Axon Provides Insight to Broadcast’s Heartbeat at BVE 2013
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“Small is not just beautiful but it can also be incredibly powerful,” said Harry Kanters, Axon’s Director of Marketing & Sales at Axon Digital Design. “With 25 years experience working with some of the world’s leading broadcasters and facilities, we have taken modular infrastructure to another level: it is our specialism and we have developed an unrivalled understanding of its power and potency in a digital production environment. At BVE, visitors will see this for themselves.”
Axon will provide UK debuts to a range of new products across each of its enterprise areas from modular AV signal processing to monitoring and control and also compliance recording technology. Some highlights include:
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1 – Synapse modular broadcast infrastructure equipment
AXON's modular system Synapse has been able to process Dolby Digital (Plus) and HE AAC for many years. In fact Axon encoded Dolby Digital Plus in hardware before Dolby did with the introduction of the Synapse DDP14 in 2006 (of course with help of Dolby). The recently introduced Dolby 'CAT1100 decoder module' now also enables broadcasters to take another step forwards with Dolby Digital Plus audio. This enhanced feature set includes the capability of decoding 7.1-channel Dolby Digital Plus or 5.1-ch Dolby Digital 5.1 with audio description, carried in a single bitstream (Single PID), or as two bitstreams (Dual PID). In addition to the extensive Dolby Decoding capabilities this card (DBD28) can add a voice activated (or triggered by GPI) Voice Over signal to any of the decoded streams or plain PCM streams that could enter the unit. Reinforcing the critical role that infrastructure product research and development plays in its long-term development strategy, at BVE Axon will give a UK debut to a strategically important module within Axon’s Synapse family: the SLD100. a long time SD-SDI uncompressed video delay. This compact module can store and delay up to six hour of SD material including all blanking as RAW data. Compared to competitive server based solutions the SLD100 can be considered as very environmentally friendly. The unit can be used for +1 hour broadcasts, +2 hour broadcasts, time zone compensation, contribution backhaul delay or for profanity checks.
2 - Loudness control
With the recent introduction of strict legislation in many international markets, the issue of loudness control is key to broadcasters worldwide. The challenge is to integrate a solution that meets broadcasters’ requirements without imposing on their operations or draining resources.
Targeting this issue, Axon’s single form factor cards can be integrated to work with each other to provide very powerful loudness control solutions. Now, the company has developed an integrated solution to meet many of the new statutory requirements that are being imposed globally and which broadcasters can seamlessly integrate and can be put in place in minutes rather than hours.
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3 - Cortex control and monitoring software
Another UK debut at BVE sees the latest version of Axon’s Cortex software application, which makes the implementation of multiple video and audio signal paths easier, more efficient and cost-effective than ever.
The Tally and Mnemonic options provide a user interface for signal processing and routing equipment using native protocols and/or GPI units in order to operate various display and tally devices.
A Cortex Generic Device option (Cortex-GD) option allows a customer to interface to a number of third party devices using their native control and/or monitoring protocols. It extends the capability of Cortex to control devices further than ever before when using SNMP. Custom user interfaces can then be created by the user to seamlessly integrate the control of a range of devices such as vision switchers, mixers and servers within Cortex.
Other Cortex additions include the CCP-3201 & CCP-4801, which are 2RU Cortex hardware panels with either 32 or 48 LCD buttons and a single rotary encoder. These panels extend the range of control options for the Cortex control system.
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4 – TRACS2 compliance recording system
TRACS makes video recording easier, more efficient and cost-effective than ever. The software, hardware and an extensive range of features bring unprecedented levels of efficiency and reliability to the whole process of transmission recording, storage and retrieval. Some of its features are live stream multicasting, as-run log integration, HD inputs, hardware is enterprise quality and the GUI is a thick client application.
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.