Building on Wednesday’s list, here are some more exciting new products and technology to be on the lookout for at the 2011 NAB Show.
iPhone interface
Ensemble Designs is featuring an iPhone-to-HD/SD-SDI video interface for the BrightEye Mitto scan converter. Mitto provides a solution for getting severe weather footage and breaking news from an iPhone into a news program.
The BrightEye Mitto converts iPhone or computer material to SD/HD-SDI video for input to a router or production switcher. YouTube, Skype video, weather radar, viewer e-mails and maps can be easily imported. Even a small part of the screen, such as a Skype window, can be converted to full-screen HD. Ensemble's upconversion and filtering processing provides broadcast-quality video for use in high-end applications.
See Ensemble Designs at Booth N1323.
Wide, one-M/E production switcher
Broadcast Pix is introducing a new addition to its Granite family of live video production systems that features a wide, one-M/E control panel. The company also announced an enhanced control panel for its two-M/E Granite 5000 system. The Granite 2000 is available now, and the new panel for the Granite 5000 began shipping in March.
Both control panels provide faster access to all of Granite's video and file-based content. The new panels, combined with Granite's Fluent file-based workflow software, enable a single operator or small team to create highly compelling live video for broadcasts, webcasts, events and other productions.
The Granite 2000 control panel provides a larger work area than the popular Granite 1000 while expanding the number of input buttons from nine to 16, and 32 with shift. The switcher also doubles the number of keyer buttons from three to six and increases auxiliary output buttons from two to 10. It also adds key priority controls as well as mnemonics to display auxiliary output assignments.
See Broadcast Pix in Booth N4506.
MPEG switch
Ensemble Designs is introducing a new smart switch for ASI transmission streams, the Avenue 4445. Targeted for use in transmission, satellite and broadcast, the Avenue 4445 is a smart 2 x 1 switch that combines detailed analysis of the transport stream and removes all jitter in DVB-ASI streams. The 4445 is both a clean switch and a fail-safe bypass protection switch for use with critical broadcast feeds.
Two signals are fed to the 4445, the main on-air signal and a backup feed. If the main signal has a problem, then the switch goes to the backup feed, which keeps the broadcaster on-air at all times. The 4445 uses internal buffers to align the two streams to matching points for clean switching and switches at the beginning of an I-frame so downstream equipment is never disrupted.
See Ensemble Designs at booth N1323.
Spectrum monitoring system
Crystal Solutions will introduce the Sentry, a low-cost, full-featured spectrum monitoring system at the show. The Sentry is an affordable, easy-to-use spectrum monitoring system ideally suited for TV and video networks, network operation centers, beacon signal, data and Internet, cell tower, and ENG and microwave monitoring. Sentry can use a single spectrum analyzer to monitor multiple RF sources in a single interface.
Sentry can work as a stand-alone solution or integrated with Crystal Solutions' monitoring and control system. When integrated with the M&C system, Sentry can react to detected anomalies and automatically route affected signals to advanced analysis devices for further investigation, or even reconfigure earth station equipment to an alternate path to restore services.
See Crystal Solutions in Booth SU9224
Transport stream processor
T-VIPS is introducing a new transport stream processor designed specifically for the U.S. market. The CP505 ATSC processor integrates a flexible network interface adapter with an advanced transport stream processor in a cost-effective, compact unit. It is ATSC-compliant with native support for SMPTE 310 MPEG-2 ATSC transmission streams and ATSC PSIP tables.
As the newest member of T-VIPS’ cProcessor family of products, the CP505 is intended for real-time backhaul, distribution and DTV transmission of MPEG-2 transport streams over SMPTE 310, ASI and IP networks.
The company will also introduce the TVG425 transport stream gateway. Based on a new, advanced technology platform, the TVG425 is designed for real-time contribution and distribution of video over IP networks. The TVG425 provides transparent handling of MPEG transport streams over ASI, IP/Ethernet and SONET/SDH. The gateway provides advanced features such as input signal monitoring, flexible output diversity, dual network interfaces, input switching between redundant sources and bidirectional operation.
See T-VIPS in Booth SU7807.
Controller for Axia switchers
Pathfinder Core PRO, from Axia, is a dedicated hardware appliance for which no Windows server is required. Using an intuitive graphical software interface, Pathfinder Core PRO is fast, efficient and simple to use: Just attach to your network, give it an IP address and it automatically builds a detailed Axia GPIO router table for you to use.
Along with the complete set of PathfinderPRO tools, Pathfinder Core PRO adds new capabilities including automatic configuration backup, improved clustering support for more than two servers, multisite clusters, local clustering auto-discovery and powerful events tools.
The Pathfinder family of routing control tools lets broadcasters easily create sophisticated audio-routing applications, from simple point-to-point routes to complex, multipoint scene changes that can reconfigure an entire facility on demand, at specified times or in response to preprogrammed events.
Administrators can point and click using Pathfinder Core PRO's Web interface to send audio from one place to another, creating single route points or snapshots that change multiple routes, which are lockableto prevent inadvertent changes.
See Axia in Booth C3113.
HD/SD AV encoder
The IMT Newscoder 4 is a compact, low-power, HD/SD AV encoder with AES Encryption. At just 3.7in3 in size, Newscoder 4 delivers superior MPEG-4 H.264 SD and HD encoding, enabling broadcasters to transmit HD content efficiently over the same infrastructure used to transmit SD content.
The encoder attaches to a broadcaster’s legacy BAS equipment, allowing HD pictures to be transmitted over a standard SD SNG system and supporting HD bit rates as low as 6Mb/s.
The Newscoder 4 input accepts either SD-SDI or HD-SDI inputs, plus embedded audio. The encoder automatically detects the video input format, digitizes it and passes it to a high-performance H.264/AVC MP@L4 video encoder.
See IMT in Booth C6432.
Portable audio mixer
The Sound Devices MixPre-D compact, high-performance portable audio mixer is ideal for documentary-style, sports, news magazine and corporate-industrial productions. The MixPre-D has two studio-grade mic/line-switchable inputs with limiters, high-pass filters and selectable phantom power. Flexible outputs include the ability to serve as a flexible, class-compliant USB audio interface.
Outputs are provided on mic/line-switchable balanced XLRs, plus a dedicated consumer mic-level on a locking TA3 connector (designed specifically for DSLR-type inputs) and an aux-level output on a 3.5mm connection. Digital outputs include balanced AES3 on XLR and USB audio connectivity for Mac OS, Windows or Linux computers.
See Sound Devices in Booth C2946.
Server codec for Apple ProRes
RadiantGrid’s TrueGrid transcoding solution now adds support for the Apple ProRes codec. TrueGrid can now transcode to ProRes at faster-than-real-time rates. This new functionality is free for all existing customers with the recently released RadiantGrid Version 6.3.
RadiantGrid’s TrueGrid transcoding capabilities enable users to move their media workflows at faster speeds by simply adding more server capacity. RadiantGrid leverages the same source asset without reingesting and learning the content again. This means that users can generate ProRes packages instantly for on-air releases and preschedule distribution of their ProRes package release to iTunes for a later date and time.
The company said it will be announcing more product features at the NAB Show, including solutions for integrated automation of corrective AV media processing.
See RadiantGrid in Booth SU3725.
