Panasonic Broadcast and Serious Magic, Inc. have announced a bundling agreement whereby Panasonic will include a full version of Serious Magic DV Rack with Panasonic's AG-DVX100A MiniDV camcorder. The AG-DVX100A/DV Rack bundle, known as the Serious Production Package, will be available in February. The AG-DVX100A offers 24p/30p/60i acquisition for less than $4,000, and has been used to shoot an extensive number of movies, television programs, documentaries, and corporate videos over the past two years. To complement this camera, Panasonic has opted to include DV Rack in the bundle with the intention of helping videographers prevent shooting disasters.

The AG-DVX100A features include enhanced 24p and 30p progressive mode functions and combine it with improved color reproduction, new cine-like gamma curves, and enhanced image adjustments. It offers a slow-shutter function for higher sensitivity and dramatic motion effects as well as smoother zooming and focusing. A new squeeze mode helps with 16:9 recording while the auto focus assist and interval recording modes improve the camera's ease and versatility.

DV Rack runs on a PC or laptop connected to a DV camera. It includes ten video components in a "virtual rack" that emulate traditional video gear with lower cost, weight, and complexity. The components are all native DV and include a professional field monitor, digital video recorder, vectorscope, waveform monitor, audio spectrum analyzer, video analyzer, digital still frame grabber, shot timer, camera setup module and an automated quality monitoring tool, which evaluates every frame of video and audio in real-time as you shoot, alerting you to potential problems.

www.panasonic.com

www.seriousmagic.com