On Oct. 26, Sony will be awarded a Technical Emmy for its HDC-4300 camera. For Sony Professional Solutions Americas President Alec Shapiro and the rest of the Sony team here and around the world, the evening will be the culmination of a process that began with what he describes as a close relationship with the sports-production community.
Alec Shapiro, president, Sony Professional Solutions Americas
We're excited to get the Emmy, he says. It's a rare opportunity to hit a home run with a new production these days. But we managed to hit a grand slam, as practically every major sports and live event has used the 4300. The success of it is the result of listening to the sports and live-production customer base as evidenced by the industry icons that were on the stage when we introduced it.
The listening between Sony and its customers created a global feedback loop through which Hiroshi Kiriyama, senior GM, Content Creation Solutions Business Division, Sony Professional Solutions Group, and his team led the effort to turn vision into reality. That reality? A 4K camera system that used three -in. CCD sensors and resolved two major issues for 4K sports production: use of existing broadcast lenses and creating a depth of field that matched traditional HD broadcast cameras. It also incorporates multiformat, multispeed, and multi-resolution images in HDR (high dynamic range) and WCG (wide color gamut).
[Kiriyama] responded to the industry's input and will accept the Emmy on behalf of the Japan engineering team at the end of the month, explains Shapiro. And, here in the U.S., our sales and product-management teams, led by Rob Willox [marketing manager of the media-solutions business] and John Studdert [VP, U.S. sales and marketing], really contributed greatly to the rollout.
Shapiro adds that, for Sony, the sports and live-TV markets are critical, its most stable customer base.
Relative to the rest of the traditional-broadcast market, it is also growing as the amount of sports production keeps expanding as over-the-top delivery and the number of events grow, he says. What is exciting is that a lot more sports than not are getting covered and more and more fans want to watch those additional events.
The unveiling of Sony's HDC-4300 camera at NAB 2015 featured a number of sports production's biggest names, who helped Sony shape the product's capabilities.
Expansion in the number of sports events being broadcast on TV and via OTT is one of the reasons development of the HDC-4300 was so important. The entire industry saw the potential for 4K sports production, but use of 1-in.-sensor cameras with a shallow depth of field was a non-starter. The HDC-4300 provides a roadmap to the 4K future because it can operate in 2K mode for today's needs and has now been complemented by the HDC-4800, which allows super-slow-motion capture alongside regular-speed capture. That gives the production team maximum flexibility in terms of replays, live action coverage, super zoom, and more.
Says Willox, It was all about communication with Japan. We relentlessly travelled and visited sports producers and TV networks. That community has a long and rich relationship with us so that they could do presentations in front of our engineers about what they needed. The HDC-1500 camera was one of the first results of that collaboration, and it continues to the present day.
The 4300 and 4800 meet many of the future needs for 4K sports production, but Shapiro says the camera business will continue to evolve. For example, the Sony HPC-43 is a sister box camera for the 4300 and will meet an important need.
Producers want to use the same camera complement they use today for HD in 4K, and the next need was a 4K box camera because it has a wide variety of applications, like Steadicams and jibs, he explains. And many productions have as many box cameras as they do shoulder and hard-style cameras. So the HPC-43 uses the same infrastructure and has the same quality as the HDC-4300.
Also new is the Z-450 4K camcorder, a single-chip camcorder based on the 4300 and bringing the same HD camcorder workflows to 4K coverage.
We have enabled a new generation of content creators, notes Shapiro. It is amazing to think that Betacam camcorders were $30,000, and now you can get a digital 4K camcorder for less than $3,000. It's quite remarkable.
Sony (and others) have laid the foundation for 4K/UHD and HDR workflows that promise more-immersive images for broadcast and cable sports networks. Shapiro has been there before: in 1982, he worked on the public-relations side of the first demonstrations of HD. It took another 20 years for that transition to be fully implemented.
Technology transitions have to take time, especially in live sports and entertainment, where there are so many pieces that have to be coordinated, he points out. And the 4K production has to be as good as or better than the HD production.
OTT Transition to 4K/UHD
The amount of 4K/UHD content available in the U.S. may pale beside that of other countries (most notably, the UK, where Sky Sports and BT Sport have embraced UHD), but Shapiro says the transition here is going phenomenally fast, especially as over-the-top services like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu embrace it: OTT content distributors did not have a massive 2K infrastructure to begin with and, thus, could move more quickly to 4K.
People are less patient today, but the technology is evolving much faster than in the SD-to-HD transition, [where] a lot more [was] involved, he explains. It was the transition not only from SD to HD but from analog to digital, and it involved moving to a different aspect ratio. The 2K-to-4K move is easier.
If there is one major issue facing the 4K/UHD movement, it is that the current distribution of content has not become widesprea
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
02/12/2025
Case Study: How Mid-Atlantic Sports Network Moved to All-IP Distribution in 60 D...
02/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Lee Corso, Coach, Commentator, FirebrandBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 7:00 am
Print This Story | S...
02/12/2025
SVG All-Stars: Dan Nabors, Senior Director, Remote Engineering, TNT SportsThe veteran tech leader is helping guide Warner Bros. Discovery's at-home' re...
02/12/2025
National Lacrosse League Opens Season With New Cloud-Based Official Replay-Revie...
02/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: The Cinematic Look in Live Production - Bridging Aesthetic...
02/12/2025
SVG India Announces Advisory Board; JioStar's Prashant Khanna Named ChairmanBy Ken Kerschbaumer
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 11:15 am
Print This Story |...
02/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: New AI Production Tools Workshop' Features ESPN, F...
02/12/2025
Written and directed by Hailey Gates, Atropia won the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival....
02/12/2025
The lightweight and highly portable CORVUS-RAVEN, recently demonstrated at the V...
02/12/2025
The lightweight, rugged Panther 2 tri-band VSAT delivers high-speed data communications for Internet, VPN connectivity and video transmission over commercial an...
02/12/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
02/12/2025
NGID volunteers in the United States
NGID volunteers in Mexico
NGID volunteers in India
NGID volunteers in Spain
NGID volunteers in Australia
NGID voluntee...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
SAN DIEGO Sony Electronics today introduced the Alpha 7 V (ILCE-7M5), the fifth generation of its Alpha 7 full-frame mirrorless lineup, powered by the newly dev...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a docket for comments on Nexstar Media Group's proposed $6.2 billion acquisition of Tegna and se...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters has added a trio of media executives, Veronica Rodriguez, Matt Schnaars and Jeff Warshaw, to its board of di...
02/12/2025
MILAN, Italy Brightcove has released seven new features designed to expand global reach, improve audience engagement, enhance live-streaming quality and streaml...
02/12/2025
BCNEXXT, the developers of the advanced playout platform Vipe, today announced a new Service Provider Partner agreement with NPC Media, the Australian managed p...
02/12/2025
DPA Microphones today announces the immediate availability of its new N-Series Digital Wireless Microphone System for customers throughout the U.S. In addition ...
02/12/2025
Hiltron Communications reports a well attended and successful Space Tech Expo exhibition, held at the Messe Bremen from Tuesday November 18 through Thursday Nov...
02/12/2025
The beginning of September saw Riverfire by Australian Retirement Trust, in association with Channel 9 and Triple M, kick off the 2025 Brisbane Festival in spec...
02/12/2025
SGM Lighting is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with ACT Entertainment, under which ACT will serve as the exclusive distributor for SGM's ne...
02/12/2025
Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Telia, the second largest telecom operator in Norway, is modernizing its broadband network with the company's i...
02/12/2025
European cloud data protection specialist Keepit is expanding its sales network in the DACH region and has gained TIM AG, one of the leading value-added distrib...
02/12/2025
Featured products at ISE 2026
This year s ISE 2026 theme "Push Beyond" reflects Calrec s direction of travel. The company is dedicated to supporting the AV an...
02/12/2025
Czech Television, the national public broadcaster, has deployed one of the largest LiveU live production projects in the region for live sports and news coverag...
02/12/2025
Test & measurement innovator, Leader Electronics, has announced the release of v8.2 software for its ZEN and ZEN-W Series, bringing advanced cinematic camera se...
02/12/2025
Global provider of video streaming software and services, Accedo, and OTT platform provider, Magine Pro, have signed a binding agreement to carve out and merge ...
02/12/2025
With proven success in broadcast, OTT, and content supply chains, K.S Avinash set to scale Skandha's service-first approach across APAC
Skandha Media Servi...
02/12/2025
AJA Video Systems has joined the RAVENNA community, a network of partners devoted to advancing the RAVENNA standard for distributing real-time audio over intern...
02/12/2025
HUNT VALLEY, Md. Sinclair and its wholly-owned subsidiary One Media Technologies have released a new report focused on how ATSC 3.0, the IP-based NextGen TV sta...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Media Bureau has issued a reminder that stations in DMAs 111 through 120 must implement its audio descrip...
02/12/2025
WASHINGTON Members of the Advanced Television Systems Committee have elected four industry veterans to three-year terms on the organization's board of direc...
02/12/2025
A new survey from S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan highlights how important social media is for younger consumers, with Gen Z spending 5.1 hours a day on so...
02/12/2025
Faculty Notes: Fall/Winter 2025 Recent accomplishments, releases, and events by Berklee faculty.
December 1, 2025
By
Editorial Staff
The cast of Kind of M...
02/12/2025
Ring In The Holidays With Our Biggest Sale Ever On Ivory II Pianos!From now until December 31st, you can save 50% or more on every Ivory II piano and collection...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Made in America: How Stranger Things' Electrified the US Economy
Entertainment
02 December 2025
GlobalUnited States
Link copied to cl...
02/12/2025
Back to All News
Culinary Class Wars' Season 2 Trailer Teases New Rules, R...
02/12/2025
--
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Telecommunication Unio...
02/12/2025
Harmonic's cOS Platform Will Redefine Subscribers' Quality of Experience, Lowering Churn SAN JOSE, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2025 - Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today...
02/12/2025
At AWS re:Invent, NVIDIA and Amazon Web Services expanded their strategic collab...
02/12/2025
S an Nollaig
Hollywood blockbusters The Banshees of Inisherin, Barbie and Oppenheimer make their Irish TV debut
Tune into the classics such as Love Actual...
02/12/2025
Showcasing fresh Irish storytelling and emerging talent Storyland 2025 signals a fantastic time for Irish drama
RT and F s ireann/Screen Ireland are proud to...
01/12/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
01/12/2025
Artemis II is NASA's first crewed flight test of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft. The crew, from left: Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Vic...
01/12/2025
IRVINE, Calif. Wooden Camera has introduced its new Accessory Collection for the Canon EOS C50. The new lineup includes a low-profile, gimbal-ready cage, expand...
01/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for its Dec. 18 Open Commission Meeting that will include a vote on a report an...
01/12/2025
In most years, a graph of annual local TV ad spending is about as predictable as an electrocardiogram of a reasonably healthy patient in a doctor's office. ...
On Oct. 26, Sony will be awarded a Technical Emmy for its HDC-4300 camera. For Sony Professional Solutions Americas President Alec Shapiro and the rest of the Sony team here and around the world, the evening will be the culmination of a process that began with what he describes as a close relationship with the sports-production community.
