Quality video and audio happens accidentally without test and measurement equipment. With the right T&M gear, quality can be repeated until the viewing public takes that level of quality for granted.
Good engineers never take quality for granted, however. That’s why every year in April, manufacturers roll out the latest features in T&M gear that make signals easier to test and quality more repeatable than ever. And as pressure builds for a possible rollout of ATSC 3.0, test gear increasingly addresses the needs of that new standard.
IPTV AND TRANSPORT STREAM
AXON DIGITAL will showcase its Smart 90-series of transport stream monitoring and analysis solutions, which provide comprehensive information on signal status, enabling users to quickly identify problems, their cause and remedy.
DEKTEC will highlight StreamXpert, a transport stream monitoring and analysis system that is available in both full and “lite” versions. Either one provides real-time analysis, monitoring and recording of transport streams, with an easy-to-use interface
INTERRA SYSTEMS will showcase hybrid capabilities for its Baton QC solution. With a hybrid QC solution, operators can detect certain issues, such as lip sync, which automated QC solutions alone cannot detect.
Nevion Virtuoso TNS4200 media monitoring probe
NEVION will show its Virtuoso TNS4200 media monitoring probe, which simplifies error tracking and helps resolve issues faster to ensure higher uptimes. The unit monitors streams on both IP/Ethernet and DVB-ASI, and can continuously monitor a large number of streams.
QLIGENT will spotlight its Vision-ATSC-3, an end-to-end ATSC 3.0 signal path analysis system that correlates and analyzes multilayer data from seven points along the signal path from broadcast gateway input sources to the antenna RF output.
SENCORE will feature its CMA 1820 compressed media analyzer that allows designers, engineers, system integrators and network operators to quickly verify standards compliance, identify media interoperability issues and troubleshoot transmission issues.
TORQUE VIDEO SYSTEMS will highlight its DVMon XS, a palm-sized test tool for digital TV networks. Built on the same technology as the DVMon, the DVMon XS troubleshoots video transport stream issues quickly.
Triveni Digital StreamScope XM MT advanced monitoring and analysis system
TRIVENI DIGITAL will demonstrate its StreamScope XM MT advanced monitoring and analysis system, with support for ATSC 3.0 candidate standards, including ROUTE and MMTP encoding options. The company will also introduce a series of ATSC 3.0 starter kits designed to bring broadcasters up to speed with the new broadcast television standard. The starter kits encompass everything from file-based monitoring to live encoding and over-the-air transmission, leveraging Triveni’s GuideBuilder XM signaling and announcement generator and StreamScope XM MT.
VOLICON will be at the NAB Show with its Observer line of monitoring products, which can provide loudness and content monitoring. The system will maintain logs to provide proof of performance and QoS.
Blackmagic Design SmartScope Duo 4K
VIDEO & AUDIO
BLACKMAGIC DESIGN will highlight its SmartScope Duo 4K, a rackmount package of two 7-inch video displays that also provide waveform, vectorscope, RGB parade, YUV parade, histogram and audio phase monitoring with audio level indicators.
HENRY ENGINEERING will demonstrate its Systems Alert Monitor (SAM), which monitors the systems of a typical broadcast facility and provides visual, audible and e-mail indication if anything goes wrong or needs attention. When a fault is detected, SAM generates an alert text message that is displayed on a video monitor.
LEADER INSTRUMENTS will highlight new HDR features for its LV5490 4K waveform monitor and LV7390 4K upgradeable rasterizer.
MARSHALL ELECTRONICS will feature its V-SG4K-HDI 4K, a compact and portable digital test signal generator targeted at video engineers, system integrators/installers, video shooters and product designers. The unit can generate many combinations of displays and frame rates in the digital spectrum along with an array of audio signals.
OMNITEK will roll out its new Ultra XR, a UHD video waveform rasterizer that addresses the demanding requirements of extended resolution production QC and 4K post production grading.
PHABRIX will introduce a range of added features to its portable Qx test set, including waveform monitor, vectorscope, additional standards support, reference timing, pathological patterns (including 6G/12G), and an enhanced Dataview window plus audio monitoring with channel select for listening.
Tektronix WVM8200 4K HDR waveform monitor
TEKTRONIX will feature its WFM8200 4K HDR waveform monitor targeted at highend 4K production. The WFM8000 has graticules calibrated to 18 percent gray and 90 percent reflective white, as well as support for both SMPTE ST 2084 standard and Hybrid Log Gamma (HLG) as per the ARIB ST B-67 standard.
TELESTREAM will show off its latest version of Vidchecker, a Windows software application that examines video and audio, eliminating the need to manually check conformance. It can then be used to correct levels.
VIDEO CLARITY will highlight its RTM quality monitoring solution, an automated, Quality-of-Experience monitor that measures the quality between two points. It does this after the decoder (STB) and measures the video quality, audio quality, audio or video delay, audio program loudness and VANC data accuracy.
IMAGINE COMMUNICATIONS will feature the Videotek TVM9150PKG multiformat video waveform monitor and audio signal analyzer. With its color LCD display, the TVM9150PKG can display and evaluate up to four input sources, in up to four formats, simultaneously.
RF
AVATEQ will feature its AVQ1020-ActiveCore RF layer monitoring receiver and signal analyzer that provides 24/7 transmitter signal quality monitoring.
ELECTRONICS RESEARCH INC. (ERI) will demonstrate its VDM Monitoring System, a multi-channel data acquisition system that displays, monitors, records and communicates vital information regarding broadcast system performance characteristics.
HITACHI-COMARK will feature its QoS-1000 3.0 RF layer monitoring receiver, a Quality-of-Service tool for transmitter RF signals. The small 1RU chassis and web-based GUI provides near real-time metrics and ATSC 3.0 capability is available via simple upgrade.
ROHDE & SCHWARZ will highlight its ETC compact TV analyzer, which offers a set of measurement functions for digital TV transmitter testing.
