Practical, affordable, creative and reliable solutions to branding, trailers and playout from the industry leaders in broadcast graphics
Pixel Power, the innovative supplier of broadcast playout solutions with integrated graphics, is to showcase its playout and automated promo creation tools at BroadcastAsia (17 – 20 June, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, stand 5D1-05). The presentation will include the game-changing Pixel OnDemand and Pixel Factory graphics production systems, and the latest additions to the ChannelMaster branding and playout technology.
What makes Pixel OnDemand and Pixel Factory unique is that Pixel Power has taken its unrivalled graphics technology and bundled it with intelligence such that it can automatically generate graphics sequences – such as promos and trailers – based solely on templates and a make list in an Excel spreadsheet.
Pixel Power goes further by offering the same functionality in two business models. In Pixel Factory you buy the hardware and software – the capex solution – and in Pixel OnDemand the software is licensed to you, based on hours of finished content. This shifts the business case to opex, which will be attractive to many financial directors.
“It became very clear that some broadcasters and channel owners want to move to opex, while others are content to stay with traditional business models, so we simply offer both,” said James Gilbert, CEO of Pixel Power. “The technology, creativity and functionality are identical, and so too is the remarkable cost-effectiveness. We see Pixel OnDemand and Pixel Factory in busy channels which need to create huge numbers of cross promotional elements to retain and grow audiences, and their low cost and high productivity means that we really are delivering 30 second promo versions at a cost of US$1. That absolutely transforms the economics of broadcast television, allowing channels to focus on creativity.”
Also being shown in the Asia-Pacific region for the first time is the latest version of Pixel Power’s ChannelMaster, the powerful playout and branding system. ChannelMaster Duo delivers two independent channels simultaneously from a single system. ChannelMaster includes Sony XAVC which supports MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video compression providing broadcasters with an upgrade path to higher efficiency compression.
“It retains all the capabilities of our standard ChannelMaster system, including two server ports for A/B mixing and of course the sophisticated graphics engine for uncompromised branding,” Gilbert said. “But it does it at effectively half the per-channel capital cost. The two channels share a 4TB local cache so there is no restriction on the amount of content that can be played, or network bottlenecks to transfer material.”
Pixel OnDemand and Pixel Factory are software products which run on standard IT servers. In a file-based environment they communicate with an asset management or playout system to collect the content they need, automatically generate and render all the versions of all the trailers required, and feed the outputs into the playlist ready for broadcast.
The ChannelMaster family of playout systems are built on the Pixel Power Clarity graphics engine. They support mixed format playback with realtime up and down conversion for HD and SD content. ChannelMaster Duo is also upgradeable to other ChannelMaster configurations such as ChannelMaster Clips or 3D - offering customers the flexibility to address changing needs over time.
Pixel Power can be found at BroadcastAsia 2014 on stand 5D1-05. More information on these and other Pixel Power products can be found online at www.pixelpower.com.
