IBC preview. C-Cube's not talking.....................
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IBC Preview, Part II: What?s New For the Well-Outfitted Digital Broadcast Station
9/2/99 Marking the start of the broadcast year, NAB is the place where new products are introduced amidst great fanfare. But IBC provides a mid-year reality check that sorts the viable products from the prototypes, and the winners from losers.
By: Claudia Kienzle for Digital Broadcasting
Contents
MPEG-2 products
Storage and networking
Switchers and routers
Production and graphics
Automation
At NAB, manufacturers often promise that their new products will ship by IBC. So, if a new product is still on the radarscope by IBC in Amsterdam, prospective buyers can be assured of its forward momentum.
But that?s not to say new products are not introduced at IBC. The industry has become so fast-paced and dynamic that manufacturers have begun to treat IBC as ?the Fall NAB? and unveil new products there rather than hold back until the following Spring.
Since IBC has grown so dramatically?from 30 exhibitors in 1967 to 600 exhibitors in 1999?it is impossible to profile every company?s plans. But here is a sampler of what some top companies plan to show.
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MPEG-2 products
While NAB focused heavily on HDTV, IBC will concentrate on MPEG-2 solutions?encoding, file transfer, signal optimization, storage, and more?since MPEG-2-4:2:2@ML is rapidly establishing itself as the preferred broadcast infrastructure in Europe.
As an active participant of the Pro-MPEG Forum, which demonstrated MPEG-2 equipment interoperability and quality at NAB, Sony will show many of its MPEG-based technologies, including the Betacam SX camcorder line, its BDX Series encoders and decoders, and DVA-1100 DVD Authoring System. Sony will also demonstrate its BZA-7000 Archiving System controlling a Sony PetaSite mass storage system, essential for digital asset management within an MPEG environment.
Snell & Wilcox (Hampshire, UK) has many unique solutions for MPEG-2 encoding, decoding, bitrate analysis, and bandwidth management, including the CPP100 Prefix Compression Pre-processor, which eliminates imperfections from video signals prior to compression to ensure that only true picture information is compressed, and limited bandwidth is not wasted. Snell & Wilcox also is bullish on HDTV, so look for their new HD DaVE production switchers with integrated color correction.
Snell & Wilcox?s HD1024 switcher
In addition, Thomson Broadcast Systems (Cergy-Pontoise, France) will promote its SNA 4600 Telecom Network Adapters, and DBE 4100 encoder series, recently chosen by the European Broadcast Union (EBU) to upgrade its Eurovision Transatlantic Service, which transmits news, sports, and cultural programs internationally, now using the latest MPEG-2 technology.
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Storage and networking
Following the June announcement of its acquisition of Hewlett Packard?s broadcast video server business, Pinnacle Systems (Mountain View, CA) intends to show a strong, varied server product family. Besides HP?s MediaStream 700 and 1600 servers, Pinnacle will promote its two and four-channel Thunder Broadcast Servers. The Thunder MCS 2000 and 4000 are next-generation symmetrical multi-channel servers that support the simultaneous back to back record, playback, storage, and processing of MPEG-2 and native DV formats, without re-striping, as well as generate MPEG1 proxies of all source material.
But Pinnacle?s server products can expect stiff competition from Pluto Technologies? (Boulder, CO) SPACE digital storage and server systems. At IBC, broadcasters will be especially interested in AirSPACE, a multi-channel broadcast server ideal for news and other live production. Pluto will also show HyperSPACE, a disk recorder that handles mezzanine-level HDTV (360 megabits per second), with the ability to record in Sony?s HDCAM format.
Leitch (Toronto) will show its VR server technology in all its permutations: the VR300 SDTV server, the VR400 MPEG-2 server, NEWSFlash, a nonlinear news editing system that utilizes material stored on VR servers, and BrowseCutter, a desktop video system for browsing low-resolution video clips on VR servers. With its editing and browsing software, the VR servers become the core of an integrated digital newsroom system.
Two companies with innovative networking solutions are ECI Telecom (Petah Tikva, Israel) and Telecast Fiber Systems (Worcester, MA). Telecast provides fibre optic systems that send multiple signals?such as analog, digital DVB, HDTV, analog and AES/EBU audio, via a single cable to simplify cabling for broadcast production. At IBC, Telecast will introduce Python, a new multichannel distribution system that handles all digital formats, compressed or uncompressed, up to HDTV.
Python
ECI Telecom plans to unveil a new ?mini? version of its Hi-TV networking system for codec, multiplexing, and ATM networking. Hi-TV allows users to send compressed and uncompressed video and data, in realtime or non-realtime, over fiber optic networks, to and from any site with a Hi-TV box.
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Switchers and routers
Grass Valley Group (Nevada City, CA), which just acquired the video production portfolio from Tektronix, will show the Kalypso Video Production Center family of SDTV products, including an open-architectured, powerful switcher with eight M/E banks, up to 80 inputs, and fully-integrated (Krystal) digital picture manipulator.
Kalypso
GVG will also demo the next generation of its Profile video server platform, Profile XP announced recently, (see Grass Valley Upgrades Profile Platform).
Philips Digital Video Systems (Amsterdam) will introduce the Venus 2001 Modular Universal Router, featuring a new COBRA crosspoint technology that allows integration of analog video, SDTV digital video, and HDTV sections within a single Venus routing system at double the density (128 x 128) of existing systems. Philips will also introduce the Saturn MCP 4000 Master Control Switcher, featuring an eight or ten bit 3-D digital video effects box, AES audio, and an optional Saturn HDVP 4000 High-Definition Video Processor.
Following its recent joint venture with Matthey Electronics, MetaWave Video Systems (Hampshire, UK) will show the first co-engineered products, including the MAX series of router control panels for user-configurable, push-button control of all MetaWave video and audio routers.
PSP-Digital (Newbury, UK) will show a new keying and A/B digital vision mixer system, called TrikKey, which will simplify the task of introducing up to three downstream keys, such as sports logos and network IDs, on a signal before going to air.
In moving signals around a plant, broadcasters need to have ?digital glue? products to convert and interface between incompatible signal formats. One new converter to consider is a line of compact HDTV serializers and deserializers from Miranda Technologies (St. Laurent, Quebec). The SET-800E serializer and SER-800D deserializer automatically recognize and convert parallel HD signals (common to Discreet workstations and the Philips Spirit DataCine film scanning telecine) to or from SMPTE-292M serial HD video.
SER-800D
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Production and graphics
Orad Hi-Tec Systems (Kfar Saba, Israel), developer of the CyberSet virtual studio, will show its new tracking system technology, InfraTrack, which uses Orad?s pattern recognition and encoder technologies. InfraTrack measures the six degrees of freedom of the studio cameras (X, Y, Z, Pan, Tilt, and Roll) by using infrared light sources (or LED?s) attached to studio cameras, for unprecedented freedom of movement within a virtual studio environment.
Responding to the industry?s need for a universal mastering quality VTR format, Panasonic Broadcast & Television will show its new AJ-HD3000 D-5 HD recording system (for major formats including 1080p/24), with the AJ-HDP500 series High Definition Processor, providing realtime D-5 HD compatible video compression/decompression with third-party HD servers. The AJ-HD3000 provides full-bandwidth, 10-bit 4:2:2, uncompressed ITU-601 recording and playback, plus full bandwidth, 10-bit 4:2:2 HDTV recording and playback using low I-Frame-only compression ratio, and eight discreet digital audio channels.
Chyron (Melville, NY) also has responded to customer requests by introducing a new PC-based off-line page composer for its iNFiNiT! family of live graphics systems. Dubbed Over-Drive, this tool takes the time-consuming burden of graphics creation off its high-end proprietary CG?s, and shifts it to Windows systems. Users can then import graphics and templates back into the Chyron systems.
Innovation TK Ltd. (Hertford, UK) will finally unveil its Millennium Machine, a new HD-capable telecine that incorporates separate cabinets for the film transport and electronics racks. The two parts are connected via an umbilical that allows for flexible installation and set-up. But the more exciting news is that ITK plans to launch The Ultimate Telecine Upgrade, which instills High Definition scanning circuitry within Cintel URSA telecines cost-effectively.
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Automation
Through its association with Vibrint Technologies, Avstar Systems (Madison, WI) will show an integrated Avstar Newsroom Computer System and Vibrant NewsEdit system. This combination gives journalists the ability to organize scripts, select sound bytes, trim clips, and do preliminary editing from a single WindowsNT PC. Avstar is the synthesis of Avid?s AvidNews and GVG?s (formerly Tektronix) NewStar Newsroom Computer Systems.
Columbine JDS (Denver) plans to focus all efforts on its Paradigm station automation solution, now in version 3.1. Paradigm is an end-to-end single or multi-channel management system for wide-ranging tasks, including advertising sales, program scheduling, traffic and billing, and media management. In the DTV era, where multiple channels and data services may be sent in the same bandwidth that used to accommodate only a single analog channel, automation products will be more critical than ever, for everything from news to commercial playout.
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