Tooken from CUBE: See Ampex ref.
Not new news but recent publicity.
Speaking of passing it around. Joint Ventures...
NAB99: Joint ventures, interoperability & sales NAB99:Joint ventures, interoperability & sales
Gerald M. Walker
06/30/1999
World Broadcast News
Copyright 1999 by Intertec Publishing Corporation, a PRIMEDIA Company. All rights reserved.
It could be the formula for success in the marketplace that was NAB99: Joint ventures + interoperability = sales. At the biggest display of broadcast and multimedia technologies on the planet, the 105,000 attendees at this year's show got a steady diet of announcements concerning collaborations and sales. Interoperability, it seems, has replaced open platform as a favorite manufacturer's mantra. Here are the business highlights. The July/August issue will feature key product introductions at NAB99.
If the attendance numbers, the number of exhibitors and the sales deals announced are any indications of success, then the 1999 NAB Convention should be rated a hit. Maybe the buyers were not as ready to open up their checkbooks as wide as the exhibitors had hoped, but there still was enough action on the digital transition front to make for a lively stay in Las Vegas, Nevada. Joint ventures, which started out as a curiosity a few years ago, now have become as standard a part of NAB as the sound of slot machines. Some of the collaborations are means of sharing technology. Others are put together to exploit markets. And this year, the collaborationists talked about making the world safe for interoperability. Sharing the risks also might be an incentive these days.
Two industry heavyweights, Avid Technology and Sony, announced an alliance to develop MPEG-based nonlinear editing systems for newsroom and post-production applications. Under this alliance, the two companies will work together to create an Avid NLE system that will interoperate with Sony's new line of MPEG equipment. The partners intend to cover both compression camps because they also intend to collaborate to enable the current Avid NewsCutter to interoperate with Sony's DVCAM equipment, in addition to its current DV capabilities. Finally, Avid and Sony intend to collaborate on 24P post-production workflow systems for HDTV, including high-def broadcast news equipment.
Ampex Data Systems and Hewlett-Packard have taken on the daunting task of archiving for the broadcast industry. Ampex Data Systems has refitted its DST automated cartridge libraries for HP's MPEG-based MediaStream video servers. According to Ampex, the DST library reduces the overall time required to archive and restore program elements to a network of Hewlett-Packard video servers. Meanwhile, Ampex also has a joint marketing agreement with Tektronix to link DST libraries with Tektronix Profile servers for mid- to high-end broadcast archive operations.
Andrew called its acquisition of Passive Power Products the means to "provide complete RF system solutions from the transmitter output through to the antenna." Passive Power Products is said to be the largest supplier of digital TV (DTV) filters in the world. It will be known as Andrew Passive Power Products, and its manufacturing facility will remain in Gray, Maine, USA.
Columbine JDS Systems and the Comark Digital Services unit of Thomcast Communications announced an agreement to co-develop a PSIP program and system information-protocol generator that will be driven by all CJDS traffic systems. The new CJDS PSIP Manager will link traffic and on-air automation products with Thomcast's Pearl PSIP system. Pearl is designed to work with all ATSC-compliant streams, regardless of the encoding system selected by the broadcaster.
Ampex, Avalon, Drake Automation Ltd (DAL) and Tektronix are working together on a new network library interface for the Tek Profile. (See page 42.) The first implementation of this interface will be at London News Network (LNN). An Ampex DST 712 will be connected to a Profile Fibre Channel Network. LNN is the network playout center for the Independent Television network in the UK.
"This architecture is much more fault resilient, truly sharing a library between all network servers," explained Robin Adams, chief technology officer for DAL. "Two-stage caching is eliminated with last-minute items being fed directly from the tape to the output servers," Fast Forward Video revealed that it has entered into an OEM agreement with Odetics Broadcast in which Odetics will integrate Fast Forward Video's Omega digital disk recorder into an upcoming line of broadcast equipment.
Harris has signed a distribution agreement with SkyStream, a leading supplier of data and conditional-access broadcast networking equipment. Under the agreement, Harris will incorporate SkyStream's DTV/ATSC IP data injector into its family of DTV products and market the systems as the Dataplus brand. Data-plus enables TV stations making the transition to digital broadcast centers to augment existing video programming line-ups with new revenue-generating data services. Data-plus will support an interface to Harris' Flexi-Coder DTV/HDTV video encoders.
One of the earliest advocates of partnerships, Hewlett-Packard revealed a collaborative effort with DiviCom and JVC to deliver a HDTV on-air server. The combined high-def system will feature HP Media-Stream servers 700 and 1600, DiviCom 's Media-View MV 400 HDTV encoder and JVC's new DM-D4000 HDTV decoder. The Media-Stream servers will be equipped with an input/output interface card capable of accepting MPEG streams from the DiviCom encoder and will provide MPEG streams to the JVC decoder in compliance with ATSC, DVB and SMPTE standards. HP also announced an alliance with Sundance Digital to combine its servers with Sundance automation.
International Datacasting Corporation (IDC) and Tektronix have inked a strategic alliance to deliver digital multimedia satellite systems. Under the agreement, IDC will integrate the Tek M2 Series video-edge device for video trunking into its SuperFlex satellite data broadcast systems, expanding the IDC distribution system to support TV-quality video as well as Internet, data and audio transmissions. The M2 encoder handles both real-time video encoding and bandwidth for data.
In a joint-venture partnership, Merlin Communications International and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority have formed Iris Gateway Satellite Services Ltd. The new company will provide satellite turnaround and fiber-connectivity facilities based in Cyprus to provide a ground link between Asian and European satellites and communications systems.
JVC and Sonic Solutions jointly are developing a new DVD archive system built upon Sonic's DVD Creator technology. The workgroup-based JVC DVD Archive system provides automatic encoding, storage, and management of video and audio assets for archival and distribution purposes and incorporates Sonic's AutoDVD production system. The archiving system has three components: a JVC asset-management system, a JVC DVD library and the Sonic AutoDVD.
At NAB, Lucent Digital Video and Sharp Electronics demonstrated DTV decoder and encoder interoperability and PSIP technology. The SharpVision DTV decoder (TU-DTV1000) and the Lucent VideoStar encoder SD worked together. In addition to Lucent, Sharp also is collaborating with DiviCom , General Instrument, NDS, Thomcast and Tiernan
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