by Bob Kovacs~ April 24, 2006
TV TECHNOLOGY
Chyron Corp., a manufacturer of television graphics products, celebrates its 40th anniversary at NAB2006. Leading the good news for the company is an improved balance sheet, followed closely by new products and a commitment to make its line HD/SD switchable.
At an early Sunday press conference, Michael Wellesley-Wesley, Chyron's president and CEO, kicked off the presentation by addressing the company's bottom line.
"The past two years have seen Chyron return to profitability and 2005 was the company's most profitable year since 1998," he said. "I expect substantial revenue growth over the next 18 months."
Lyric, the company's premier software product for television graphics, gets a major makeover for NAB2006 with the release of Lyric Pro. The new software includes a full-time renderer and enhanced flexibility to make Lyric better suited for fast-paced live broadcasts. Lyric Pro uses Chyron's InterFuse technology to create and manage artwork, interactive messages as well as 2D and 3D elements in an interface the company designed to be intuitive for graphical designers.
Also announced was the HX200, an entry-level broadcast-quality graphics system that runs Lyric software and is HD/SD switchable. Fitting in a 4 RU chassis, HX200 has an internal HD/SD keyer for downstream operation, automation support and graphics animation.
HD AND SD
Kevin Prince, Chyron's COO, said the HX200 is an example of the company's intent to provide HD and SD capability in all graphics products.
"Our philosophy going forward is that all of our products will be HD/SD switchable," Prince said. "Anything I do today in SD can be done in HD in the future."
The new Channel Box from Chyron is a channel-branding device that supports 3D motion of live video, clips and graphics.
Perhaps more important, Prince said the company worked hard to create a graphical user interface (GUI) that would be very simple to operate years after the system is initially installed.
"The [Channel Box's] GUI is designed to be self-training," he said. Like most other broadcast products from Chyron, the Channel Box is compatible with the company's Lyric software.
Riding the wave of new Chyron products is XClyps, a clip system that can have up to two channels, each with video, key and audio outputs. XClyps uses wavelet compression to provide high-capacity storage and broadcast-quality images, and the system is intended for playback of opens, promos, snypes and bumpers.
XClyps can do three and four-point looping, and can perform clip-to-clip transitions. Like other Chyron products, XClyps is HS/SD switchable.
FORGING AHEAD
Although a financial model for new television technologies such as IPTV and cell phone video is still murky, manufacturers are already developing products for this emerging market.
Graphics will need special manipulation when displayed on tiny cell phone screens and Chyron was just awarded a patent for technology that embeds graphics metadata into the video signal. This enables the viewing device to display graphics that best meet the needs of that device, including variable sizes, colors, positions and aspect ratios.
Other new Chyron products displayed include a HD/SD 3D DVE option for the HyperX graphics system, the DynaCrawl HD/SD data display system for automated text display, and CAL Box, a 3D graphics platform that automatically displays picture elements and text.
Prince also said that 2005 saw the sale of 50 of Chyron's CAMIO newsroom graphics systems.
© 2006 NAB
