
Review Summary
The Panasonic AJ-HD1800 DVCPRO HD Studio VTR offers recording/playback in the world's major formats for broadcast, post production and mobile production. This recorder combines all of the popular features of its predecessor, the AJ-HD1700, with many new enhancements including 720/50 recording, a built-in up/down/cross-converter, UMID/VANC metadata recording/playback and professional video/audio interfaces ranging from IEEE 1394 and HD/SD-SDI to digital AES/EBU.
The HD1800 records 126 minutes at 100 Mbps with 4:2:2 sampling and intra-frame compression on a single XL DVCPRO HD cassette in both 1080i and 720p, including 720/50p. It plays back all DVCPRO HD, DVCPRO50/25, DVCAM and DV sources. The versatile VTR offers flexible conversion capabilities including the ability to convert 720/23.98p (over 59.94) and 720/25p (over 60p) footage from Panasonic AJ-HDC27 VariCam HD Cinema cameras to 1080/24p or 1080/25psf, allowing the VTR to act as a source deck in a 1080p-based linear or non-linear editing bay.