Cameras: News and Updates

Navy Football and Lacrosse Teams Adopt Panasonic AG-HPX500 P2 HD Camcorders for Coaching Analysis, Game Exchange

By Staff
posted Sep 21, 2009, 21:01

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(Secaucus, NJ) The Navy Midshipmen football and men’s lacrosse teams, representing the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis, MD) in NCAA Division I college competition, have purchased six Panasonic AG-HPX500 P2 HD camcorders equipped with BTLH80WU 7.9" color viewfinders/production monitors for coaching analysis.

Football dates from 1879 at the Naval Academy, the undergraduate college that educates and commissions officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps. The annual Army–Navy Game represents one of the most traditional and enduring rivalries in college football, and is televised every year by CBS. Navy men’s lacrosse, a dominant team throughout the 20th-century and beyond, has competed since 2004 as a member of the NCAA’s Patriot League, and the Midshipmen have won the League tournament five times in the past six years.

Both sports use the HPX500s with DVSport GameDay editing and data analysis software package, and exchange game videos with competitors over the internet using the DragonFly STORM video exchange system.

According to John McGuire, Director of Video Operations for the Naval Academy, the football team’s Betacam SP cameras were aging out and he was interested in P2 based on the excellent word of mouth he was hearing from opponents such as Duke University and the University of Virginia. The six camcorder/DVSport package is shared with men’s lacrosse, with four HPX500s assigned to football and two to lacrosse (lacrosse had previously shot with Canon XL1s).

Both McGuire and colleague Mark Goers, the Director of Lacrosse Operations, praise the Panasonic P2 camcorders for their ease of workflow, quick footage ingest into the school’s intranet system, solid-state reliability and all-weather performance. The camcorders have been used extensively throughout the lacrosse championship season, spring football and, currently, football practice.

During practice, McGuire explained that the team uses two adjacent fields. Two HPX500s on lifts are assigned to defense, with both cameras in the end zone, one shooting wide angle, the second a tighter angle. On offense, two HPX500s, one on a lift, one shoulder-mounted, shoot from the sideline. McGuire records to P2 cards, and during game play, an assistant will start to break down the video (offense, defense, kicks) immediately after the first quarter.

“Now with P2, we can mark single plays automatically as we shoot, versus marking ins and outs in post,” McGuire said. “During training camp, what that translates to is finishing up at 7 p.m. versus 9:30 p.m. The speed of production is terrific.”

McGuire said that practices and games are put on a main server in the football building (a system lacrosse shares). There are 30 coaching stations for football and nine for lacrosse. During the course of seasons, DVDs can be printed out for players to watch in their dorms or for coaches’ off-site use. For football game exchanges, the offensive, defensive and kicking games are copied to an external drive and traded over the internet using the STORM system.

“We’re seeing all kinds of benefits with the speed of the P2 system,” he added. “When we were on the road during the spring season, we were able to break down the game in a laptop from the P2 cards, copy the footage onto a removable hard drive, and the coaches were able to watch the game on the airplane.”

Goers made the switch out from XL1s to HPX500s during season play last spring. “We went from a prosumer model to a high-end professional camcorder from one game to the next,” he said. “Our reaction was, ‘Holy cow!’ It was a quantum change: the image quality of the HPX500 is head and shoulders above, especially in terms of color saturation and depth. And the P2 camcorders integrate completely with DVSport.”

Goers and his assistant shoot with the two HPX500s handheld from the lacrosse sidelines. Differing from football, Goers records directly to a hard drive, with P2 recordings used as back-up. (He will sometimes also make a third recording directly from the camcorder’s RCA jack to a DVD player.) An assistant takes the feed as it’s being recorded and breaks it down live. When a game is over, Goers is able to hand over DVDs to the five lacrosse coaches.

“We played in some pretty awful weather earlier this year,” Goers said. “The Canons would freeze up, which just doesn’t happen with the HPX500s. We also had day, night and twilight games, playing in all lighting conditions. We had one 5 p.m. game against Georgetown where we switched the filters three times, and it all looked seamless.”

“Football is obviously another all-weather sport, and we played in some driving rainstorms last spring,” McGuire said. “We just put rain covers on the HPX500s, and could switch out the P2 cards under the cover. Games and practices are nonstop, and there’s no time to be popping a tape in and out in the middle of a storm.”

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For more information about athletics at the United States Naval Academy, visit www.usna.edu/athletics.

About the HPX500

The AG-HPX500 teams the full production-quality of 2/3” 3-CCDs, DVCPRO HD, 4:2:2 sampling and independent frame encoding with the versatility of interchangeable lenses and the creativity of variable frame rates. Offering the highly popular features of the incredibly successful AG-HVX200 P2 HD hand-held camcorder but with many new enhancements, the 8.2-pound HPX500 features progressive 2/3” 3-CCDs that provide a larger light receiving area resulting in increased resolution and sensitivity, superb low-light performance and wide dynamic range. The HPX500 records in 32 high definition and standard definition formats, including 1080i and 720p in production-proven, 100 Mbps DVCPRO HD. The HPX500 records on removable P2 solid-state memory cards in 1080/60i, 50i, 30p, 25p and 24p; in 720/60p, 50p, 30p, 25p, and 24p; and in DVCPRO50, DVCPRO and DV. For more information on the HPX500, visit www.panasonic.com/P2HD.

About Panasonic Broadcast

Panasonic Broadcast & Television Systems Co. is a leading supplier of broadcast and professional video products and systems. Panasonic Broadcast is a Unit of Panasonic Corporation of North America. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC) and the hub of Panasonic’s U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. For more information on Panasonic Broadcast products, visit www.panasonic.com/broadcast.