- Aja ColorBox – Version 2.1
- Blackmagic Broadcast Replay with DaVinci Resolve
- Blackmagic Design – SMPTE ST 2110 products
- Brompton – SQ200 processor
- Cobalt Digital – Aria, Indigo and Sapphire
- Evertz – New Scorpion
- Grass Valley – AMPP
- Hitomi – Matchbox
- Imagine Communications – Selenio Network Processing XL
- Panasonic – Kairos, PTZ-R, New Studio Camera
- Qscan – Media Quality Control Workflow
- Simple Wires – create block diagrams
Aja ColorBox – Version 2.1
Small format box fits 4 units into 1RU, designed for colour conversion with support for SDR/HDR, RGB Colour Correction and Proc Amp and down-conversion with 12G SDI in and out and HDMI 2.0 out. ColorBox has improved colour pipeline with new addition of ACES colour pipeline. Box has ability to capture a 16bit 4K image into the on board frame store, test pattern generator is included too.
Blackmagic Design – Broadcast Replay with DaVinci Resolve
Entering into the replay market for the first time, Blackmagic now also have the Davinci Resolve replay editor which allows for basic ‘EVS like’ live video replays of multiple camera channels, but utilising their Davinci Resolve software running on commodity hardware. This seems like a cost effective replacement potentially for the Newtek 3Play units which are starting to show their age.
The system works by utilising multiple Hyperdeck 4K Pro’s with 10G Ethernet ports to record camera angles to the network storage.
For network storage they have also launched their popular ‘CloudStore’ NAS range in 24 and 48TB models using NVME SSDs internally for excellent read and write speeds. As expected the price point of all these units is substantially less than any other comparable kit on the market.
DaVinci Resolve is used as a playback engine connected to the network storage; you load media required for replay into the Resolve’s bin folder and Resolve creates a Multiview based on the media in the bin where you can watch multiple camera angles at once.
Resolve will line up all media for replay automatically that match in time, so you need to use the timecode or trigger all Hyperdecks at the same time to start recording. Use point of interest button (POI) button on the Replay Controller to mark start of the action for replay, that then moves Resolve into playback mode where you can scroll back just before the action and review other camera angles and finally run the replay.
Resolve can sequence the shots from different camera angles live on air by moving the playback few seconds before the point of interest and show the replay from different angle.
There is an option to play out alpha wipe file at the start and end of the replay directly of the DaVinci Resolve via Decklink card.
After the replay is played out you can convert it to and edit by using the function Add to Timeline and use it for highlight reel or play it again on the request. There is also possible to playback VT’s from the Resolve timeline.
Resolve Replay editor can connect to the Mac via Bluetooth or a USB-C cable which takes priority once plugged in.
Blackmagic Design – SMPTE ST 2110 products
Blackmagic have launched a whole range of new SMPTE 2110 capable products which all utilise 10G ethernet via a copper RJ45 or SFP ports. Some of the models offering conversion to or from SMPTE 2110 include the 12G bidirectional, 2110 to HDMI, 2110 Presentation Converter and IP Converter 8x 12G. All the above units feature 12G SDI or 4K HDMI connectivity as well as PTPv2 and NMOS IS04/05 for control via Hi. Blackmagic have confirmed that all video formats except UHD59.94/60 will be completely uncompressed and interoperable with other 2110 compliant hardware. If higher than 50hz refresh rates are used at UHD then light compression will be applied in order for the signal to fit into the bandwidth provided by the 10G ethernet port. To achieve this Blackmagic has launched a new codec, IP10 which provides ‘visually lossless’ compression and is an open standard for manufactures to implement. It will be interesting to see how this will be adopted going forwards as the current alternative JPEG XS is subject to significant licensing costs from IntoPix. As part of their 2110 EcoSystem Blackmagic have also launched a 16 port 10G ethernet switch for ‘plug and play’ operation as well as a updates to the Smartview and Audio monitors to support IP. For baseband workflows there is a new capture device, the 10G Media Player which although not 2110 compatible, offers 12G SDI input and output with Key and Fill, HDMI Out, 10G ethernet and power to a connected device. This could be the perfect companion to any PC or MAC based playback and capture software.
Brompton – SQ200 processor
Brompton have announced their new flagship SQ200 processor. This unit is significantly more powerful than the previous SX40 and has been designed for hybrid use with traditional baseband video signals as well as SMPTE 2110. The processor features 4x 12G SDI, 4x Displayport 1.4 and 4x HDMI 2.1 for 8K video input as well as dual 100G input QSFPs for redundant IP connectivity. The baseband connectivity is provided on four ‘input cards’ which are easily replaceable as a significant number of their previous generation of processors were returned due to failed input connectors. This will allow the connectors to be swapped by the end user if one becomes broken without having to return the entire unit.
On the output side, the SQ200 has 2x 100G QSFPs as well as 3x ‘expansion’ 100G QSFPs which are reserved for future use. To compliment the 100G connectivity options on the new processor, they have also launched a new range of custom designed 1/2u network switches which can be used to breakout the 100G connections from the processor into 10G ports to connect to the LED tiles. Initially the switches will be available in a rackmount form factor only, however they intend to ‘encase’ these inside a ruggedised box at some point in the future to create a replacement for the XD breakout box that can be hung on the rear of a screen. These products will all be launched towards the end of this year.
Cobalt Digital – Aria, Indigo and Sapphire
We had an interesting meeting with Cobalt’s sales manager regarding some new products they are launching at NAB Show. Cobalt isn’t a brand we particularly engage with at CT, but they are well known in industry for their selection of high end OpenGear cards and accessories and have previous dealings within the NEP group.
The new products we discussed include the INDIGO OG-2110-BIDI4-GATEWAY, a four-channel bidirectional gateway product in an OpenGear form factor. The card will do 4×4 @ 3G SDI, 2x @12G SDI and has frame synchronisation to PTP on all inputs. Redundant 25G network connections support 4Ks uncompressed video flows and the card also has a full REST API alongside NMOS IS-04/05 to talk to our Hi Control system. We were assured that these cards ‘should’ work in our pre-existing stock of OpenGear frames which means it wouldn’t be necessary to purchase the new OGX frames specifically in order to use them. The cards backplane piece is currently in a 4-slot form factor so it would be possible to fit a total of 5x cards into a standard OpenGear frame although Cobalt are working on a 2 slot backplane which would allow us to double this density to 10 cards in a frame. Control is via Cobalt’s web interface or via Dashboard.
The pricing was competitive, around ~£4k per card including a 25% NEP discount.
Cobalt also has a new 2110 -> 4x HDMI 2.0 throwdown converter. The unit is similar in form factor to the Decimator 12G cross and has a total of four 25G SFP connectors, 4x HDMI 2.0 and 4x 12G SDI on MicroBNC which provide duplicates of the HDMI signal. At the moment the unit is limited to 2110 -> HDMI only, however this will be switchable to HDMI -> 2110 in a future firmware. Redundant power connection is provided via dual DC input jacks. Pricing is ~£3750 including 25% NEP discount.
The ARIA OG-AUD4-DANTE, a four channel 12G SDI audio embedder / de-embedder card supporting Dante, MADI and AES. The card is also in the Opengear form factor, features a 64×64 channel internal mono matrix which will allow you to bring in audio channels via Dante and embed them onto 12G SDI outputs and vice versa. There is also functionality for audio sub mixing, and ‘per channel’ delay. These cards would be great for use in the HS500 PPUs or in record racks – there doesn’t seem to be much else on the market offering this level of flexibility as well as 12G SDI. Pricing is ~£2500 including our 25% NEP discount.
With all these different OpenGear cards the BBG-1300-FR is a 1/3u chassis for Opengear cards. The frame can either be used as a ‘throwdown’ for a single card, or you can rackmount up to 3 units in 1RU. The unit is quiet, features a full frame controller as well as redundant power supplies.
Evertz – New Scorpion
Evertz showed us their new Scorpion chassis – a 2U model with significantly higher capacity than the previous ‘Scorpion 18’ model. Featuring 4x 200G ethernet connectors for redundant 2110 flows and a large number of slots which their range of modules can be inserted into including SDI -> 2110, HDMI -> 2110, Ethernet Trunks, 2110 -> Dante and many more. The new unit is also significantly quieter and features redundant internal power supplies. We also saw the new firmware for the Scorpion 6 which is going to feature a DHCP client as well as in-band NMOS control. The product manager for the Scorpion platform is going to provide us with the new Scorpion 6 firmware imminently so we can start using this for productions.
Grass Valley – AMPP
Grass Valley have made numerous improvements to their GV AMPP software defined video platform including their new ‘Maverick’ switcher app which offers functionality similar to the ‘Kula’ which works with these hardware panels, as well as continuing to port many of their previously hardware based products into software including Kaleido multi-viewers and Audio Live processing. AMPP offers a flexible way to run GV products on commodity hardware as you only pay for the services that your using, for the amount of time that you use them. This will potentially give us access to many high end broadcast products that previously would have been out of reach thanks to their ‘subscription model’ billing rather than requiring Capex investment. Grass Valley also provided a demo of using AMPP with the Apple Vision pro. This is still very much in development but allowed for the construction of vast Multiview and monitoring layouts to be built immersivity around the user without having to have large stacks of monitors. Their K frame switchers could also be operated directly from within the Apple Vision pro which with in the future could provide an innovative new way for vision directors to interact with their production. GV have committed to fixing the issues we’ve seen with the XIP-3911 cards and will soon be launching an updated model with 100G connectivity for increased density of signal conversion from SDI to IP. The new model will also support RoCE (RDMA over Ethernet) to provide direct ingest of many 12G SDI signals into GV AMPP servers without the usual CPU limitations of standard capture cards.
Hitomi – Matchbox
Hitomi has a device Matchbox to help with lip-sync, coherence, line identification and audio level monitoring problems on remote location. On location you need to use an iOS app and place the device in front of the camera, once the image is seen in the MCR/OB Truck you pass the signal into the Matchbox Analyser which calculates the difference between what it knows should be there and what it actually receives and measures it to generate a precise reading that indicates the difference between audio and video feeds. Device supports SDI signals from 3G to 12G and ST 2110.
Hitomi is UK based company and Matchbox can be hired for the duration of the project.
Imagine Communications – Selenio Network Processing XL
Imagine Communications are officially launching their ‘SNP XL’. The SNP is a popular SDI <-> 2110 gateway and multi-processor which in its current form offers 32 channels (16×16) of conversion in 1U. The new ‘XL’ version doubles this capacity to 64 channels (32×32) total in 2U which can be configured in blocks as either inputs or outputs depending on the use case. Testing has concluded that the XL only outputs 48db of noise under load thanks to its larger fans. We’ve already got orders in for a number of these units, and we will be the first company worldwide to have this new product.
As well as increased channel count these new units also feature 2x ‘expansion slots’ for which a number of modules are going to be available at a later date with options under consideration including NDI, Dante and a passive bypass relay. After some issues on the LIV golf contract earlier this year I discussed the implementation of MADI on the SNP with the product owner John Mailhot and flagged that SDI <-> MADI embedding and de-embedding not being available cross processor was a bit of a limitation. They are going to consider revising this going forwards, however a Dante expansion module in the future might resolve this problem and be a better workflow for us anyway. Being able to have an NDI proxy of all the SNPs IO available via an NDI expansion module would also be very useful allowing for easy multiviewing, monitoring etc.
Imagine are also working on an SNP ‘lite’ which will be launched later this year (presumably around IBC time). This is going to a lower cost option although they weren’t able to provide any more specifics as to what functionality will be stripped back to make the unit ‘lite’. Longer term there is also a software defined SNP planned which will run in the cloud and on COTS hardware.
Imagine are keen to see what marketing opportunities might be available with us and talk about how we use the SNP in ‘live events world’ as they are typically a broadcast orientated manufacturer.
Panasonic – Kairos, PTZ-R, New Studio Camera
Panasonic have made several updates to the Kairos in firmware version 1.7 which is due to be released imminently. This includes the long awaited capability to work using pixel units rather than percentages when manipulating layers within a Scene. They also provided a demo of their ‘upstream switching’ functionality. Using this an unlimited number of 2110 flows can be patched to the Kairos’s inputs but the flows will only consume bandwidth when they are selected on the PVW / PGM bus of a Scene. The time to ‘activate’ a non-active input flow is less than 1 frame and feels natural when switching on a bus, there was no noticeable delay. We discussed how this capability might be useful for bandwidth conservation with ‘Blue’ redundant 2110 flows. As most of the Kairos units half their IO capacity when redundancy is enabled, implementing this on the ‘Redundant streams’ would effectively prevent this half of the IO capacity as ‘blue’ streams will only be subscribed too if the ‘red’ were to fail. In order to get the most out of this feature an external multiviewer would be required, we discussed the possibility of a Kairos multiviewer ‘app’ which would allow more independent ‘heads’, external tally and be a good way to repurpose older Kairos units.
Work is already underway internally to address the issues we’ve been facing with their licensing solution.
Away from Kairos, Panasonic demonstrated their new studio camera which has redundant 25G SFPs inside the head with breakout to a SMPTE fibre connector. This will allow 2110 output from the camera without the need of a CCU, however the camera is interoperable with the new UCU-710 and older UCU-600 as once the SFPs in the head are swapped it can operate in standard ‘baseband’ mode. The camera supports high speed output for video replays although only when connected to a CCU for the moment. The SMPTE 2110-23 standard is not yet full ratified to handle high frame-rate video flows using 2110 – although once the specification is released this will be implemented in the camera via a future firmware update. There is no confirmed model no / pricing for these units yet.
Panasonic also showed their new PTZ-R camera which is in essence similar to a AW-UE100 however allows for the head of the camera to also rotate freely producing a ‘barrel roll effect’. It was suggested this could be useful when its necessary to mount the PTZ camera on a surface which isn’t flat, and then the picture can be corrected by rolling the head until its level. I suspect this would also be an interesting tool for directors to use on music work, especially when the PTZ is mounted on the end of a jib allowing for ‘rolling’ crowd shots without having to hire in more expensive grip.
There is also some upcoming camera tracking software which uses a wide shot to do auto framing / tracking of subjects. Once a photograph of each person in the frame has been uploaded to the software, the camera software can identify and frame them using multiple PTZ cameras simply by clicking on their face. There is plenty of options to specify different shot types singles, doubles, close up etc. This will be available as a plugin for the Panasonic media suite series of products along size other pre-existing utilities such as EZ-IP.
Qscan – Media Quality Control Workflow
Qscan is an application for quality control workflows, it contains pre-configured templates for quick, easy, automated media control. It is browser based, GPU accelerated, you can setup a watch folder and it can analyse 1 or multiple videos at the time depending on the qty of licenses. You are able to build a multi-step process to perform analysis. It has features like analyse and reporting HDR, dead pixel detection, comparison of files, video/audio format checks, black frames, freeze frames, blurring, digital drops, interlacing artefacts checks, Photo-sensitive Epilepsy detection.
It provides reports in HTML/PDF/XML or Json, supports RESTFul API for integration with third party applications and can integrate with S3 Storage support.
New product coming soon – Qscan Verify – QC player with native SDR/HDR playback, events timeline, comprehensive scopes, comparative analysis and manual event tagging. Pricing is in range of $39-199 /mo.
Simple Wires – create block diagrams
Simple wires is a software tool for making easy, detailed wiring diagrams, block diagrams and rack layouts in web browser with export to PNG/SVG in free version and DWG/PDF in monthly/annual subscription. You can export an Equipment List, Bill of Materials, and Cable List to Excel. It comes with Master library of 100 000 products.
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