Flushing Meadows, N.Y. — Panasonic revealed this week that it has expanded its traditional home entertainment equipment sponsorship of the 2012 U.S. Open Tennis Championships, which run through Sept. 9.
This year, Panasonic is offering three separate environments in key locations of the Tennis Center, each providing tennis fans with different experiences.
This year’s deal was expanded to include Panasonic’s Lumix digital cameras for the first time.
Also added this year in public areas throughout the venue are large-screen, high-definition displays.
In the Panasonic Gallery on the ground level of Louis Armstrong Stadium are large-screen smart Viera HDTVs, which visitors can use to share the court with a “Virtual Mardy Fish,” experience FullHD 3D telecasts, and review connected smart-TV applications through Panasonic’s Viera Connect technology.
To spotlight the Lumix camera presence, Panasonic has arranged a Lumix Loaner program to enable fans to try out a Lumix camera and capture some of the action of the tournament.
U.S. Open-goers who visit the Panasonic South Booth Plaza in front of Court 10 can borrow one of four Lumix models for use on site.
Featured loaner Lumix models will include the following:
• the GF5 Digital System Camera with fast autofocus and its ability to automatically recommend creative effects with a touch enabled display make it a hit;
• the LX7 point-and-shoot featuring fast F1.4 Leica optics and a new 3-inch display;
• the FZ200 point-and-shoot with an F2.8, 25 to 600mm zoom lens and 12 fps burst shooting rate; and
• the ZS19 point-and-shoot offering a 20x optical zoom and autofocus speed of 0.1 second.
Panasonic is also providing tennis fans who find their way to the Food Village the opportunity to Skype with family and friends and catch the match from a Panasonic Smart Viera plasma HDTV using Viera Connect.
Panasonic will showcase at the Open 15 large LED video boards throughout the grounds of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center including Arthur Ashe Stadium, Louis Armstrong Stadium, the Food Village and the South Plaza.
Panasonic said it installed Impact 8 LED products, which are the highest resolution systems available today for outdoor applications. The Impact modular LED products are said to offer the flexibility of presenting a range of screen sizes and configurations.
The public LED displays will be placed everywhere from the mall ticket window and food court systems, to the special Octagon Building displays and large video screens that magnify images of replays, games statistics, tournament standings and sponsor messaging.
High-resolution LED controllers and scalers allow the integration of any type of video or statistical data for placement on any video board size or shape, Panasonic said.
