Axon at NAB 2011

Axon arrives in Las Vegas having posted its strongest ever annual sales growth. The company has seen a remarkable expansion in revenues during 2010, which was 25% higher than 2009 sales. This growth positions Axon as the leading supplier of signal processing equipment (digital glue) in HD & 3D OB vans (source: live-production.tv). This year, Axon will also open offices in Russia and Singapore.

“We come to NAB at a tremendously exciting point in Axon’s development with a range of strategically important new products and really strong sales growth especially in Europe,” commented Jan Eveleens, Chief Executive Officer at Axon. “We are committed to continuing our growth and expansion: North America is a focus, so NAB promises to be an important event for us.”

Cortex ultra compact monitoring and control system

A key product showcase on Axon’s booth will focus on its Cortex monitoring and control system. This neat software-based solution has seen tremendous interest since NAB2010, where Axon staged numerous well attended Cortex customer master classes. This year, the product has been enhanced with additional features, a hardware control panel (CCP1601) and client (redundant) server option. Cortex is supplied to Synapse users free of charge.

New products address 3Gb/s applications

Amongst the key new Synapse products in Las Vegas will be the GRB100 - a 3Gb/s HD and SD 48x16 channel shuffler - re-embedder. With this new unit, the source audio channels used for embedding into the output SDI can be derived from two individual 3Gb/s HD or SD inputs and from the 32 channels that are available in the quad speed multiplexing audio ADD-ON bus.

A neat feature of this card sees the output embedding 16 channels and the source for this audio can be derived from both SDI input 1 (which normally also carries the video) or from SDI input 2. Input two can be connected to a second SDI source that is exclusively used for carrying audio (the two SDI streams need to be clock locked). The unit is also available in an HD/SD version, which can be future upgraded to handle 3Gb/s-signals.

Other key product developments with Axon’s Synapse module family that will be debuted at NAB include:

• Several audio shufflers:
 - 8-channel 2-group embedded audio processing card with presets (HAS05M)
 - 8-channel 2-group embedded audio processing card with local AES/EBU inputs (HAS05E)
 - 16-channel 4-group embedded audio shuffler card with presets (HAS05S)

• 3Gb/s, HD, SD dual channel multi-viewer and monitoring card with 4 SDI inputs (GMW200)

• 3Gb/s, HD, SD embedded domain Dolby E to Dolby Digital (plus) transcoder with audio shuffler and audio description processor (GED130)

• Quad-Speed Dolby E decoder + Multi channel Dolby Digital (plus) encoder (DDP94)

• Quad-Speed Multi channel Dolby Digital (plus) encoder (DDP24)

• Quad-Speed Dolby E decoder (DBD18)

• 8, 4 and 2 channel watermarking encoder based on Civolution® encryption technology (DAW88)

SynView 3D multiviewer

The Synapse powered SynView multiview product line has been enhanced with 3D multiviewing. Set-up of the 3D multivewer is done through Cortex. Two multiview inputs are locked to each other and displayed side-by-side. Stereoscopic displays will then output a 3D image. Also tallies, borders and UMD information will be processed for 3D display.

In addition, Axon will showcase its TRACS video logging and compliance recording system for SD and HD signals. Also, the company will launch hardware control panels for its Cortex monitoring and control software system.

About AXON

Based in Gilze, Netherlands, Axon develops, manufactures and markets high quality broadcast equipment for the conversion, processing and compliance recording of audio and video signals. Products integrate advanced signal processing techniques, innovative engineering and modular flexibility and provide high quality, affordability and reliability within mission critical applications.