AMSTERDAM—Ross Video announced several new acquisitions and product launches at its IBC Show press conference on Thursday.
The developments demonstrate that Ross Video is serious about its commitment to IP. Nevertheless, company president David Ross noted the transition to IP is still in its infancy.
PIVOTCam
“”You would think that with all the hype in our industry, that IP was mainstream, but it’s still the very early days,” he said. It’s very hard to put down a live production, especially a live remote [via IP], but we’re very excited about where Ross is going with IP.”
Ross announced that the company has joined AIMS, the Alliance for IP Media Solutions, characterizing the company’s participation with the consortium of manufacturers as “very active.” He also announced that the company is demonstrating advanced IP technology workflows at its IBC Show booth.
Other announcements reflected the move to IP, including the acquisition of Coveloz, an Ontario-based developer of programmable embedded technologies, with a specialty in time-sensitive communications.
“Coveloz has some great core technology and an amazing vision for the IP future. As we’ve been working with their team implementing technology on our new platforms, we’ve been impressed,” said Ross. “We’re excited to have them as part of the Ross family of companies and look forward to Coveloz continuing to focus on their media IP work.”
Coveloz currently works with Altera, now a part of Intel, to bring studio video-over-IP applications to market and will continue to do so, Ross said.
Ross also announced that the company is showing a technology demo of its Raptor IP Gateway card for openGear. Raptor provides a multiprotocol bridge between legacy broadcast live production equipment and packet-based studio infrastructure. The IPG-8970 is software-upgradable to support evolving IP standards and additional media processing.
Ross also announced the acquisition of Abekas, a long-time broadcast industry manufacturer of replay and delay server systems. The addition of Abekas will bring its core video server technology, replay and profanity delay systems into Ross’s product portfolio. Ross is launching their first product at IBC as a result the acquisition, Streamline Play, which brings MAM and MOS workflow to the Abekas Mira Production Server for news production applications.
Ross also announced a partnership with The Future Group, a Norwegian-based developer of video gaming technology and will be demonstrating “Frontier,” the company’s latest virtual studio graphics rendering platform, in its booth in a demonstration of what Ross termed “mixed reality,” a seamless blending of computer-generated environments and real people or objects integrated in real-time.
The company also launched “PIVOTcam,” a compact PTZ cam that targets assembly, education, corporate, house of worship acquisition, along with events and broadcast POV productions. Ross says the new 1080p PIVOTCam-20 incorporates high quality Olympus 20x zoom optics with fast, silent and accurate robotics to offer high performance and accuracy in a wide range of lighting conditions and also very low signal to noise at 74dB, and can resolve spectacular images in very low lighting conditions.
Ross also added a new product in its Streamline product line, Streamline Play, which works alongside the company’s existing Streamline MAM system to create a seamless process to organize and playout assets. The company also announced an addition to its Ultrix software-enabled router line with Ultraclean, what the company says is the world’s first software enabled clean/quiet switch – even in 12G. Three new versions of Overdrive to address a variety of markets were also introduced: Express, Prime and Premium.
Ross Video is in stand 11.C10 at the IBC Show.
