Hearst-Argyle taps Ikegami HD cameras

Hearst-Argyle Television has purchased 11 Ikegami HDK-75EX
portable HD cameras and six Ikegami HDL-40 compact one-piece “POV”
HD

cameras for its television stations KCRA, in Sacramento, WCVB,
in Boston, and its production facility in the new Hearst Tower, in New
York City.

This most recent purchase expands
Hearst-Argyle’s growing inventory of Ikegami HDTV cameras. “Hearst-Argyle
stations put out a high-quality product, and to us that includes High
Definition,” states Marty Faubell, VP of Engineering for Hearst-Argyle
Television. “Ikegami cameras have the track record of the performance
to meet our objectives, as well as the reliability, service, and support
to back it up.”

Five of the new Ikegami HDK-75EX
cameras are installed at WCVB, with four more at KCRA, and the remaining
two at Hearst-Argyle Television’s full-service television studio in
the Hearst Tower, in Manhattan. KCRA, WCVB, and the Hearst Tower’s
television studio also each got two Ikegami HDL-40 cameras.

“We specified a high-performance
camera for our studios, with an equivalent performance in a POV camera,”
Faubell explains. “We chose Ikegami because these two camera models
match extremely well and provide multiple options for studio, handheld,
and POV configurations.”

The Ikegami HDK-75EX is an
advanced technology, full-digital HDTV compact portable camera system
that can be converted for studio use with either five or nine-inch viewfinders,
and full studio lenses with the SE-H700 System Expander. Whether in
a portable or studio configuration, however, the HDK-75EX provides superior
HD image performance and sophisticated design, including an integrated
fiber adaptor. Three 2/3-inch 2,200,000-pixel IT CCDs achieve superb
image quality, with a horizontal resolution of 1,000 lines and a S/N
ratio of 56dB. Using a down-converter incorporated into the camera control
unit (CCU, a standard feature), the HDK-75EX can also be operated as
a high-end NTSC studio camera. Both HDTV and SDTV video are provided
simultaneously from the CCU and in both digital and analog form. In
addition, the HDK-75EX incorporates next-generation digital process
ASICs, newly developed full digital process IC’s with up to 38-bit
internal digital processing circuits. Sophisticated Detail enhancement
and color reproduction is accomplished in the digital domain, including
Skin Detail tracking with the zoom and focus follow signals from the
lens.

Ikegami’s HDL-40 compact
one-piece “POV” box-type HD

camera also employs advanced 2/3-inch 2,200,000-pixel IT CCDs with matching
image performance. Weighing less than 4.0 lbs., the compact HDL-40 features
fully digitalized circuits with next-generation ASICs for advanced operations,
and is controlled with identical OCP and MCP camera-control panels as
the Ikegami’s HDK-series studio cameras. The HDL-40 includes an HD-SDI
output and is ideal for a wide variety of applications, including fixed
or pan/tilt head installations for overview shots of weather, traffic,
and flash news camera applications. The HDL-40 provides HD performance
in a highly convenient form factor.

“We’re a long-time customer
of Ikegami,” says Faubell. “Based on the products we’ve bought
over the years, their performance, reliability, and support have been
exceptional. Our philosophy is to do the job right the first time and
get maximum value for our investment. Ikegami cameras have exceeded
our expectations.”