The New Grass Valley Sets Future-Ready Live Production Standards at BroadcastAsia 2014

The LDX WorldCam is perfectly suited for any production, under any conditions and offers switchable formats including 1080p50/59.94 for unrivalled image quality without substantial investments in additional lighting. The Copperhead 3404K takes the image quality straight from the camera to a truck or control room with only two strands of fiber optic cable, which carry all bi-directional signals—including four 3 Gb/s HD/SDI paths—eliminating the logistical challenges posed by coax cabling.

Grass Valley’s new LDX XS is the first handheld ultra slow-motion camera and the first to deliver instant time-to-air with no internal camera storage requirements. It easily integrates into live workflows with 3X (1080p) and 6X speeds (720p/1080i), and includes a 1X live output for standard-speed acquisition. Both the LDX WorldCam and LDX XS cameras are built around Grass Valley’s unique proprietary Xensium-FT CMOS imager, delivering superb picture quality, high sensitivity and high dynamic range for a variety of production applications.

The added advantage of Grass Valley’s LDX XS camera system is that it operates in concert with the K2 Dyno Replay System, which consists of the K2 Dyno S Replay Controller and K2 Summit 3G Production Client. Together, these technologies provide ultra-smooth playback at any speed from zero to 200 percent—dramatically increasing the number of replay options for broadcasters.

Stephen Wong, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Grass Valley, said that “storytelling with images has never been more important and the capabilities of the LDX line of cameras with the versatility of the K2 Dyno system and Copperhead connectivity are absolutely central to production companies looking for better and faster ways to tell their stories."

The New Grass Valley Introduces Gateway to IP

The new Grass Valley paves the way to an IP-based future with the new NVISION 8500 IP Gateway, IRG-3401 IP Gateway and the Kaleido-IP X310.

The introduction of the new NVISION 8500 IP Gateway input/output card takes Grass Valley’s well-established IP presence in multiviewer, ingest, playout, modular and monitoring products to even broader heights. The NVISION 8500 IP Gateway converts and packetizes real-time, uncompressed, baseband video for multi-directional transport over 10 Gb Ethernet networks. SDI signals are then packetized, and can be readily distributed from rack-to-rack, truck-to-truck or between floors, buildings or campuses—over an IP network. Frame-accurate switching from SDI to IP guarantees signal integrity and the non-blocking architecture of the cards ensures access to all crosspoints within the NVISION 8500 Series router.

Existing NVISION 8500 routers can be easily upgraded to support the new card.10 GbE Ethernet tie lines between core and production island routers enable any IP Gateway-equipped NVISION 8500 router to establish a straightforward transformation to high-speed networking for data and content transport.

“The beauty of the NVISION 8500 IP Gateway card is that it enables broadcasters to make the IP transition with no loss of service, and provides the flexibility to change as and when communications standards and requirements evolve," said Stephen Wong, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Grass Valley.

Also featuring as an IP-transition enabler is the new IRG-3401 IP Gateway, a high density, bi-directional DVB-ASI/IP gateway—the densest IP gateway available. Handling up to 120 gateways in a single 3 RU frame, the IRG-3401 has thousands of potential applications, including IP jitter removal, a vital quality of service factor in network performance.

Of course, if you’re transitioning to an IP infrastructure, monitoring is essential. The latest version of Grass Valley’s Kaleido-IP X310 multiviewer—with the highest density in its class—extends the level of monitoring support for this platform to 128 SD or 64 HD programs with double the number of simultaneous audio and video decodes as its predecessor, but at half the size.

“Any broadcast infrastructure requires the solid, reliable performance of its components, but with traditional SDI-based facilities there is the potential for multiple points of failure as a myriad of technologies try to work together,” said Wong.

“However, a properly specified IP-based infrastructure not only substantially reduces the potential for costly errors, but vastly improves productivity, efficiency and flexibility. Our deep experience in IP is incorporated in these new products and solutions in such a way that makes the transition—in part because interoperability from a single supplier is guaranteed—not only painless, but highly attractive.”

The New Grass Valley Features Cloud-based Playout

GV STRATUS Playout is a truly groundbreaking playout technology that combines the efficiency and flexibility of cloud computing with the performance and reliability of an on-site solid-state playout server—all on a single card. This cloud-enabled Software as a Service (SaaS) technology enables facilities to regionalize channel content and begin playout in minutes.

“This ingenious approach to playout is unprecedented, and we believe it is the future of rapid deployment playout in our industry,” said Stephen Wong, senior vice president, Asia Pacific, Grass Valley. “GV STRATUS Playout simplifies playout control enabling new revenue generating business models while lowering operational costs.”

GV STRATUS Playout works with Grass Valley’s Densité SSP-3801 solid-state playout card, which enables broadcasters to leverage the immense flexibility of the cloud-enabled playout control system with the security of housing all media content on-site. Using high-grade media storage, the module is easily configured and installed. The card sits at the edge of any network where it provides frame-accurate playback and displays still and animated logos and high-quality pre-rendered graphics.

Wong added that “because GV STRATUS Playout is a solid-state, stand-alone card, there are no moving parts to wear out. This not only makes it very attractive in terms of long-term performance, it is also highly resilient to network outages. The card stores 24 hours of playlists and will continue with uninterrupted playout, automatically update itself once network connectivity is restored.”

In vastly diverse cultural regions such as  Asia-Pacific, regionalization, localization and even hyper-localization is seen by many as the holy grail of playout. All of these are easily achieved with GV STRATUS Playout, not just for commercials, but for specialized promotions and long-form programming to cover blackouts. With GV STRATUS Playout, cost-prohibitive dependence on satellite bandwidth and audience specific complex playout systems are no longer concerns.

GV STRATUS Playout makes use of Microsoft’s Azure cloud “platform-as-a-service,” which is hosted in Microsoft Data Centres, and is vastly superior in terms of performance, resilience and scalability to anything that could be economically viable within a broadcast facility.

All GV STRATUS Playout metadata is stored within the local Microsoft Data Centre and automatically synchronized to a geo-redundant data center—making data supremely redundant and unassailable.

“There is simply no more compelling playout solution on the market today," said Wong.