We’re pleased to publish this guest blog post from Dan Bain, news director at KPIC-TV, a CBS affiliate, since 1992.

While KPIC may have a small news operation, we manage to cover a lot of territory—13,500 square miles, extending from the Pacific Ocean east to the summit of the Cascades, and reaching more than 100,000 viewers. I KPIC signed on the air in 1956, today it remains only local television station in Oregon’s Douglas County.

Today, the station has three videographers, with each of us shooting two to three stories per day. Our main camera is Panasonic’s new AG-HPX250 P2 HD handheld model, the company’s first such product with 10-bit, full HD AVC-Intra recording. We also have Panasonic’s AG-HPX170 P2 HD handheld and an HDV camcorder for news operations. Our production department has been assigned a second HPX250 that’s used for commercial production work and occasional long-form programs.

The three of us in the news operation produce about 15 hours of local news each week. I shoot exclusively with the HPX250 and cover events that range from sports to courtroom trials and government meetings to breaking news.

In addition to shooting editing and writing as many as three stories a day, I also anchor three daily newscasts. (My colleagues say I’ve been working as a VJ long before the term was coined.)

We’re continuing to shoot our news footage in 4:3 aspect ratio, standard-definition video, but will soon be converting to high-definition operations. Of course, the HPX250/HPX170 will handle that and have already supported our transition from tape to tapeless operations.

We now have quite a bit of hands-on experience with the Panasonic HPX250 and I feel very confident in saying that this is the camera that will take us into full-fledged HD ENG.

The full version of this article is available on TV Technology’s website.

Read the rest of our AG-HPX250 Behind the Camera Series here.