The People Behind the Camcorders: Interview with Panasonic

CamcorderInfo.com First of all, what technical innovations have you introduced into your line this year?

Rudi Vitti Obviously the biggest advance we've made is in our ability to get the three-chip technology down to consumer price points. Last year, we were the first to introduce three-chip under $1,000 and this year we'll be more aggressive, probably around the $700 range. The other is that we made our optical zooms, especially on the lower end of our line, about $499, you'll have 24 times optical zoom which is industry leading right now. Nobody else has a camcorder or digital still camera that can do 24 times optical zoom. Obviously we follow the market very closely and we're focusing on things that are very apparent to what the consumer sees on the floor, not features that are buried down in menus or you know, not readily apparent when they pick the camcorder up. I mean they pick up the camcorder with 24 times optical zoom from Panasonic, there's a big 24 on it. There's a big 3 CCD logo on our 3CCD cameras so the things we've learned in surveying consumers are that they appreciate video quality and zoom is one of the big features that they look for as well and that's what led us to where we are today.

CamcorderInfo.com Can you tell us a little bit about what, what was done, why you guys have been able to get three chips down to such a low price?

Rudi Vitti Well it's, we've, first of all, we're one of the few who've got the lens technology to do it. Panasonic has around sixty percent market share in lens production in the world, so that's what enables us to do things like high optical zooms and three chip camcorders. It's just been an evolution in the engine that we use and the chip set that we use in order to let us get to consumer friendly price points with this. Obviously the direction that we've chosen is for video quality. The biggest things people buy camcorders for is for video, not for digital stills. A lot of our focus, all of our focus, has been on improving the video quality. And the best way to do that was to take a technology like three chip and bring it down to the consumer level.

CamcorderInfo.com Can you talk a little bit about that, how Panasonic really is bucking the trend in the industry to go for more mega pixels, mega pixels, mega pixels, mega pixels and now you're making the decision to really go after three chip technology?

Rudi Vitti That goes back to the same point that I just made that the best way, when consumers buy camcorders, they are buying them to shoot video. Digital still I guess is appreciated but what's the usefulness of a one mega pixel camera? If you look at the digital still market, one, two mega pixel is relatively inexpensive now. So in order to get a two or three mega pixel camcorder that does high quality video it might be more cost effective for the consumer to buy separate pieces. But our focus, once again, has been on improving video quality and the best way right now we can do that is to bring 3 CCD for the best color reproduction.

CamcorderInfo.com : Are you afraid at all what consumers understand are pixels and that they don't understand three chip technology?

Rudi Vitti Yeah, I mean obviously you know there may be some confusion out there as to when a customer sees mega pixel they think that it does a lot for the video quality, which you know isn't really the case. We have work to do in educating consumers about 3 CCD technology and we will be doing a lot of marketing, advertising, both print and television, that will focus on educating the consumer on 3 CCD technology and what it's benefits are. The other thing we'll be doing too is going out to retailers, to their salespeople, training them and showing them. And we're making tools that our retailers can use too that will enable them to sell 3 CCD technology and explain it to the consumer, because that's the biggest disconnect right now. Actually, you know, if you ask a consumer what a CCD is, they don't know.

CamcorderInfo.com Can you tell us a little bit about your development process, how the model gets from the drawing board to the show floor to the store?

Rudi Vitti It's an on-going process obviously. Throughout the year we conduct focus groups where we bring in samples of consumers from all different parts of the country, in the US specifically for us and you know we talk to people who are about to buy camcorders, people who already own camcorders or just recently purchased camcorders; ask them what they like, what they dislike, what they would like to see. Based on that we have discussions with our factory about the findings and then from there with themwe discuss what we would like to see from our perspective and then they actually go back and do the cost analysis: Okay here's what we can do, here's what we can't do; because some things obviously you want to do that would just be you know too expensive or you know just from a marketing standpoint wouldn't be feasible. We work pretty closely with Japan during the production and development. Once they tell us what we can do and what we can't do you, we come up with planning quantities - it's up to us to come back and say okay this is how many we can sell in this market. And then from there production decisions are made, prototypes are made and you see what you see here at the show and then obviously a few months later it comes to market, monthly in some cases.

CamcorderInfo.com Can you tell us a little bit about the specialization, what you see is specialized for the U.S. consumer that maybe you don't see in Japan or Europe.

CamcorderInfo.com In Japan and Europe the most, one of the most appreciated factors in purchasing a camcorder is the size. The GS50 for awhile before the GS70 came out was the best selling camcorder in Japan. It was the best selling camcorder in Europe. In the U.S., size is appreciated but it's not one of the most important factors. Once again, in our findings it's been things like video quality, optical zoom and things like that. So in that sense you know we do have, we do cater to both. I mean we do have ultra compact models for those consumers who want, who appreciate size. We've got 3 CCD models and we've got big zoom models. Being a global company actually kind of works to our advantage where we can cater to everybody, even the little niche markets. If there's a little niche market for someone who appreciates a small camcorder, we can do that.

CamcorderInfo.com We know you manufacture your camcorders abroad, but in the R&D process how much collaboration is there between yourself and your Japanese counterparts?

Rudi Vitti Well we meet with our R&D folks in factories three or four times a year. The process starts very early in the year. We're already, well on our way in 2005 already in working out what we want to do for 2005. We make our requests, they study the requests and they come back to us very shortly. Like for example we made some requests already in January. They'll start coming back to us in March, this next month, let us know what's feasible and what's not feasible. Collaboration is fine-tuned in June and then in August we're pretty much set in our direction for the next year.

CamcorderInfo.com Looking forward what do you see in camcorder technology a year from now, five years from now and twenty years from now?

Rudi Vitti Being Panasonic, we're well-positioned for the future. We've got numerous technologies that are going to enable us to - I think we're better off positioned than most companies out there. We've obviously got 3 CCD down now at consumer price points. We've got optical disk technology which is obviously becoming bigger now this year than was first expected. We were the first company to introduce the DVD camcorder. We're on our fourth year of DVD camcorders now, believe it or not. We're involved with also the next generation of DVD, the Blu-ray disk which is high definition optical recording. Now not to say this is definitely the direction we're going to go but being the position we're at and being in the position we're in, it's one of the directions we can go.

The other thing we have is the solid state memory technology like SD where we're doing it today with the SV-AV100 recording to a you know memory card the size of a postage stamp. We've got plans in the next few years to get to 16 gigabytes which can hold a significant amount of high definition content. With 16 gigabytes you can hold an hour or so. We're well positioned for the future. Obviously the discussion is going to be towards high definition, how are you going to get high definition, what are you going to store it on; there's a bunch of ways we can go. But that's not to say tape is going to go away very quickly. I still think tape is going to be around for a long time. People have been predicting the death of VHS-C for a long time but it's still not dead. I mean we still do a significant amount of business in VHS-C. But being Panasonic and the technologies we have I think we're better positioned than most companies right now.

CamcorderInfo.com Rudy, you mentioned how you guys have been doing DVD camcorders for three years. Sony came out last year and they have this huge marketing campaign. And, as you know, they were very, very successful. What's your response since you guys were the first company to do DVD's?

Rudi Vitti We did a couple of things different that actually I think better, better suits what the consumer can do with the DVD cam. Obviouslly the story of taking the disk out and playing it in the player which you can do with either camcorder. But in the format differences we support, others are supporting DVD-R and as a rewriteable DVD-RW. Well we support DVD-R and DVD-RAM and there's differences between those formats that I think the consumer can appreciate once they they actually get to use it.

Just as an example, with the rewritable RW format, it's what they call - I don't know how familiar you are with rewritable formats. I mean, it's a sequential format where basically you start recording from the inside of the disk to the outside so if I record three scenes and I want to delete the middle scene, basically I can erase that but that space is gone unless I go back and I want to record that space, I have the chance of overlapping into the next scene and start erasing that. With DVD-RAM, it's truly random access, where I can go back, I can delete a scene I recorded previously and reclaim that space on the disk. So I don't lose any space by doing that and it automatically does that. I don't have to go and tell it to record in a certain spot. The other thing we can do is we can play back things in different order, create play lists. Iif I have ten different scenes on my disk and I'll go play them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I can play 7, 3, 5, 1. I can go back and play them back in any order and save them in that order as well. Also I can shorten segments, I can delete parts of a scene. And once again, once I do that, I can still go back and reclaim that same disk space. So there are advantages to recording on DVD-RAM. I'm not sure the consumer understands that yet, but that's part of our job. Once they do see that, you know, they can come to appreciate the advantages of Panasonic.

CamcorderInfo.com In one word what feature or thing do you think is most important to consumers?

Rudi Vitti Obviously video quality. When people buy a camcorder as I said before they're buying it to shoot video and that's the reason why we're pushing our 3 CCD technology because it gives you the best video, the best color reproduction. These are things that people are recording which can't be reproduced or duplicated. It's a one shot deal; either you get it or you don't. So you know hands down video quality.

CamcorderInfo.com Talking about video quality, you were mentioning focus groups earlier, how do you feel you know as a company it's your role to balance what markets well and what the consumers demand and then what you feel creates better video, better products? How do you find a balance between those two?

Rudi Vitti I'm not sure there's an easy answer to that. Obviously we listen to the consumer as much as we can. But once again it comes down to what's feasible for cost. I mean if we, just say we could make a three chip consumer camera, but if we can't make it for less than $2,000 then obviously that's not going to work. But for example, one of the ways we do that is to kind of cater to different things. Obviously our big push is going to be behind 3 CCD; but DVD cameras also becoming very big as well so we're positioned there well, we're extending our line this year from one model to two models. So being a global company and being a manufacturing company, we manufacture our own products, we can actually cater to all these different things. Mega pixel you mentioned, I mean obviously our 3 CCD camcorder has 1.2 mega pixels still capability so it kind of caters to everybody. It's not the focus of that piece but the focus is obviously video quality.

CamcorderInfo.com In one word what feature or thing do you think is most important to consumers?

Rudi Vitti Obviously video quality. When people buy a camcorder as I said before they're buying it to shoot video and that's the reason why we're pushing our 3 CCD technology because it gives you the best video, the best color reproduction. These are things that people are recording which can't be reproduced or duplicated. It's a one shot deal; either you get it or you don't. So you know hands down video quality.

CamcorderInfo.com What's your favorite part of your job? Do you like the shows? Do you like testing the models? What's your favorite thing?

Rudi Vitti I like to see the stuff that's coming down the line, the direction. Being Panasonic and being a household brand, a very recognizable brand, it's very intriguing to have a say in what direction this company goes in here in the U.S. and to kind of represent what kind of base we put to the U.S. market. Having a say in that is very rewarding once you see it. And also to kind of see which direction playing out, what's going to happen in the next couple years, and planning.

CamcorderInfo.com How do you personally use camcorders? What camcorder do you own and how do you use it in your day to day life?

Rudi Vitti Being where I am I have the camcorder - I go through models pretty quickly. I do own a model. I own a PV-DV701 that I actually bought two years ago, just a very, just a very good camcorder; I'm very happy with it. But being that I'm in my position that I am I get a chance to evaluate different models. For example, going back to last year a GS50, which was great. I have two small children so I actually get to follow them around with the camcorder and record them as much as I can. From there I actually moved to a GS70 3 CCD cam which, is obviously phenomenal and lastly I actually kind of switch back and forth to what particular one has a battery charged now because I've pretty much evaluated all of them and I've used the DVD cam as well, VDR-M30.

CamcorderInfo.com Do you edit your video?

Rudi Vitti Not so much. I mean personally when I have the time it's kind of a - in a former life I was an engineer. I used to work with DVD drives specifically. One of my past lives was playing with these applications and seeing how they tie into DVD and how you could tie video into DVD for the home and computer. But time is definitely not something that's easy to come by these days so my editing I guess you'd call it is dramatically decreased in the past year.

CamcorderInfo.com If there was one tip that you could give to consumers concerning their camcorder like something you see people doing wrong a lot of the time, what would you tell them?

Rudi Vitti: Don't leave it in the closet. A lot of people are very intimidated by the camcorder. It's not very simple to use, it's not very intuitive. So we've made a lot of improvements. And I'm sure you've heard that story from some others here as well. You know we've done a lot of things to improve how it's easier…make it easier to operate so anybody can operate it. Not just the dad taking the camcorder out and mom won't touch it because 'I don't know how to work that thing'. Don't leave it in the closet. They're getting small enough now and the video quality is great to go out there and capture some of the moments that happen that you'll want to see again sometime. Take it out as much as you can.

CamcorderInfo.com Thank you very much.