007

September 24, 2007

Source: Thomson

In an industry first, Thomson announced the addition of Super SloMo functionality to its entire Grass Valley™ standard HD camera family. The LDK 8000 SportCam has already been pre-ordered by a major customer for use during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

The entire line of Grass Valley LDK cameras addresses customers’ on-going need for fully upgradeable, future-proof and multiformat-capable products and systems that are affordable and flexible in order to maximize their media investment.

The Grass Valley LDK 8000 SportCam is a two-piece dockable camera system, fully compatible with all current LDK HD sub-systems. By adding the capability for 2x recording, it means that mobile production companies can outfit an entire truck with them, using some for slo-mo and others for standard HD acquisition alongside regular LDK 8000 cameras.

“Now you can have 2X capability on your entire fleet of cameras, if you wish—and at similar cost as the Grass Valley WorldCam system,” Jeff Rosica, Senior Vice President of Thomson’s Broadcast & Professional Solutions business unit. “The LDK line of Grass Valley cameras has been the clear choice for OB production companies around the world and we expect the new LDK 8000 SportCam to carry on that tradition.”

The LDK 8000 SportCam uses the same industry-leading imaging and video processing technology as the standard LDK 8000, including a proven architecture with 14-bit analog-to-digital conversion and 22-bit internal digital signal processing. What makes it unique is its ability to shoot at double speed - either 100 Hz or 119.88 Hz, depending on the HD format— and record to an external third-party disk recorder. During recording, concurrent HD and high-quality oversampled SD outputs are available. It is the only slow motion camera available that can capture true progressive HD images, natively, in multiple formats and frame rates. This makes the LDK 8000 Sport Cam the slow motion camera of choice for almost any OB or mobile truck application.

Maintaining flexibility for mobile productions, particularly sporting events, the LDK 8000 SportCam uses the same triax or fiber optic cable, often pre-installed in stadiums, and used by other LDK Series cameras. Triax cable can be used for distances up to 1200m (3,500 feet), which can be doubled by use of an HD triax repeater without significant loss of picture quality.

The LDK 8000 SportCam has the same controls, look, and feel as the existing range of LDK HD cameras, making it intuitive to operators while providing the same high picture quality to viewers.

With more than 600 units sold worldwide since its introduction at IBC last year, the Grass Valley LDK 8000 family of HD cameras now includes three versions: Standard, WorldCam, and Sport. The Standard version supports 1080i/720p HD formats in 50 and 59.94 Hz, and simultaneously provides high-quality SD output in either 50 or 59.94 Hz. The WorldCam version adds support for all recognized worldwide HD formats, including 24p for digital cinematography acquisition and 1080p50/60 output.

Pricing and Availability

The complete LDK 8000 SportCam will be available in Q4 of 2007, with a list price of €127,000.



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