NAB Amplify

While the NAB Show scheduled for Oct. 9-13, 2021, in Las Vegas had been postponed, some of the events were hosted and products displayed by the NAB Amplify team.

Some notable broadcasting equipment devices and technologies that caught the attention are:

Sony’s Airpeak S1 Drone which will be designed to have a payload that can accommodate a variety of equipment. Sony also announced a firmware upgrade for the FX 9 will be available later this year. Also, the company plans to introduce the HDCE-TX50/RX50 IP Extension Adaptor. This adaptor offers 6x high frame rate super motion. Sony will also introduce the HDC-F5500 camera which has a super 35 global shutter imager. The HDC-5500 outputs 4K signals directly without the addition of a dedicated external baseband processor unit. The company will also introduce the PVM-X3200 picture monitor. The monitor offers 1000 cd/m2 luminance and colour matching with the BVM-HX310 4K HDR master monitor

Xilinx, a supplier of programable logic devices. It’s Amazon EC2 VT1 instances and Xilinx Alveo media accelerators caught the attention of audiences. The Amazon EC2 VT1 Instance is intended to be a low-cost stream for live video transcoding solution. It’s based on the Alveo U30 Media Accelerator developed by Xilinx and built specifically for video transcoding workloads. These instances offer 30 percent better price per stream than G4dn GPU-based instances and up to 60 percent better price per stream than the C5 CPU based instances.

Canoe, an advertising technology and services company, has an exciting broadcasting technology that allows the addition of addressability for TV networks’ ad capabilities across linear and VOD. With this, advertisers can tell agencies whom they want to target on linear TV platforms and VOD. For instance, they can specify that they want their ads to reach households that earn more than 150K, or have three or more children etc. Using Canoe, advertisers can refine their target more than they could before. Canoe provides this targeted advertising on TV networks national inventory in the US.

Ai Media and EEG Video are in the live captioning space. AI Media’s live captioning system can be added to any major platform. The company’s platform allows captions to be viewed on its customizable caption viewer or to be added seamlessly to videoconference or live stream with end-to-end support. It is scalable for large or small sessions. At the end of a captioned session, a full transcript of the session in the preferred format is made available.

Evertz Microsystems, a manufacturer of electronic systems for the broadcast and film industry, rolled out of a new addition to its BRAVO studio platform.

BRAVO Studio is a collaborative live switching platform that gives broadcast operators an environment that looks and feels like a traditional control room so that they are comfortable producing shows in the cloud. The company will also launch evertz.io, Evertz’ cloud native pay as you go video service for channel playout and transcoding. Also, Evertz’ has ProGuard which enables real time protection of live broadcast from offensive video or audio content by providing 30s of delay in UHD. The company also recently introduced its cVIP and sVIP multiviewers. These are cloud based monitoring solutions that deliver flexible and high-density multiviewing.

A new line of JVC PTZ cameras designed for remote production over the internet have recently been made available. The JVC KY-PZ400N offers 1/2.5 inch 4K CMOS sensor and 12x optical zoom. It can capture up to UHD 4K 3840 x 2160p30. The KY-PZ200N has a 1/2.8 inch HD CMOS sensor and offers 20x optical zoom. It has a resolution capture up to 1920x 1080p60. The respective cameras are available in white and black colours.

Quantum has updated its Quantum StorNext, and CatDV platforms with ActiveScale. StorNext File System is a software platform architected to manage data through its lifecycle. It provides a balance of high performance, data protection and preservation, scalability, and cost. StorNext lets users run a cloud-based application against data that the StorNext file system has stored on the cloud. It also gives users access to data from other sites and lets users share files with business partners via the cloud.

StorNext’s updated use cases are as follows. If a StorNext system isn’t available due to a disaster, or decades from now users discover data in the cloud stored by a long-obsolete StorNext system, they can recover such data. Objects StorNext file system stores to the cloud may be processed with cloud-native applications, or applications at another site, with no need for any information from or contact with the originating StorNext system. Given the proper credentials and access, files stored in the cloud may be copied and used by others, such as subcontractors and business partners.

CatDV is an asset management and workflow orchestration platform that provides asset management, automation, and collaboration tools for organizations that manage large volumes of digital media. The platform delivers media-centric capabilities including traditional PAM, MAM, and DAM, workflow automation, and fully customized applications.

Haivision, a developer of video streaming technology, has launched the Haivision Hub and Makito X4. Haivision Hub is video network service for transporting live IP video from event locations to on-premise or cloud broadcast production with end-to-end, secure video routing. It offers integrated device control, stream optimization, and status & monitoring, from a single browser window. It’s for a broadcaster that needs an on-demand low latency video contribution network for any news, sports, cultural or corporate event.

Makito X4 is a secure, ultra-low latency HEVC and H.264 video encoder, it features SRT streaming, and 4K UHD and HD encoding density. Its intended for live broadcast contribution, remote production, enterprise, and defence applications. ​

The broadcast equipment industry is on a growth trajectory. Its bolstered by a growing audience for content, preference for UHD content production, and increasing use of smartphones. These three drivers will grow the industry at a CAGR of 4.31 percent from 2021 to 2028. The industry, which was valued at USD 6.4 billion at the end of 2020, is expected to be valued at USD 16.1 billion by 2028.

The global audience for content is projected to grow over the next decade, as is demand for higher quality media content. It’s expected that over the next few years, these cutting-edge broadcasting equipment and technologies will play a part in meeting consumers’ demands for a superior quality media experience.
BCS Bureau