Communitek Presented the Minicaster™ at NAB 2010
posted:
Live HD and SD video streaming encoder in a 2RU half-rack case
Streams can be generated at bit rates ranging from 100 kbps to 15 Mbps in real-time from HD-SDI, SD-SDI, S-Video or Composite Video sources with either discrete or embedded audio. The Minicaster can also be equipped with up to 2 TBytes of internal disk storage for simultaneous archiving of live streams during broadcasts. This self-contained unit, which is capable of operating on AC or DC power, was featured at the Brick House Video booth at NAB 2010.
Employing an optimal combination of hardware and software encoding, the Minicaster can be used in any real-time encoding application, including live sports and concert events. Producers are given complete creative control over the compression process, which supports all of the major High and Standard Definition formats used in broadcast, including 1080i, 720p, PAL 625 and NTSC 525. Frame rates include 30, 29.97, 25 and 24 Hz progressive as well as 60 and 59.94 Hz interlaced. Video images can be cropped, scaled, de-interlaced, and formatted for a wide range of software video players. Both 16 x 9 and 4 x 3 aspect ratios are supported, and captions and bitmap logos can be overlaid on the outbound stream. Dual Gigabit Ethernet output ports are provided for high stream capacity and redundancy.
“The Minicaster integrates the best available technologies from across the video streaming marketplace,” said Brian Isaacson, President of Communitek Video Systems. “We have deployed these units in a number of live webcasts that we have produced and found that their video performance and overall reliability far exceed what is possible with off-the shelf PCs running commercial software packages.”
About Communitek Video Systems
Communitek Video Systems has been in the video engineering business for over 20 years, offering a wide range of video systems sales, rental and maintenance services.