Panasonic proud to celebrate its 30th anniversary as an Olympic Games TOP sponsor

Panasonic Corporation, a TOP1 sponsor for the Olympic Games and Official Worldwide Paralympic Partner, announced today their full lineup of equipment and a wide range of solutions that the company will provide to support the staging of the XXIII Olympic Winter Games (Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018) and XII Paralympic Winter Games (PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games), which will mainly be held in PyeongChang County, Korea.

Through cooperation with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG), and Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), Panasonic will supply its state-of-the-art AV equipment to the opening and closing ceremonies, competition venues, and broadcasting locations.

Panasonic has been a TOP sponsor since the Olympic Winter Games Calgary 1988, and the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 will mark the 30th anniversary of its sponsorship. Over the last three decades, Panasonic has been contributing to the Olympic Games with its cutting-edge AV technology. Following its achievements in the Olympic Games Rio 2016 last summer, Panasonic will provide solutions using its latest AV equipment and projection mapping technologies as its core technology for the opening ceremony, scheduled for February 9, to assist with the staging of both the opening and closing ceremonies. Panasonic will supply around 80 of its PT-RZ31K/RQ32K high-brightness compact 30,000-lumens class projectors, AV-HS6000 Series Broadcast Grade 2ME Live Switchers2, plus a full lineup of AV systems to the Olympic Stadium to support the staging of the opening and closing ceremonies. Panasonic will also install 42 of its LED video screens and video systems in the competition venues, giving a total screen area of 1,640 m². Panasonic has also re-entered the high end of the professional audio systems market, for which the company has worked on development toward the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. The dynamic audio of its RAMSA brand line-array speakers will amplify the excitement of competitions at four venues: the ski jumping and snowboard venues, Yongpyong alpine skiing venue, and Gangneung Olympic Park.

In addition, a multi-video distribution system and 360-degree cameras are planned to be adopted in the competition venue on a trial basis as part of the company’s new initiatives toward 2020.

Panasonic’s P2HD broadcast camera system has already been chosen as the recording equipment for the PyeongChang 2018. The company will deliver a mass of broadcasting equipment, including the AJ-PX5000G camera recorder featuring AVC-ULTRA codecs3 to the International Broadcasting Center (IBC). Since the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992, the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 will be the 13th Olympic Games in which Panasonic’s digital technology is used as the official recording format.

Panasonic will continue to share the passion and excitement of the world’s greatest sporting festival with people across the world and to contribute to fostering the Olympic Movement and the Paralympic Movement by supporting the operation of the Olympic Games as a TOP sponsor with its cutting-edge products, technologies, and solutions.

1. TOP stands for “The Olympic Partner.” This is the highest level of Olympic sponsorship. Panasonic has signed a long-term partnership with the IOC through to the Olympic Games Paris 2024.
2. 2ME Live Switcher: A video switcher and synthesizer that switches or superimposes two or more videos.
3. AVC-ULTRA codec: H.264/AVC standard-compliant encoding scheme for broadcasting and commercial video signals.