Pioneer Provides Broadcast Professionals with Complete Line of Recording, Playback, Storage, and Display Products at NAB 2000

Pioneer Offers an Array of Rugged, Industrial Products with Advanced DVD, Display and Optical Technologies

Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc., a leading manufacturer of industrial recording, playback, storage and display products, will present broadcast industry professionals with a complete line of products suited for broadcast applications at NAB 2000.

Leading the way in today's trend of rapidly converging technologies, Pioneer's Industrial Display, Optical and Video Divisions have joined forces to provide broadcast professionals with a unique combination of DVD and display products designed to suit even the most rigorous of broadcast applications. Providing the highest quality products combined with excellence in technological innovation, Pioneer continues to maintain its position as the leading choice for broadcast and other business professionals. Pioneer products featured at NAB 2000 will include:

  • DVR-S201 (Second generation DVD-Recordable Drive)
  • DVD-V7400 (Second generation industrial DVD-Video player
  • RM-V2550S2 (Video wall screen with industry-leading thin mullion)
  • PDP-502MX and PDP-V402 (50- and 40-inch industrial plasma display panels)
  • DRM-7000 FlexLibrary™ (First library storage system with CD-R and DVD-R capabilities)
  • 16X Internal DVD-ROM Drive (World's fastest single drive)

DVR-S201 DVD-Recordable Drive

As the company that introduced the world's first DVD-Recordable drive, Pioneer will showcase the industry's second generation industrial DVD-Recordable (DVD-R) drive and DVD-R media. Rugged and durable enough for even the most grueling broadcast applications, Pioneer's DVD-R is a write-once medium that can store any type of digital information such as video, audio, images, multimedia titles and data files. This external SCSI-2 device writes and reads DVD-R media. Writing at 1X and reading at 2X speeds, a complete disc can be written in approximately one hour and is compatible with existing DVD playback devices including DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players.

DVD technology is rapidly becoming the mainstream format among PCs, Library and Jukebox Systems. This will allow networked environments to easily adopt the technology for high-capacity archive applications and serve as a natural extension of CD-R by providing higher quality, faster information flow and increased data per volume.

Designed for industrial use, the DVD-R drive provides greater capacity and is available at a MSRP of $5,400. With its low cost-per-megabyte and compact design, Pioneer's DVD-R drive and media are ideal for industrial DVD authoring and long-term data archival. The drive comes complete with pre-mastering software and three blank DVD-R discs. Additional DVD-R discs are available starting at $35 (MSRP).

DVD-V7400

Pioneer's second generation industrial DVD-Video player, the DVD-V7400, is suited for a variety of broadcast applications and includes increased capabilities, which were added based on extensive market research and customer feedback. Expanded features include increased durability and the addition of component video output (Y, C-R, C-B), for applications that require content output with high-end video. Component video gives the professional user full access to the superior video quality of DVD, and the three separate terminals allow for connection to professional and broadcast video monitors, as well as to advanced display systems like plasma panels and video walls.

The DVD-V7400 also features both NTSC and PAL video playback. An NTSC or PAL external black burst sync signal can be applied through the EXT SYNC IN terminals to enable clean switching between multiple DVD-Video players and with other video sources. The players are also rack mountable for professional installations. Audio features have also been expanded in the DVD-V7400. In addition to the Pulse Coded Modulation (PCM) and Dolby Digital audio formats, the DVD-V7400 now supports digital audio out in the Digital Theater Systems (DTS) format. Other features include expanded timer memory that accommodates up to 24 events per week, and an increased list of disc media that can be read by the new model, which includes conventional CD-R discs in addition to DVD-R (3.95GB and 4.7GB) and CD-RW discs.

Plasma Display Panels

Pioneer's 50- and 40-inch industrial plasma display panels - the PDP-502MX and PDP-V402 - are ideal for a variety of broadcast applications because they deliver bright and even colors, better contrast ratios, high resolution and 160-degree viewing angles in thin, lightweight panels. With their size and versatility, both Pioneer plasma units allow broadcast and other users to maximize space and expand on display applications, since the panels can be hung, mounted, flown or tilted from walls, ceilings, countertops, wheeled racks, or more.

Though many plasma products have some baseline similarities, Pioneer's PDP-502MX offers numerous unique attributes. Completely self-contained, the unit maintains a maximum cabinet depth of less than four inches, is typically brighter than competitive plasma products and weighs less than 89 pounds. Pioneer's 50-inch unit features a theater-like 16:9 aspect ratio and is HDTV-ready, letting users program in the wide screen versions of these formats without letter boxing or image cropping.

Pioneer's 40-inch plasma display features a standard 4:3 ratio and an optional Scan converter, enabling the panel to display up to XGA signals. Pioneer's PDP-V402 unit is also completely self-contained, maintains a maximum cabinet depth of only 3.5 inches, is brighter than most other comparable plasmas and weighs less than 68 pounds.

Video Wall With New Thin-Mullion Screen

Pioneer will showcase an advanced screen for its ultra-thin video wall cube, with an industry-leading mullion (the space between screens) width of less than one millimeter. Capable of producing a virtually seamless image, the new thin mullion screen is the perfect solution for a variety of large-scale broadcast needs. Continuing to illustrate the strength of CRT technology as the preferred medium of choice for those seeking solutions for large scale, fixed site video wall display applications, Pioneer's video walls can be seen on television sets for shows including Jay Leno.

The RM-V2550S2 is offered as an option to the standard four millimeter mullion screen that comes with Pioneer's RM-V2550U, a new thin video wall featuring a 50-inch cube in a cabinet measuring only 29 ½ inches in depth. As with the standard screen, the RM-V2550S2 is designed for each individual cube and provides an attractive solution creating larger seamless images than the traditional mullions. While it offers a thinner mullion, the RM-2550S2 can be retrofitted to existing Pioneer thin video wall cubes. The MSRP for the cube with this new screen is $6195.

DRM-7000 FlexLibrary™

The DRM-7000 FlexLibrary™ is the most advanced library storage system available to the broadcast industry. Based on years of experience in optical and storage technology, Pioneer has created this highly reliable, easy-to-use, innovative modular jukebox (DRM-7000), featuring an advanced snap-in design, which is suitable for even the most rugged broadcast applications.

The innovative modular approach offers the flexibility to accommodate any drive-to-disc ratio offering up to 3.38 terabytes of data storage on 720 discs with two drives to a maximum of 370 discs with 16 drives. Available drive options include DVD/CD-ROM, CD-R and DVD-R. A unique built-in memory feature enables the 20-disc Hypermagazine or a 50-disc magazine to perform off-line archiving. The FlexLibrary is also hot swappable, meaning no down time for end users who need to install drives on the fly. The MSRP for the base system, which includes 20-disc changer unit, Hypermagazine and power unit to support up to 8 drives, is $16,500.

"Sweet 16" 16X DVD-ROM Drive

Pioneer is once again the first to bring the fastest DVD-ROM drive to market, with the recent introduction of the 16X (max.) DVD-ROM drive. Known as "Sweet 16," the drive boasts speeds that are 16 times faster than first generation DVD-ROM technology.

The new 16X DVD-ROM/40X CD-ROM is the industry's fastest DVD-ROM drive and is compatible with single and dual layer DVD-ROM and DVD-Video, DVD-R, DVD-RW, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, CD-DA, Video CD and Photo CD media, preserving compatibility with conventional CD formats. As Pioneer's most advanced drive to-date, the 16X DVD-ROM offers random seek times of less than 85 msec for DVD-ROM (70 msec for CD-ROM), access times less than 95 msec (80 msec for CD-ROM), ATAPI interface and horizontal or vertical mounting capabilities.

Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc.

Headquartered in Long Beach, Calif., Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of products including Industrial DVD-Video players; plasma display and video wall products; DVD-Recordable and DVD-ROM drives; DVD-ROM changers and libraries; optical drives; and DVD-R media. The company is a leading supplier of optical drives to the majority of first tier OEM PC manufacturers. Pioneer's products offer the highest quality industrial solutions for a wide range of applications including broadcast, government, educational, medical, legal, banking and other business environments. Pioneer New Media Technologies, Inc., is a subsidiary of Pioneer Electronic Corporation. For more information on Pioneer's plasma display panels and other industrial products, visit Pioneer's Web site at www.pioneerusa.com or call (310) 952-2111.