Ross Video appoints new V.P.
Ross Video has appointed Jeff Moore to the position of Vice President of Marketing and Sales to its Board of Directors.
Moore been with Ross Video since 1997. Since then the company has launched more than 100 new products and developed a worldwide sales structure. Moore¹s marketing efforts have resulted in a consistent sales growth exceeding 30% per year.
Under Moore's leadership, Ross Video has experienced improved customer relations, a broadened market scope and increased market awareness.
For more information, visit Ross Video's Web site at: www.rossvideo.com.
Quantel moves into new L.A. office
Q uantel has moved its Beverly Hills, CA, office to a new office located in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, CA
According to Quantel CEO, Ken Ellis, the new location will enhance Quantel’s ability to service customers’ sales needs and provide a better training and support venue. Ellis said Quantel will be more centrally located and accessible with the new location.
In addition to its training facility the new office also houses a product demonstration site for customers to see Quantel products up close and receive hands on presentations.
The new office is located at:
5670 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 1777
Los Angeles, CA 90036
To reach Quantel call 323-692-3800 or visit the Web site: www.quantel.com
Omnibus' Colossus controls STARZ Encore facility
STARZ Encore Group, a provider of cable and satellite-delivered premium movie channels in the U.S., has gone-to-air with OmniBus Systems' Colossus, controlling a new 40-channel master control and on-air playback facility.
Colossus is a multi-channel, multi-delivery automation and control system which bridges the gap between video, audio, Internet and data-streaming applications while addressing the needs of broadcasters who need to rapidly apply enormous numbers of existing channels to their output.
Using the backbone of proven OmniBus device drivers that control traditional equipment as well as innovations such as data streaming technology, Colossus provides a timeline display which allows the operator to instantaneously monitor the status of up to 1,000 channels and focus in on any single stream, confirm its data and drive it in the traditional manner should the schedule require it - i.e. live sports events or breaking news.
Starz Encore plays out movies across 13 channels which each have an East and West coast feed all totally backed up by second feeds. This totals 75 channels (including back-ups, auxiliary and preview channels) of Colossus playout. The company is a subscription-based pay TV movie operation that provides feeds to most US satellite and cable heads.
Colossus has been installed to control Starz Encore's Pinnacle MediaStream 700 and 1600 servers for movie and interstitial playout, media acquisition, global asset and media management (GAMMA) and the system infrastructure.
For more information about Omnibus Systems check out their Web site: www.omnibus.tv.
TV Azteca taps GlobeCast for World Cup soccer coverage
GlobeCast is providing project management, uplink, digital turnaround, encryption, and space segment for TV Azteca’s coverage of the 2002 FIFA World Cup.
From the International Broadcast Center (IBC) in Korea, GlobeCast is providing TV Azteca, a leading Mexican television network, with a rooftop uplink and a full-time 15-megabit channel on Intelsat 701 for backhaul to America. GlobeCast’s international teleport in Los Angeles is managing signal turnaround to Mexico on Telstar 5. Additionally, GlobeCast is providing an 8-megabit return channel from Los Angeles to the IBC for network monitoring of the feed.
GlobeCast, a France Telecom subsidiary, provides satellite transmission and production services for professional broadcast, enterprise media and Internet content delivery.
GlobeCast’s project management team is supplying all transmission equipment as well as necessary licenses and permits in Korea.
Futbol de Primera (La Radio de Mundial) is broadcasting the 2002 FIFA World Cup via GlobeCast's WorldTV platform on Telstar 5. The Hispanic all-soccer radio channel is distributing the games in Spanish exclusively to over 100 affiliated radio stations as well as to direct-to-home WorldTV listeners across America. GlobeCast is providing signal pick-up in New York and transmission onto Futbol de Primera's WorldTV channel on Telstar 5.
For more information about GlobeCast's coverage of the 2002 FIFA World Cup soccer games check out: http://www.globecast.com.
And stay up-to-date on all the news about this year's World Cup games go to: http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com.
Thomson receives orders for Viper Filmstream camera
A RRI MEDIA and Bexel Corporation have placed orders for the Thomson Viper FilmStream cameras.
ARRI MEDIA and Bexel have both placed orders for the Thomson Viper FilmStream camera.
ARRI MEDIA, a part of the ARRI Group, headquartered in Munich, Germany, ordered two Viper Filmstream cameras for its rental inventory in London. Bexel, a division of The Vitec Group, also ordered two.
The Viper FilmStream camera uses three 9.2 megapixel HDDPM Frame Transfer CCDs. It can be configured to output traditional high-definition video, 24p digital video, and the unprocessed 10-bit log 4:4:4 RGB Filmstream signal.
The camera's optical block contains three unique HDDPM Frame Transfer 9.2 megapixel CCDs for a total of 27.6 million pixels. The camera works in several formats: 1080 lines at 24/25/30 frames per second as well as 720 lines at 50/0 frames per second.
Visit the following sites for more information:
Thomson: www.thomson-multimedia.com.
Bexel: www.bexel.com.
ARRI MEDIA: http://www.arri-mediaworldsales.de/.
Scopus opens Moscow office
Scopus Network Technologies, the supplier of digital platforms for the worldwide broadcast of the 2002 World Cup Games from Korea, announced the opening of an office in Moscow, Russia.
During 2001, Scopus opened offices in Beijing, Mexico City, Sao Paolo and Ahmadabad, India.
Scopus' fully staffed Moscow office will be responsible for Scopus activities throughout Russia and the CIS including sales and technical support to distributors and clients.
Heading the new office will be Vadim Morosov, an engineer with more than 10 years of experience in electronics and broadcasting.
In August 2001, Scopus announced a successful digital platform installation at Russia's Modern Humanities University (MHU) headquartered in Moscow. MHU is the largest non-governmental university level educational institution in the Russian Federation. Scopus has also installed platforms for regional networks in the Republic of Bashkarkastan, Naryan-Mar and Chukotka (Siberia). Scopus equipment is also utilized by TV broadcaster like Tele-Radio Company MIR and ART (for a new Russian TV bouquet).
For more information about Scopus' new office in Moscow go to: www.scopus.net.
Cable-Tec Expo 2002: Triveni Digital demonstrates new cable-ready DTV receiver
Triveni Digital is demonstrating an industry-first end-to-end solution for carriage of terrestrial DTV broadcast signals over digital cable to cable-ready DTV receivers, at the SCTE Cable-Tec Expo 2002.
Triveni will show its StreamBridge solution for grooming the off-air ATSC PSIP data at the local digital cable headend to ensure that the off-air signal carried via the cable system is compliant with the NCTA-CEA PSIP Agreement.
The demonstration includes a cable-ready DTV receiver from LG Electronics that incorporates a QAM tuner and supports tuning and navigation of the signal using PSIP.
The StreamBridge product is also capable of implementing different private carriage agreements between cable operators and networks/stations.
Triveni Digital's StreamBridge automates and simplifies compliance with terrestrial-to-cable carriage agreements including the NCTA-CEA PSIP Agreement and other private carriage agreements for carrying ATSC DTV signals over local digital cable infrastructure.
StreamBridge grooms data and metadata from terrestrial DTV streams, customizes them for the digital cable systems, optimizes streams to decrease bandwidth used by PSIP, dynamically updates Electronic Program Guide (EPG) data from terrestrial PSIP, and supports multiple inputs and outputs simultaneously.
For more information about Triveni Digital visit its Web site: www.trivenidigital.com.
And for more information about Cable-Tec Expo 2002 visit: http://expo.scte.org/overview.html.
Sony establishes business solutions and systems company
Sony Electronics has formed the Business Solutions and Systems Company (BSSC) to serve the broadcast, post-production, corporate, reseller, government and education markets.
Sony veteran Pat Whittingham has been appointed president of the newly created divisional company, reporting to Edward Grebow, deputy president of Sony Electronics. BSSC combines content creation, display, application, and other divisions from SEL's Broadcast and Professional Company with its recording media and tape storage divisions.
Whittingham's new responsibilities as head of the expanded BSSC organization encompass sales and marketing of more than 3,800 professional audio and video products, data storage devices, production monitors, plasma displays and recording media. A 27-year Sony veteran, Whittingham most recently served as senior vice president of Sony's Systems Solutions Division, SEL's systems integration and software development group. Prior to that, he was an executive vice president of Sony of Canada, responsible for the Broadcast and Professional Group based in Toronto.
Whittingham has also served as senior vice president of Sony Canada's Service and Engineering Division, where he headed a team that provided system design and engineering/service support for Sony's broadcast, business/institutional, consumer and computer technologies.
For more information: www.sony.com/broadcast.
ABC Asia broadcasts with Florical automation
Florical Systems announced that ABC Asia Pacific has gone to air using Florical automation.
ABC Asia Pacific is the first automation installation worldwide to include Florical's new AirGuide, an electronic program guide for DTV systems.
ABC Asia Pacific uses Florical automation to uplink programming to two different satellites serving different regions of the Asia Pacific marketplace. Both broadcasts are DVB EIT compliant transport streams. The automation system controls a two channel Saturn master control switcher, two Pinnacle MediaStream SAN (networked storage solution) video server systems and various VTR's for ingest purposes. The MediaMaster provides asset management for an ADIC Archive using Avalon Archive control.
At ABC Asia Pacific, MediaMaster automatically transfers material between the archive and the system's video servers, as needed by the play-to-air schedules. Material ingested to the video servers is archived based upon preferences determined by facility personnel, providing advanced system flexibility.
The Florical automation system includes a two-channel state of the art AirBoss on-air presentation system, a MediaFiler ingest/preparation system and MediaMaster, Florical's automatic multi-channel asset management system.
AirGuide is an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) for DTV and the Internet, that is automatically updated from AirBoss, Florical's on-air presentation system. Information from AirBoss is automatically passed to AirGuide, which then distributes the information to a PSIP or DVB encoder for transmission. AirGuide can automatically generate a program guide for the Internet so TV stations can easily keep their Web site up to date.
AirGuide assembles the EPG from two AirBoss play to air systems with any changes updated in real time. The AirGuide system includes the optional interface with the Tandberg EIT Manager, using it's native XML protocol.
AirGuide can be configured to minimize or expand the amount of schedule information displayed by the Electronic Program Guide. The information provided by AirGuide can be as detailed as every event, all individual program segments, or just the program names and their start times. As on-air events are added or removed from the play schedule in AirBoss, AirGuide will automatically update the electronic program guide to reflect the changes.
For more information check out www.florical.com.
Network Electronics' routers kick-off 2002 FIFA World Cup Soccer Championship
The 2002 FIFA World Cup will be broadcast from stadiums equipped with more than 300 Network Electronics' routers.
The Championship games will be in Korea and Japan from May 31st through June 30th.
Network Electronics manufactures small and mid-sized routers.
The technical infrastructure of the routers is based upon a SDI and analog audio environment. The routers will be located in arenas in both Japan and Korea.
For more information: www.network-electronics.com.
NVISION to resume operation as an independent company
NVISION, the broadcast routing switcher and terminal equipment manufacturer that was acquired by ADC in January 2000, is resuming operation as an independent company.
ADC has sold the business to a group of private investors that includes key members of the NVISION management team. The company will continue to operate from its existing 40,000 square foot Grass Valley, California facility. The current management team and workforce will remain in place.
NVISION will continue to design and manufacture digital video and audio infrastructure products, with an emphasis on high performance routing switcher systems. Information about the company's current products is available at www.nvision1.com.
Quantel's generationQ integrates an AAF-based Archive
Quantel has implemented full AAF-based Archive for its generationQ range of post production products - iQ, eQ, gQ, QEffects, QPaintbox.
Quantel is one of the first companies in the world to offer this facility on its products.
The AAF Archive facility enables every piece of information about a project, both essence and metadata, to be archived as a background task to a data infrastructure. This could be to a dataserver, using Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) for near-line and deep archive, or to DTF2 or other data tape recorder.
Because the information is saved transparently in a standard format, this could be accessed by any AAF-compliant system - including all Quantel generationQ post systems.
All of Quantel's generationQ post products share the same AAF-based data archive format, allowing every aspect of a project to be saved and shared - both the 'horizontal' (timeline) and the 'vertical' (compositing) content and relationships of frames/clips, as well as any other metadata about those clips.
For more information about Quantel's multi-resolution, data-centric post production go to its Web site: www.quantel.com.
If you want more information about AAF technology check out Broadcast Engineering's feature story: AAF- The "Super-EDL."
NTL explores digital TV in Brunei Darussalam
NTL Asia Pacific has entered into an agreement with Radio Television Brunei to conduct an initial transmission consultancy study for the implementation of digital terrestrial TV across the whole of Brunei Darussalam.
The project is designed to assess the feasibility of implementing a digital system and is the first step in the process towards delivering digital TV to the nation.
NTL's consultancy project will involve an initial transmission coverage study and frequency planning. Based on the findings, NTL will provide recommendations on the transmission and distribution network system that will need to be used to implement digital TV, taking in to account the existing RTB infrastructure.
For information go to www.ntl.com.
BES plans next year's conference
The BES EXPO 2003 will be February 5 through February 7 at the Taj Palace Hotel, Sardar Patel, Marg New Delhi.
The theme of the 9th International Conference & Exhibition on Terrestrial Satellite Broadcasting will be "Digitalization: Road Map for Broadcasting."
For more information about next year's conference visit www.besindia.com.
NBC adds an Innova SON Large Scale digital console to The Tonight Show
Innova's SON Sensory Large Scale digital console was used during NBC's production of The Tonight Show anniversary special. The console is now permanently used on the show.
An Innova SON Sensory Large Scale digital console was used in NBC's one-hour anniversary special of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
The digital console served as the front house PA desk at the show before being taken to The Tonight Show studio at NBC's Burbank facility for permanent installation.
The Innova SON Sensory Large Scale digital console features 71 faders, driver position inputs, an assignable central channel panel, three linear faders and monitoring level and dim knobs.
The Innova SON Large Scale Console replaces three analog consoles, which until now have been necessary to handle the large number of inputs from the house band, visiting musical acts and the guest and host microphones.
For more information about Innova SON go to www.innovason.com.
Lyon Video selects 10 Ikegami cameras
Lyon Video has chosen the Ikegami HK-388W full-digital camera for its new Mobile Unit 5 (MU5).
The Ikegami HK-388W uses 640,000 pixel 2/3-inch FIT CCDS to help deliver high resolution and accurate color fidelity.
Additionally, the Ikegami HK-388W uses a 10MHz ultra-wideband component triax system, capable of delivering high resolution pictures even at long cable lengths.
For more information about Lyon visit www.lyonvideo.com or check out Ikegami at www.ikegami.com.
Miranda appoints new CEO
Miranda Technologies announced that Strath Goodship has been appointed as the company’s chief executive officer. Goodship joined Miranda in 1997 to launch its European division and will now be based out of the company’s Montreal headquarters.
Goodship will be responsible for all international business units.
Prior to joining Miranda, Goodship worked at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and at Leitch Technology where he held engineering and business positions. At Miranda Europe, he oversaw the company’s acquisition of AAVS and OXTEL, and was a major contributor to its integration within Miranda.
Check out Miranda's Web site:www.miranda.com.
Genesis unveils its single-chip Digital Video Format Converter
Genesis Microchip conducted the first public demonstration of its new single-chip Digital Video Format Converter, the FLI2300.
The highly integrated FLI2300 incorporates Faroudja's video processing technology to produce the highest quality upconverted video output from a variety of interlaced video inputs.
Targeted at digital television, high definition television and DVD player applications, the FLI2300 digital video format converter provides manufacturers with high performance video processing and maximum design flexibility with reduced system costs.
For more information go to www.genesis-microchip.com.
Snell & Wilcox's Piccaso Color Correction System debuts in "Star Wars Episode: II"
Engineers employed the Picasso color correction system from Snell & Wilcox to ensure consistent color grading on "Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones."
Picasso is a real-time disk-based nonlinear color correction suite.
A new RGB-version of Piccaso was developed to color grade trailers for "Star Wars: Episode II."
The film was shot entirely in HD using Sony/Panavision 24P HD cameras. Images from the movie were converted from YUV to RGB and transferred onto ILM's server as HDTV RGB files.
The finished 22-minute "film" reel is played out of the ILM server for real-time playback and color correction using the Picasso system.
Picasso features the ability to have up to two hours of film played back, color corrected in real-time, resized for digital cinema and simultaneously previewed in the grading theater.
Within Picasso, a list of parameters for each shot or sections within a shot is memorized and can be applied to specific frames, creating a specific palette for a certain scene. Images from the film are optimized for the medium on which it will appear - film, broadcast television, digital projection or as a QuickTime movie on the web.
Check out Snell & Wilcox's Web site at: www.snellwilcox.com.
Panther hires new head of broadcast division
The former marketing manager at Sachtler will now head a new broadcast division of Panther GmbH.
For the past 11 years Florian Granderath has worked in the product management department of Sachtler. He was responsible for the company's overall marketing.
Granderath said his goal at Panther is to establish the dolly and crane manufacturer in the broadcast market.
Check out Panther's Web site: www.panther-gmbh.de.
Drake appoints new U.S. distributor
Drake Electronics, a European intercom system company, has appointed Systems Wireless as its new U.S. distributor.
Systems Wireless, part of ASG (Audio Specialties Group) has more than 25 years experience in distributing hard-wired and wireless intercom products to the broadcast and live entertainment industries. Its current portfolio includes Sony, Kenwood, JVC and Beyerdynamic.
For information about Drake go to www.drake-uk.com.
SCRI and Cathay Consultants join forces
SCRI and Cathay Consultants have joined forces in China and Asia Pacific Broadcast markets to provide market research services to Asia clients, and capture additional data for SCRI’s worldwide client base.
Cathay Consultants founder, Kevin Dauphinee, said the union was a strategic collaboration with the New York-based SCRI International, a market research company.
Cathay Consultants brings close end-user customer contact throughout the Asia-Pacific region to SCRI International. This new collaboration offers SCRI additional reach for its client-based research as well as complementary research for SCRI on the Asia-Pacific markets.
Visit SCRI at www.scri.com.
