WWL-TV CAPTURES MARDI GRAS FLAVOR WITH IKEGAMI HD CAMERAS       NEW ORLEANS: Every year, the spectacular sights of MArdi Gras make Fat Tuesday the hottest time to be in New Orleans. For 2000, WWL-TV (a Belo Station) used three Ikegami HDK-790D cameras to capture the action.      "All the parades on Carnival day are nothing but color and detail," says Steve Gaudry, Senior Video Engineer of WWL-TV. "It's one big party, and the pictures were everything we expected from Ikegami - incredible images. We captured all the beads on a single necklace in a wide shot taken from down the street."      Teamed with Rick Barber, WWL-TV Director of Engineering, Gaudry set up camp in front of Gallier Hall and shot a total of 8 hours of festivities in HDTV, recording such scenes as the Krewe of Rex parade, while over 1 million spectators watched. Some parts of the parade were downconverted to be used in the station's 4 hours Carnival coverage, and a one-hour show broadcast on Belo stations nationwide was recorded on HDTV D5 recorders.      The Ikegami HDK-790D cameras are equipped with newly-developed 2/3-inch 2,200,000-pixel(1080i) FIT CCDs, with CCD readout capable of being switched between interlace and progressive scans. Additionally, high-level ASICs are used to achieve full-digital implementation to assure crisp, stable video at all times, while minimizing power consumption.      "We've always had good working relationships with Ikegami, and the HDK-790D cameras performed very well at this year's Mardi Gras," Steve Gaudry says. "We had the best-looking cameras capturing New Orleans' signature event. During the taping I was telling colleagues, 'Stop by and see these pictures. They'll knock your socks off."      Ikegami Electronics is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high-quality professional broadcast television cameras, monitors, and accessories. The company's High Definition TV Cameras (HDTV) have become the broadcast industry leaders as the change over to the High Definition Television format moves ahead.