Despite a lower turnout at this years event, there were still a lot of interesting products and systems on show. We have summed up some of our highlights below.
Projection and Screens
Panasonic 1Q Screen Range, Panasonic Projectors, Panasonic RQ35 Projector, Panasonic Future Products and Features, Christie, Digital Projection Satellite MLS
Video Processing and Distribution
Barco PDS 4K, Lightware MX2M Matrix, IDK IP-Ninjar Updates, Atomos Shogun Studio 2, DVI Gear DisplayNet, Panasonic AW-SF100 Automatic Face Tracking
SDVoE
IDK IP-Ninjar Updates, Yuan SDVoE Graphics Card, PureLink HDMI to SDVoE OpenGear Card, DVI Gear DisplayNet
Media Servers and Cameras
AVstumpfl – Pixera, Dataton WatchOut, Atom One Mini Camera
Audio and Dante
Small Audio Mixers for the PPUs, Dante Monitoring, JoeCo BBR64-DANTE 64 Channel Dante Recorder
Best of the Rest
Interspace Industries MasterCue, Fantek Modular Rigging for LED and Screens
Panasonic 1Q Display Range
Replaceable bezels enable multi touch overlays to be added as a purchase option for any size screen. The inbuilt whiteboard feature is coming back having been removed from previous firmware versions.
Three portrait screens can now be ganged together to create a video wall. The screens all play the same content from memory sticks and are synced together over CAT5.
Panasonic Projectors
Smart lenses can be programmed with presets to allow recall of different lineups if the projectors are moved or lens shifted. These movements and presets can be checked by software to allow automatic re-calibrations. The system requires a camera talking into the Panasonic software over a network. It also requires high contrast reference points the camera can pick put through the projected light. This could be a useful feature for permanent installation projects.
Panasonic AW-SF100 Automatic Face Tracking
Face tracking software for PTZ cameras for automatically following an individual on a stage. The system can be pre-program to follow a particular face by showing it a still image of the individual and would ignore other people on stage.
This feature does not have to be used and the system will happily track a single person on stage without training. This is aimed at lecture theatres and conference venues where not all cameras need an operator full time.
https://na.panasonic.com/us/audio-video-solutions/broadcast-cinema-pro-video/camera-controllers/aw-sf100-ptz-camera-auto
Panasonic RQ35 Projector
New RQ35 projector which is the same footprint as the 20k. Slightly taller but uses the same lenses as before.
Panasonic Future Products and Features
Projectors will use NFC and a phone app to access and set things like IP addresses and lamp hours. This would require the projector to be powered but not necessarily be switched on.
A new 8K projector using the same light engine as RQ50 but doubled up. The chip wobbles both vertically and horizontally to achieve 8K from a 4K ship. There was no obvious pixel nastiness even when close to screen but the image still has the slight softening that we are used to from a Panasonic projector.
DVI Gear DisplayNet
An SDVoE content distribution system but with the added features of a fully functional KVM. As with all SDVoE devices, all signals up to 4K@30fps are uncompressed, with signals requiring more that 10Gbps of bandwidth being compressed slightly.
The units are capable of being configured into a video wall mode and have built in mulitviewer capabilities with up to 32 tiles. They also have built in Dante modules that can de-embed audio from the signal.
The control unit is a 1u Linux PC serving a nicely laid out web page. The controller is nicer than the IDK offering and is able to receive external commands so could be triggered by StreamDeck or CT PiBoxes.
We will be getting demo units of these in the next few weeks.
https://www.dvigear.com/displaynet-products-dn-200.html
Barco PDS 4K
4K 8bit 4:4:4 or 12 bit 4:2:2 with 2 channels, each of which can be 4K and each has two outputs. The outputs are DA’d so good for comfort monitors. It is Event Master compatible but fully controllable from the front panel. The front panel layout is customisable and the buttons are flush and soft-touch but it is compatible with the Event Master desks.
The unit is 1.5u and fully HDCP 2.2 compliant. Each channel has one mixer with two layers but now has full Athena scalers, which the previous generation did not. It can take still backgrounds but not video backgrounds.
Inputs: 6 x HDMI 2.0 and 2 x SDI 12G.
Future updates will enable the card slot which will add 2 x DP inputs with 64ch of Dante.
There is a 4K mulitviewer on HDMI with a fixed layout, however a customisable layout is likely to come in future firmware releases.
The output channels are not synchronous.
AVstumpfl – Pixera
Pixera currently supports Unity they are looking to add Unreal. Currently there is no mechanism for dealing with lens data or conforming to different worlds so not currently suitable for AR aplications. Pixera uses stage position to share the render position so good for personal tracking for environments. It shares the data from the GFX card textures and depth buffers which allows you to insert content into the 3D game stream.
Pixera has integrated Notch blocks and Stage Precision camera tracking. theNotch codec is currently in beta but have already released the new Pixera RT hardware that is predominantly built for Notch with high Notchmarks.
Dataton WatchOut
Unofficially Dataton are going to be releasing v7 of watchout in autumn V7 will be a ground up rewrite of the engine based upon direct X 12.
Small Audio Mixers for the PPUs
Several manufacturers are starting to produce decent small audio mixers for the PPU sound kits.
Soundking DM20M mixer. No UK distributor at the moment and only has two aux outs which may limit operation.
STK make a VX series of mixers but difficult to get the exact spec from the manufacturer.
Tascam Model 12 mixer could be a replacement to the Folio. Only two AUXs but has sub-busses which could be used.
Topp Pro Music Gear DR-14.2 rack mount mixer. http://www.seikaku.hk/product/dr14-2/
Atom One Mini Camera
Potential replacement to the CT minicam systems. HD and 4K versions, supports HDR REC2020. 2/3” B4 lenses on C4 mount adaptor. https://www.dreamchip.de/products/atom-one-family/atom-one-mini.html
JoeCo BBR64-DANTE 64 Channel Dante Recorder
Record all 64 channels of audio to a USB stick or external HDD. Unfortunately, there is no external monitoring but there is a headphone jack. https://joeco.co.uk/bbr64-dante-joeco-multi-track-audio-recorder/
Yuan SDVoE Graphics Card
Nvidia GTX2020 with an SDVoE conversion step to deliver video straight onto the network. Clocking is achieved via the SDVoE specific ACR protocol and can achieve latency of sub 100us when no scaling or processing is used. 4 x 10Gb outputs which can deliver uncompressed 4K video up to 30fps. Above this, some compression is used to get 12G of data into a 10G link.
PureLink HDMI to SDVoE OpenGear Card
Direct conversion from HDMI input to an SDVoE stream on a 10GB network.
Lightware MX2M Matrix
Fully modular card-based matrix up to 32×32, possibly a 64×64 frame in development. Cards are available for Dante, analogue audio, USB KVM, HDMI 2.0, DP 1.2, SDVoE, HDBaseT and Lightware’s own OPTC extenders.
The frame and cards appear to be cost effective and input cards will convert to output cards ie HDMI in routed to DP out.
https://lightware.com/mx2m-fr24r
Dante Monitoring
Glensound have a good range of simple Dante monitoring solutions. The Glenound Divine is a Fostex style, PoE powered speaker capable of receiving 4 channels of Dante audio. Level and channel select from the front of the unit and a small menu on the back to change its operation. List price of £275.
https://www.glensound.co.uk/products/dante-aes67-network-audio/danteaes67monitor-speaker/
4 and 22 channel 1u monitors are also available.
https://www.glensound.co.uk/products/dante-aes67-network-audio/dante-monitors/
Digital Projection Satellite MLS
Digital Projection have launched the satellite modular laser projection system which separates the light engine from the chip/lens end. Multiple 10k light engines can be combined for a brighter output (up to 40k in the current model) using a laser matrix.
https://www.digitalprojection.com/emea/digital-projection-to-change-the-game-again-at-ise/
IDK IP-Ninjar Updates
IDK’s SDVoE implementation is moving towards custom resolutions so long as it sits inside the 600MHz bandwidth, and keeping it within the current control platform.
A new Ninjar-AC is also available, which includes USB transport but removes the analogue audio and loop out to save cost. These will be priced at sub-€1000. They have also released a rack mount chassis for the the IP Ninjars.
Their FDX2 matrix now comes with dual power supply, and can handle overlays of 4 still images. There will be optional audio embedding and de-embedding on a card which will also support Dante.
Interspace Industries MasterCue
Interspace Industries have added an 8ch PC interface box to their range. There is a new IP controller for the MasterCue system that comes with PoE.
Mastercue v7 is a replacement for v6, it has 6x USB ports, XLRs for integration with MicroCue 3, RJ45 port for integration with POE receiver antennas over network switch. Antennas can be mounted on mic stands.
Atomos Shogun Studio 2
The unit has all the features of the Sumo 19” monitors but as a 3u rack mountable, dual record unit. The unit takes standard SSDs, so can record 2 x 12G or 8 x 3G however the 3G inputs must be genlocked for it to accept it. Both channels of records can be triggered from a single record button on the front of the unit.
https://www.atomos.com/shogun-studio
Fantek Modular Rigging for LED and Screens
Modular ladder system with universal arms and plates for mounting equipment. They also sell wind-up towers and other rigging.
Details here
Christie
Christie showcased their new 2DLP architecture in their whisper suite. It is the size of an M96 chassis, supporting REC2020. The three laser light source allows for a brighter output but at a cheaper price point.
The red laser is on a chip with the green and blue sources switching. It suffers the same optical problems that all rolling shutter DLP projectors have but the image did look good. Convergence was a little out and there was some patchiness to the red light path but it was still a prototype. There was also an odd vibration that they say was the room but I’m not so sure.
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