Digital World Tokyo | Panasonic photo printer grabs still shots from high-def video

Panasonic photo printer grabs still shots from high-def video

January 30th, 2008

Panasonic Japan has come up with an intriguing solution to a problem no one knew we had – a device that can grab and print stills from a high-definition video file.

The ¥23,000 ($215) KX-PX30 looks like a standard dye-sub photo printer with the usual array of SD card and USB ports and a little 3.6-inch color LCD for seeing what’s going on before printing. However, it’s actually the world’s first that can handle both older MPEG videos and AVCHD high-def flicks.

Connect a source containing an AVCHD video and the PX30 can grab individual frames from it at half-second intervals. From there it’s just a case of picking which you like and printing them out at 300dpi.

The Panasonic blurb says postcard-sized prints take 48 seconds and larger ones a full minute, which is par for the course. Naturally, the PX30 can hook up to a PC and can print boring old still images as well.

(Crossposted to Tech.co.uk)