Grass Valley will showcase a range of new products and product upgrades in switchers, cameras, servers, automation and production at IBC.
In the live production arena, Grass Valley will mark the European introduction of the Kayenne series of visions mixers, offering a range of configurable mainframes that can include from 1.5 to 4.5 mix/effects (M/Es). It also features a newly designed panel with definable color change RGB buttons and a menu navigation system optimized for touchscreen use. All Source and function name displays use organic LEDs with high contrast and 178 degree viewing angles. An array of new features included in the new interface allows the user to better manage live production workflows. Grass Valley has applied the new Kayenne technology to the Kayak HD vision mixer family providing a new range of control panels for the mixer—1 M/E through 4 M/E. This Kayenne XL package adds new features to the user interface that are found only in Grass Valley vision mixers.
Grass will also introduce the multi-format (720p/1080i switchable) LDK 3000 camera system, the latest addition to the LDK family. The camera features three in-house designed Xensium CMOS imagers, featuring DDS—Double Digital Sampling—and dual integrated A/D converters for high-quality imaging. The LDK 3000 is also compatible with most LDK accessories and the C2IP control system.
Grass Valley Kayenne Also new at the Grass Valley booth is the K2 Dyno replay controller. Coupled with the new K2 Summit production server, both are designed to help sports producers and other professionals capture live events in HD and instantly play them out at variable speeds for critical analysis during fast-paced events. The K2 Summit production client is the first server to provide four HD/SD bi-directional channels that can include DV, DVC CAM, DVCPRO and MPEG 2 (including IMX) compression for SD and the three most commonly used HD compression formats—DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra 50/100, and MPEG-2 (including XDCAM HD)—in a compact 2 RU enclosure.
The Grass Valley exhibit stand will also feature a real-world demonstration of Ignite, version 5.3, which adds significant capability and functionality.
Version 1.1 of Grass Valley MediaFUSE Automated Content Repurposing Platform will be demonstrated with new features including enhanced textual story editing, the ability to automatically "stitch" multiple pre- and post-roll clips to repurposed content, enhanced options for drag-and-drop automatic repurposing of extended-play and raw content (which typically never makes it to air), improved pre-production newsroom metadata markup functionality, enhanced post-production and content approval operation, powerful slide-show creation tools, and improved interfaces with WorldNow Producer and Internet Broadcasting (IB) Phaedra content management systems.
IBC 2009 will see new versions of Grass Valley’s Aurora (7.0) and EDIUS (5.1) HD editing software packages including new integration with the Grass Valley K2 media server family and improved workflow for Final Cut Pro users due to a unique integration with the K2 server at the file level with QOS.
EDIUS 5.1, the latest version of the Grass Valley EDIUS multi-format/multi-resolution nonlinear editing software package, now includes tighter integration with the Grass Valley Aurora digital production workflow. Other new features include output to Blu-ray disc from the timeline, download partial digital clips captured with P2 solid-state or XDCAM optical disc media, audio normalize tool, management of reel names, and viewing of clip markers on the EDIUS timeline. Also on display is the ContentShare2 (CS2) digital asset management platform
In the routing category, the Grass Valley Trinix NXT router will have its European introduction, with full demonstrations for 3Gbps installations. The company will also show a new GeckoFlex 3G-SDI Distribution Amplifier.
Also new for IBC are control panels for Encore and Jupiter Routing Control Systems. Encore now supports a multi-level, 100 button panel ideal for outside broadcast vans and other applications where many sources are needed quickly. Jupiter now supports 2 new LCD button panels—one is a 1 RU version with 16 buttons and the other is a 2 RU version with 48 buttons. Each LCD control panel supports a scroll wheel and multiple operating modes for a variety of applications.
The latest version of MEDIAEDGE digital signage and on-demand content delivery platform will be demonstrated at the booth, with new support for MPEG-4 (H.264). This enables the MEDIAEDGE4 platform to store and distribute more high-definition content from a single server than it could previously. In addition, a new HDMI output on the system’s set top player allows it to display HD images on more screens.
Grass Valley will also show updates for the Maestro Master Control Switcher for channel branding and video effects processing. Maestro is now capable of adding file-based stills, animations and text video keys—up to 32 elements at a time—upstream or downstream along with a two-channel DVE for creating a wide variety of options for channel branding and presentations.
The ViBE EM3100 MPEG-4 4:2:2 encoder and ViBE iRD3100 MPEG-4 4:2:2 decoder--designed for fixed and mobile applications and suited for demanding live broadcasts, such as sports--will debut at the show. The ViBE EM3100 and iRD3100 contribution codec are both housed in a compact 1 RU chassis, ideal for installation in constrained areas such as satellite or outside broadcast vans. The ViBE EM3100 also offers input switching redundancy.
Grass has also added next-generation MPEG-2 processing to its ViBE SD (EM1000/2000) and HD (EM3000) MPEG-4 encoders to allow users to select between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 encoding. The new models use Grass’s Mustang encoding technology to implement a new 14-loop, triple-pass encoding algorithm for maximum quality at minimum bit rates for MPEG-2 encoding.
The latest software update for the ViBE EM3000 HD encoder now includes the MPEG-4/AVC High Profile toolset support for Dolby E to Dolby Pulse transcoding.
The new EDIUS XRE (eXternal Rendering Engine) will mark its European debut at the show. EDIUS XRE is a new conform/render server that allows editors to be more productive when working in a K2 shared storage area network (SAN) environment and using Grass Valley Aurora 7.0 and EDIUS 5.1 HD editing workstations. The new PC server is ideal for fast-paced, multi-client production environments developing a wide variety of content from multiple SD and HD sources. The server comes as a turnkey system and lets editors request that a project created with EDIUS systems in an Aurora or K2 Production Storage environment be rendered automatically on a separate dedicated workstation while they go on to the next job.
Grass will also showcase its new K2 Production Storage Solution designed to create more cost-effective SAN systems for production applications, such as news, sports, studio, and editing. As a part of this customizable offering, there will be three EDIUS Workgroup Packages connecting up to 5 or 10 editors in either redundant or non-redundant configurations. Each of these pre-configured packages will include all of the hardware and software required to create a complete SAN editing environment for EDIUS.
A new generation of UHF amplifiers fitted with the latest version of 50V LDMOS transistors will also be shown at the booth. These devices allow further improvements in the power density available in a single 19-inch cabinet with a total output power up to 9.6 kW RMS for DVB operation and 14.0 kW RMS for ATSC operation, while providing an additional 15 percent energy savings.
Grass Valley will be in Stand 1.D.11.
