Thomson to Debut New Management, Encoding Gear at IBC

Thomson has announced that it will introduce new products to more efficiently control, manage and distribute digital programming at IBC in Amsterdam in September.

The Grass Valley XMS Extensible Management System offers a suite of software tools for controlling and monitoring an entire DTV system. Targeting optimal network performance and reduced operational costs, the XMS 3500 system lets operators configure, control and monitor the creation of their SD and HD services in a digital broadcast center, add local content and services in the local headend, and manage their distribution networks up to the end-user. It's also suited fro contribution applications over satellite or telecom networks, allowing media companies to exchange studio-quality signals between broadcast facilities and enabling the production of live events.

A new MPEG-4 encoder will also be demonstrated at Thomson's booth. The Grass Valley ViBE MPEG-4 (H.264) encoder offers reliable bandwidth management performance and compact ergonomics, according to the company. Current ViBE MPEG-2 customers will be able to plug in the MPEG-4 board into their existing mainframe. Like the rest of the ViBE line, the MPEG-4 encoder also supports a variety of options, including analog inputs, additional digital video inputs, IP outputs, noise reduction and advance preprocessing features. The encoder is expected to be available by Q4, 2004.

Thomson is also expanding its digital news production line with a new ingest station and support for new tapeless production systems from Sony and Panasonic. The Grass Valley Ingest Station 1.0 manages the automation recording of tape-based materials to one or more digital channels. Supporting up to six channels, the highly networked Ingest Station system also can send materials to the GV Profile 6G and Profile XP Media Platform servers, GV M-Series iVDRs and GV FeedClip interactive feed capture systems. In addition, Version 5.1 of the NewsEdit NLE now includes a seamless interface with Panasonic's P2 and Sony's XDCAM recording systems, which both support MXF. The new version also supports Apple's Final Cut Pro as well as the Publison audio post production system. A new version of NewBrowse (3.0) now includes enhanced archiving features, interface improvements a new low-res encoder and support for a variety of architecture around the Grass Valley Network Attached Storage system.