CHANGSHA, China—KILOVIEW has completed work on its first Outside Broadcast (OB) truck to be completely based on NDI workflows.
The all-electric truck, dubbed NDI OBV, was built in collaboration with YouKu, an Alibaba group company and one of China's top online video and streaming service platforms. It is the culmination of four years of cooperation between the companies, KILOVIEW said.
The company leveraged its NDI video encoding/decoding, transmission, routing, monitoring, recording and content management experience in designing and building the vehicle. The new vehicle has the ability to produce 20 channels of 4K video or 70 channels of HD video over a single Ethernet cable. IP connectivity inside the truck has contributed to significant weight savings and a spacious production space, it said.
Calling the vehicle “proof of the low-cost” associated with NDI transmission, KILOVIEW said the IP protocol brings live productions within the grasp of an entirely new strata of content creators.
"Back in 2016, we built a prototype of an IP-based studio and made IP-based video transmission and production an option across the industry,” said KILOVIEW CEO and co-founder Jacob Zuo. “I'm extremely excited and proud to say that our completely IP-based solution is now fully mobile and that we are covering all the elements and processes of video transmission within the confines of this new NDI OBV truck.”
The vehicle includes:
- CUBE X1: A turnkey solution for NDI multiplexed distribution.
- CUBE R1: A turnkey solution for reliable NDI recording.
- LinkDeck: To link and control the whole KILOVIEW ecosystem.
- KILOLINK Server: Centralized KILOVIEW product management platform.
The production truck features:
- A full IP-based production solution, supporting 20 channels of 4K video or 70 channels of HD video over a single Ethernet cable.
- Lower cost enabled by NDI’s significant cable reduction that helps to minimize the cost of every aspect of equipment deployed.
- Flexible connection and interaction based on IP, which makes the solution easy to deploy and operate.
- The ability to connect with multiple OB vehicles via a single cable to maximize production capability.
- Support for remote operation via IP.
- Dual independent Ethernet links to ensure a stable production environment.
- Greater availability of space than typical OB vehicles due to cable reduction and minimizing devices.
- Sustainability stemming from the extended-range electric vehicle using a long battery life for operation.
“Until now, single teams weren’t able to finish an OB truck project, covering the whole workflow with NDI tech alone; that’s the whole video production process from the encoding, production, recording and post-production, even with effects like slo-mo,” said Zeng Wei, senior A/V technician at YouKu. “But now we've integrated all the NDI and IP-based tech into one vehicle, and we believe this is the first one of its kind in the world.”
More information is available on the KILOVIEW website.
